Prevent Shoplifting -3 WC Blog 567
Alpha Security – 5
Break Out Of The Showcase Mindset With Alpha Security Products
SO, you want to prevent shoplifting in your store and you are determined that a display case is the best solution to your problem. I would like to make a case that there is a better solution than locking up merchandise in a showcase. To demonstrate that showcases are not the fool-proof solutions you may think they are. Take a minute to review the following cases (no pun intended, although it is funny now that I think about it):
• From wbtw.com by Kendall McGee, Feb 19,2018 – “The police report says the suspects…used a pry bar from the hardware section of the store to open a display case containing Apple iPhones”. Estimated value of the phones, $3,776.
• From delawareonline.com, by Alonzo Small, March 31, 2017 – “…police are seeking the public’s help in identifying a shoplifter who stole more than $2,000 worth of cologne…(the thief) proceeded to remove assorted cologne after opening the display cases with an unknown type of tool.”
• Patch.com, by Lorraine Swanson, Aug 6, 2017 – In an article, “Shoplifter Swipes Over $43,000 Worth Of Gold Earrings From Sears: Prosecutor” the story reports, “…is accused of cutting a security alarm on a display case and walking out of the shopping mall with $43,708 worth of assorted gold earrings.”
Showcases are a poor remedy to a bigger problem. That problem is how to prevent shoplifting with leaner payroll budgets as traditional stores struggle to stay competitive with their traditional competitors and now online rivals. The better way to stop thieves is to use Alpha Security retail anti-theft devices on your merchandise.
Bill Bregar, CEO of Loss Prevention Systems Inc. (LPSI) has made it the objective of his company to help retailers battle criminal shoplifters. With years of Retail Loss Prevention experience up to and including the Director level for National retail chain stores, Bill knows the constraints placed on small business owners. Alpha Security products are recommended by LPSI because they are nearly impossible for shoplifters to defeat and work hand-in-hand with Checkpoint electronic article surveillance towers. Trying to carry Alpha Security tagged items past a Checkpoint tower activates an alarm that gets a response from trained store personnel. Unlike items in a showcase that gets broken into and a bag is stuffed full and carried out a door, a tagged item is not going to be tampered with and is going to set off that tower. A video of someone who broke into a showcase probably won’t get your merchandise back for your store there is usually too much time that has gone past. An electronic article surveillance system gives live results. Staff members respond as soon as that alarm sounds. Real time alarms result in real time recoveries.
There is another downside to store showcases. They prevent honest shoppers from being able to look at the products inside of them. If they do see something they are attracted to they can’t handle it and read information on the packaging say for example the iPhones. Your customer wants to look at something? They can wait until you get someone over to open the case and show it to them. Wait! That’s right, you put the display cases in to save payroll because you can’t afford to have someone nearby the area to show merchandise to people who may not want to buy your goods. Now you have to have a call button so the employees you do have in the store can try to get to the showcase before the customer leaves. By using Alpha Security anti-theft devices on merchandise you have the protection you are wanting from a showcase without the interruption to customer service. The more accessible merchandise is to the customer the more sales a store will have. Increased sales means increased payroll so you can better serve your customers.
When stores are stretched so thin on payroll that shoplifters have time to break into showcases to steal then showcases are no longer the answer to prevent shoplifting. Let LPSI help you reduce stock shortage and improve sales with Alpha Security products. You won’t be disappointed and neither will your customers.
For more information about Alpha Security contact us or call 1.770.426.0547.
SO, you want to prevent shoplifting in your store and you are determined that a display case is the best solution to your problem. I would like to make a case that there is a better solution than locking up merchandise in a showcase. To demonstrate that showcases are not the fool-proof solutions you may think they are. Take a minute to review the following cases (no pun intended, although it is funny now that I think about it):
• From wbtw.com by Kendall McGee, Feb 19,2018 – “The police report says the suspects…used a pry bar from the hardware section of the store to open a display case containing Apple iPhones”. Estimated value of the phones, $3,776.
• From delawareonline.com, by Alonzo Small, March 31, 2017 – “…police are seeking the public’s help in identifying a shoplifter who stole more than $2,000 worth of cologne…(the thief) proceeded to remove assorted cologne after opening the display cases with an unknown type of tool.”
• Patch.com, by Lorraine Swanson, Aug 6, 2017 – In an article, “Shoplifter Swipes Over $43,000 Worth Of Gold Earrings From Sears: Prosecutor” the story reports, “…is accused of cutting a security alarm on a display case and walking out of the shopping mall with $43,708 worth of assorted gold earrings.”
Showcases are a poor remedy to a bigger problem. That problem is how to prevent shoplifting with leaner payroll budgets as traditional stores struggle to stay competitive with their traditional competitors and now online rivals. The better way to stop thieves is to use EAS retail anti-theft devices on your merchandise.
Bill Bregar, CEO of Loss Prevention Systems Inc. (LPSI) has made it the objective of his company to help retailers battle criminal shoplifters. With years of Retail Loss Prevention experience up to and including the Director level for National retail chain stores, Bill knows the constraints placed on small business owners. EAS products are recommended by LPSI because they are nearly impossible for shoplifters to defeat and work hand-in-hand with electronic article surveillance (EAS) towers. Trying to carry EAS tagged items past a EAS tower activates an alarm that gets a response from trained store personnel. Unlike items in a showcase that gets broken into and a bag is stuffed full and carried out a door, a tagged item is not going to be tampered with and is going to set off that tower. A video of someone who broke into a showcase probably won’t get your merchandise back for your store there is usually too much time that has gone past. An electronic article surveillance system gives live results. Staff members respond as soon as that alarm sounds. Real time alarms result in real time recoveries.
There is another downside to store showcases. They prevent honest shoppers from being able to look at the products inside of them. If they do see something they are attracted to they can’t handle it and read information on the packaging say for example the iPhones. Your customer wants to look at something? They can wait until you get someone over to open the case and show it to them. Wait! That’s right, you put the display cases in to save payroll because you can’t afford to have someone nearby the area to show merchandise to people who may not want to buy your goods. Now you have to have a call button so the employees you do have in the store can try to get to the showcase before the customer leaves. By using EAS anti-theft devices on merchandise you have the protection you are wanting from a showcase without the interruption to customer service. The more accessible merchandise is to the customer the more sales a store will have. Increased sales means increased payroll so you can better serve your customers.
When stores are stretched so thin on payroll that shoplifters have time to break into showcases to steal then showcases are no longer the answer to prevent shoplifting. Let LPSI help you reduce stock shortage and improve sales with EAS products. You won’t be disappointed and neither will your customers.
For more information about how to prevent shoplifting, contact us or call 1.770.426.0547.
Employee theft- 4 WC blog 635
Manager Training To Stop Employee Theft-3
Don’t Be Surprised By Who May Be Guilty Of Employee Theft
If you are anything like me you hate theft and you especially abhor employee theft. For many of you small store owners you may not have more than three to five people working for you so employees stealing from you isn’t much of a concern, right? You might even be in a position where the only people working for your business are relatives and friends. They would never be a concern for you after all they are close to you. You may be surprised to learn that hiring friends and relatives may not be the best idea in the world after all. Not only can it lead to damaged relationships you could also find your business is not as secure from theft as you thought it was.
Below are some examples of stories that may grab your attention:
• From the eagletribune.com, Dec 27, 2017, by Breanna Bedlestein: “Plaistow woman accused of embezzling $400,000 from family business”
• bizjournals.com, June 27, 2018 by James Dornbrook: “Local woman gets 2 years for embezzling $466,000 from her family’s company”
• fredricksburg.com, Jun28, 2018, by Allison Brophy Champion: “Former Culpeper brewery partner pleads guilty in embezzlement case”
• hartfordbusiness.com, June 13, 2018, by Gregory Seay: “Former Middletown mayor arrested again on embezzlement charges”
In each of these cases a relative or friend who became a business partner was charged with or pled guilty to embezzlement from the business. Now if you are insistent on hiring family or friends to work for you it may not be comfortable to run employee background checks. Let’s face it, that isn’t going to be a pleasant discussion. That makes it even more critical that you go through manager training to stop employee theft.
In three of the cases listed above the embezzlement reached $400,000 or more before the accused party was caught. As a business owner you have to know the various methods employees (even family members) will use to steal from your company. Catching the theft only after this much has been taken could cause a business failure. Regardless of what the court orders for restitution chances are you will never recoup the full amount lost from the theft. It is also important to remember we have only looked at embezzlement cases. Employee theft may include merchandise, property, credit cards and outright cash theft. Manager training to stop employee theft will provide you with the information you need to know the ways employees steal and the indicators that will point to the activity.
The question becomes how do you get the training you need? Self-help videos won’t have sufficient information. Websites may offer it but then how do you know which ones are reliable? There are books on Loss Prevention but book reading and having a live trainer are not equivalent. The best source of training comes from people who have actual Retail Loss Prevention experience and have investigated numerous employee theft cases. There is no substitute for experience and that is why a company like Loss Prevention Systems Inc. (LPSI) is a logical choice to provide Manager training to stop employee theft. Having nearly 18 years of Retail Loss Prevention experience myself I know that the training programs offered by LPSI are effective. The instruction you will receive will prepare you with the information necessary to look at your store operations with a critical eye. Any attempts at theft will be easier to pick out and act on much earlier than it would for someone with no training. Losses become far less and may actually end up being realistically recoverable.
Employee theft can happen to any retailer from any quarter, even a relative or a friend. The trust a business owner places in a relative or friend can unfortunately be misplaced trust. Being trained on theft identification and prevention can be the difference between keeping a business open and being forced to close down. Find out how LPSI can meet all you training needs.
Need information on manager training to stop employee theft? Give us a call at 1.770.426.0547 now.
If you are anything like me you hate theft and you especially abhor employee theft. For many of you small store owners you may not have more than three to five people working for you so employees stealing from you isn’t much of a concern, right? You might even be in a position where the only people working for your business are relatives and friends. They would never be a concern for you after all they are close to you. You may be surprised to learn that hiring friends and relatives may not be the best idea in the world after all. Not only can it lead to damaged relationships you could also find your business is not as secure from theft as you thought it was.
Below are some examples of stories that may grab your attention:
• From the eagletribune.com, Dec 27, 2017, by Breanna Bedlestein: “Plaistow woman accused of embezzling $400,000 from family business”
• bizjournals.com, June 27, 2018 by James Dornbrook: “Local woman gets 2 years for embezzling $466,000 from her family’s company”
• fredricksburg.com, Jun28, 2018, by Allison Brophy Champion: “Former Culpeper brewery partner pleads guilty in embezzlement case”
• hartfordbusiness.com, June 13, 2018, by Gregory Seay: “Former Middletown mayor arrested again on embezzlement charges”
In each of these cases a relative or friend who became a business partner was charged with or pled guilty to embezzlement from the business. Now if you are insistent on hiring family or friends to work for you it may not be comfortable to run employee background checks. Let’s face it, that isn’t going to be a pleasant discussion. That makes it even more critical that you go through manager training to stop employee theft.
In three of the cases listed above the embezzlement reached $400,000 or more before the accused party was caught. As a business owner you have to know the various methods employees (even family members) will use to steal from your company. Catching the theft only after this much has been taken could cause a business failure. Regardless of what the court orders for restitution chances are you will never recoup the full amount lost from the theft. It is also important to remember we have only looked at embezzlement cases. Employee theft may include merchandise, property, credit cards and outright cash theft. Manager training to stop employee theft will provide you with the information you need to know the ways employees steal and the indicators that will point to the activity.
The question becomes how do you get the training you need? Self-help videos won’t have sufficient information. Websites may offer it but then how do you know which ones are reliable? There are books on Loss Prevention but book reading and having a live trainer are not equivalent. The best source of training comes from people who have actual Retail Loss Prevention experience and have investigated numerous employee theft cases. There is no substitute for experience and that is why a company like Loss Prevention Systems Inc. (LPSI) is a logical choice to provide Manager training to stop employee theft. Having nearly 18 years of Retail Loss Prevention experience myself I know that the training programs offered by LPSI are effective. The instruction you will receive will prepare you with the information necessary to look at your store operations with a critical eye. Any attempts at theft will be easier to pick out and act on much earlier than it would for someone with no training. Losses become far less and may actually end up being realistically recoverable.
Employee theft can happen to any retailer from any quarter, even a relative or a friend. The trust a business owner places in a relative or friend can unfortunately be misplaced trust. Being trained on theft identification and prevention can be the difference between keeping a business open and being forced to close down. Find out how LPSI can meet all you training needs.
Need information on manager training to stop employee theft? Give us a call at 1.770.426.0547 now.
Retail Theft Prevention -4 WC Blog 549
Checkpoint Security System -4
Safe Response To Checkpoint Security System Alarms
Along with retail theft prevention how important is the safety of your store? I’m not referring to accidents I am referring to safety from violent incidents. Not long ago there was an incident in the building where I work. An employee’s teenage child overheard a conversation among three people who were preparing to leave the building. There was a comment that they were going to “get” someone. The employee’s daughter reported the conversation and the staff contacted the police who stopped the group in the parking lot. I heard that two of our staff members decided to leave the building to “see if they could see where the group went”. I learned that the two employees went out through different exits. Had one of these employees walked upon the group there is no telling whether an encounter might have escalated. Two people are always better than one since there is strength in numbers. If they felt it was important to leave the building to protect someone, or to see where the group was heading they should have left together. In retail Loss Prevention when we stopped a suspected shoplifter we tried to have a witness with us. It is even good practice to have a witness when responding to a Checkpoint Security System alarm (when possible). When two or more people are working together it makes it easier to address someone who may be upset or trying to steal.
It is important to know how a Checkpoint Security System works in order to understand why it is good practice to have two people respond to an alarm. The Checkpoint system is a retail theft prevention system composed of electronic article surveillance (EAS) tags attached to merchandise, detachment devices and towers located near entrance/exit doors. EAS tags can be attached to a variety of product lines since they come in adhesive label form or hard tag designs. Detuning pads and detachment devices are kept at the store registers to remove or “turn off” tags AFTER a piece of merchandise is scanned at the register. The towers are big receivers that can sense when a Checkpoint tag is in its field of detection. The vast majority of alarms take place when a shoplifter is trying to sneak merchandise out of the store. A trained employee responds to alarms and conducts a check of the receipt to determine what caused the alarm. It is the possible responses of the “customer” that can make it better to have a second person respond to an alarm.
When a customer causes an EAS alarm there are several reactions I have encountered over my 27+ years in retail. The first reaction is surprise for the alarm. This customer may have merchandise in their shopping cart that was overlooked by the cashier. They may have merchandise from another store that uses similar retail theft protection devices and merchandise was not deactivated there. A good employee can take care of these customers easily and get them on their way. Another reaction is the shocked patron who gets irritated at the inconvenience of the alarm. It makes no difference if it was their fault for overlooking an item or they have merchandise from another business this customer is going to have an attitude. The employee who responds to this customer must be tactful and ready to apologize for the inconvenience of the alarm especially if it is determined it was a cashier’s error. Having a second person nearby as a witness is good in these situations. I have encountered customers who decided to use it to cause a scene despite my apology and attempt to “correct” the error. Your witness in this case can validate that every effort was made not to embarrass or inconvenience the patron. Finally there is the real shoplifter trying to steal merchandise by getting it past the Checkpoint Security System. They don’t want to be in the store too long and they still want to get the merchandise out. If one person responds the shoplifter may attempt to intimidate and threaten violence if they aren’t allowed to leave. When two employees are present the shoplifter may be loud but they tend to be less threatening. By the way, if you aren’t sure how to handle these situations or want help on retail theft prevention Loss Prevention Systems Inc. offers several training classes that you will find helpful.
It is unfortunate but today in retail the threat of violence is something every store owner has to be concerned with. Being aware of how to de-escalate situations and having a witness to customer/employee interactions is always a good idea when possible. Prevent shortage with a Checkpoint Security System and get training from Loss Prevention Systems Inc. on how to stop shoplifting and properly respond to system alarms.
Get more information on retail theft prevention, contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 today.
Along with retail theft prevention how important is the safety of your store? I’m not referring to accidents I am referring to safety from violent incidents. Not long ago there was an incident in the building where I work. An employee’s teenage child overheard a conversation among three people who were preparing to leave the building. There was a comment that they were going to “get” someone. The employee’s daughter reported the conversation and the staff contacted the police who stopped the group in the parking lot. I heard that two of our staff members decided to leave the building to “see if they could see where the group went”. I learned that the two employees went out through different exits. Had one of these employees walked upon the group there is no telling whether an encounter might have escalated. Two people are always better than one since there is strength in numbers. If they felt it was important to leave the building to protect someone, or to see where the group was heading they should have left together. In retail Loss Prevention when we stopped a suspected shoplifter we tried to have a witness with us. It is even good practice to have a witness when responding to an electronic article surveillance (EAS) security system alarm (when possible). When two or more people are working together it makes it easier to address someone who may be upset or trying to steal.
It is important to know how an EAS security system works in order to understand why it is good practice to have two people respond to an alarm. The EAS system is a retail theft prevention system composed of electronic article surveillance tags attached to merchandise, detachment devices and towers located near entrance/exit doors. EAS tags can be attached to a variety of product lines since they come in adhesive label form or hard tag designs. Detuning pads and detachment devices are kept at the store registers to remove or “turn off” tags AFTER a piece of merchandise is scanned at the register. The towers are big receivers that can sense when a EAS tag is in its field of detection. The vast majority of alarms take place when a shoplifter is trying to sneak merchandise out of the store. A trained employee responds to alarms and conducts a check of the receipt to determine what caused the alarm. It is the possible responses of the “customer” that can make it better to have a second person respond to an alarm.
When a customer causes an EAS alarm there are several reactions I have encountered over my 27+ years in retail. The first reaction is surprise for the alarm. This customer may have merchandise in their shopping cart that was overlooked by the cashier. They may have merchandise from another store that uses similar retail theft protection devices and merchandise was not deactivated there. A good employee can take care of these customers easily and get them on their way. Another reaction is the shocked patron who gets irritated at the inconvenience of the alarm. It makes no difference if it was their fault for overlooking an item or they have merchandise from another business this customer is going to have an attitude. The employee who responds to this customer must be tactful and ready to apologize for the inconvenience of the alarm especially if it is determined it was a cashier’s error. Having a second person nearby as a witness is good in these situations. I have encountered customers who decided to use it to cause a scene despite my apology and attempt to “correct” the error. Your witness in this case can validate that every effort was made not to embarrass or inconvenience the patron. Finally there is the real shoplifter trying to steal merchandise by getting it past the EAS security system. They don’t want to be in the store too long and they still want to get the merchandise out. If one person responds the shoplifter may attempt to intimidate and threaten violence if they aren’t allowed to leave. When two employees are present the shoplifter may be loud but they tend to be less threatening. By the way, if you aren’t sure how to handle these situations or want help on retail theft prevention Loss Prevention Systems Inc. offers several training classes that you will find helpful.
It is unfortunate but today in retail the threat of violence is something every store owner has to be concerned with. Being aware of how to de-escalate situations and having a witness to customer/employee interactions is always a good idea when possible. Prevent shortage with a EAS security system and get training from Loss Prevention Systems Inc. on how to stop shoplifting and properly respond to system alarms.
Get more information on retail theft prevention, contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 today.
