Fighting Organized Retail Crime

Organized retail crime (ORC) has been a major problem for retailers for decades.  The FBI estimates that ORC causes retailers to lose 30 billion dollars every year. A booster is a thief who steals at the store level and usually has a specific list of items to steal. Popular items are razor blades, baby formula, DVDs, Tide detergent, health and beauty items and many other products. Once the booster has stolen the merchandise, it is taken “up the chain” to the crime ring leader. These crime rings will move from city to city and are usually well organized. This merchandise is resold at flea markets, gas stations, on Facebook and many other ways. While this may sound grim, there is a way to stop prevent shoplifting and protect your merchandise.

Alpha spider wraps come in different sizes and are a great way to help prevent shoplifting. They can go on just about any merchandise and can be tightened to ensure a secure fit that keeps them from being taken off without a key. They are very difficult to remove and have an alarm that will go off if they are taken through the entrance or exit of a store. 

I put Alpha spider wraps to the test when I had several of my stores that were being targeted by boosters. DVDs, razor blades and electric toothbrushes were disappearing at an alarming frequency. We suspected it was the work of the same ORC group because similar items were stolen from 3 stores in the area. After coming in one morning for work and finding that all of the electric toothbrushes and many of the razors had been taken the night before, I immediately ordered small, medium and large Alpha spider wraps.  I also started reviewing and documenting the thefts from the CCTV cameras and making copies to turn over to law enforcement. I was able to get a good picture of the three individuals involved in the thefts and showed the pictures to all of my store managers. 

Several days later, my order of Alpha Spider Wraps arrived and I started putting them on my merchandise. I called a meeting for all of store management and explained the problem about the boosters in the area. I showed them how to remove the wraps at checkout and how they would alarm at the door if not removed at a check stand.  According to the CCTV footage, the boosters were coming in first thing in the morning between 6 and 7 am, before most of the store’s employees arrived for their shifts. I decided to come each day around 5 am and wait. On my third morning, I hit the jackpot. The boosters arrived with their backpacks and walked right over to the electric toothbrushes.  I immediately called the police and notified the store manager who, thankfully, had just arrived. One of the boosters started using a pocketknife to try and remove the wraps but was unable to cut through the steel cable. They went over to different aisles looking for the items on their list to steal but were dismayed to find the merchandise protected with spider wraps or Alpha keepers. Thankfully, they were in the store long enough for the police to arrive and were arrested after being identified as the thieves from earlier CCTV recordings.  

 One of the best ways to prevent shoplifting is to protect your merchandise.  Thieves are less likely to steal things that are harder to gain access to and will move on to easier targets.  Whatever the merchandise is in your store, there is a way to protect it. 

For more information contact us or call 1.770.426.0547

Prevent Cart Staging And Theft With Checkpoint Hard Tags

Cart staging also known as staging a cart is a common yet crafty way for a thief to steal from you. If you provide your customers shopping carts then this is for you. Cart staging (just one common phrase) is when a thief creates a barrier in the shopping cart in order to make it easier to steal items from you without detection. This can now be prevented and leave shoplifters very discouraged with Checkpoint Hard Tags.

Working in a big box store for many years I would come across these carts frequently. But this is not just a problem for big box stores. If you provide shopping carts to your customers, shoplifters will use these carts to assist them in taking your merchandise. This is done by the shoplifter blocking out all sides of the cart usually with clothes draped over the sides to prevent anyone from seeing through all sides of the cart. This creates a very large area for the thief to place items inside the cart, now concealed from all sides. While it may look like they are just placing merchandise inside the cart they are actually ripping tags or trying to disable security tags. With the Checkpoint Hard Tags, this stops thieves in their tracks.

While working in a big box store shoplifters would create these carts while walking around the store. The problem was the store used inferior security tags on their merchandise. With social media now it’s like a tutorial for shoplifters on how to disable these tags. This made my job much harder as the only way to stop these thieves was to catch them in the act. This created a problem as there was always more customers than there was of me or any of my colleagues. Plus I don’t work 7 days a week and many times the store had no loss prevention. This is when the store really needs to depend on the security systems we had in place. With inferior security tags used on the merchandise, unless I caught them in the act we were losing many items with only a shopping cart left with several broken tags inside.

Staging carts or any other type of shoplifting is a crime of opportunity. Thieves don’t want to attract a bunch of attention or spend much time trying to defeat your security tags. Many of these devices used in retailers are frankly inferior. The Checkpoint Hard Tags have undergone extensive testing. They’ve taken hammers to them and even taken tools to try and pry them open to no avail. The fact is, the time and the amount of tools it would take to defeat the Checkpoint Hard Tags is not worth their time. Remember, shoplifting is a crime of opportunity. If a shoplifter has to bring multiple tools and then spend a lot of time and effort to defeat the security device they will simply move on. 

While staging carts and other types of deception used by shoplifters will still occur, we can now prevent and discourage shoplifters in your store. Pay attention to a shopper that has concealed their cart. Become a customer service expert! Give them all the attention they could have ever hoped for. But in the end by using Checkpoint Tags on your merchandise, you can at least rest easy knowing that those tags will still be in place with your merchandise still in the store. You may have to put all that merchandise in the cart back on the racks at the end of the day, but at least it will remain in your store!

For more information on Checkpoint Hard Tags contact us at 1-770-426-0547

Invest in The Tools, But Use Them Correctly

Owners and managers of small businesses, especially those in retail stores, must have an Anti-Shoplifting plan.  That includes customer service, awareness, inventory controls, and even product protection tools.  There are many types of these tools your business can invest in.  One particular key player in this set of tools is the Checkpoint System.  The antennas monitor the foot traffic coming in and out of your doors.  They can maintain a customer count for you that is not based solely on sales so you know the actual number of people that entered your store.  There are also merchandise tags that work with the antennas.  When those tags are placed on the items, they are considered active.  When those items are brought to the register for purchase, the tags are deactivated at the counter.  If there is an attempt to remove merchandise from the store that still has active tags attached, the alarm will sound.

There are other types of tags sold by Checkpoint.  Our store utilizes one that can be very useful.  It is a small round clear label that has our logo, company name, and location printed on it.  This label has two Anti-Shoplifting benefits.  First of all, for the everyday petty thief, this tag is a deterrent because they are obviously placed on the front or top of the package.  These tags are not meant to be hidden.  The other benefit is that if you have an encounter with a professional shoplifting group wiping out your shelves, these labels give the authorities a better chance of determining exactly where the stolen merchandise came from and give your business a better chance of a recovery.  

Two important things you must do with any tools you buy to protect your inventory is keep track of them, and use them consistently.  Test your antennas on a regular basis, and make sure they are working properly.  Don’t place your rolls of tags near the deactivation pads at the checkout, or they will be rendered useless.  And pay attention to the items you have tagged.  

The following is an example of “what not to do”.  Please control your inevitable laughter at my expense.  A couple years ago, I was called to the front to assist a woman that had come in to refund a couple boxes of diet pills with no receipt.  They were expensive, so I questioned her about when and where she had purchased them.  She claimed she had bought them from one of our other locations about half an hour away about two weeks before.  I asked to see her license, and it indicated she lived in a completely different town from where we were and where she said she bought the pills.  I refused the return, and told her if she were to successfully refund them, she would need to take them back where she bought them.  She took the boxes of pills and exited the store.  A few minutes after she left, my cashier came up to me and said she knew the lady was lying anyway.  I asked her what gave her that feeling, and she said she saw the stickers on those boxes were ours.  

I never even saw them, right on the tops of the packages.  And, I am the very person that put the labels on them.  Reviewing the video revealed the cashier was absolutely correct.  The lady concealed them, walked out the door, and came back in to attempt the refund.  

I learned a valuable lesson and I have not made that simple, yet costly, mistake again.  Anti-Shoplifting tools can only do their job, not mine or yours.

For more information contact us: Antishoplifting.net or call 1.770.426.0547 

Bottle Locks Are the Answer to Your Liquor Shoplifting Concerns

Convenience stores and independent liquor stores have been looking at how to curb shoplifting of their liquor and wine products for ever as they are a choice target of young shoplifters as well as the organized retail criminal.  Let’s examine some of the potential things that we can do and consider how we can use innovative products to help us. One of these innovative products, bottle locks, has proven to send the would-be thief out the door and down the street WITHOUT YOUR PRODUCT.

Other alternatives for us are varied but are also varied in their potential success.  The number one deterrent, as in any shoplifting, is a trained and attentive staff.  If you have staff that is demonstrating strong customer service by approaching all customers and watching them as they shop in the interest of providing them better customer service, you are also making shoplifters feel very uncomfortable and likely to skip your store.

An alternative to innovation of course is keeping your liquors behind the counter so anyone wishing to purchase your liquors and wines has to ask for them.  This was the tactic used by many state run licensed liquor stations in the past.  The liquor would have to be ordered and the clerk would have to go to the back room to retrieve it.  A variation of this is having locked display cases and coolers that have to be opened by the clerk.

A third alternative it to use the innovative technology I mentioned previously:  the bottle lock by Alpha Security.  The bottle lock is a very inexpensive approach to liquor bottle security.  It utilizes a bottle lock that fits over the cap and requires a special key to unlock.  The bottle lock keeps the appearance of the bottle virtually the same while offer the security only Alpha Security can provide.  The clear cap allows bottle labels to be read without difficulty and the clamshell design aids in quick application and removal.  The internal hinges of the cap make it resistant to attempts by the shoplifter to defeat it and it can only be opened with the special magnetic key that is similar to other Alpha security products that have been protecting products for years.

Bottle locks that improve your liquor bottle security will deter the opportunistic shoplifter and underage adventurer as well as the organized retail criminal who is trying to get your merchandise for resale.  If you combine a trained and attentive staff with liquor bottle security you will make it very difficult for anyone to shoplift from your store and even less likely that they would even want to try to do so.  Deterrence, rather than apprehension is your best solution to shoplifting.  If you can keep the shoplifter from victimizing you, you keep your costs down immensely.  An alarms on the bottle locks will also give you the opportunity to stop pilferage occurring right in your store if that is a concern however.

If you ask your fellow retailers what they intend to do about the rising incidence of shoplifting, which has now taken over the number one spot ahead of internal theft as the number one cause of losses in retail store, they will likely tell you that they need to find a way to protect their merchandise while still keeping it available to the consumer to compare and select.  You now have the solution at your fingertips so tell them about Alpha Security and their bottle locks and help all of us keep the losses down so the prices also stay down.

For more information on bottle locks contact us: 1.770.426.0547 or www.bottlelock.net.

Stop Your Shrink from Spinning Out of Control – Prevent Shoplifting

Sometimes it can feel like no matter what measures you take to prevent shoplifting, the thieves just keep coming.  You can’t let that feeling stop you from keeping up with merchandise protection in your store.  There’s not much you can do to stop shoplifters from coming into your store.  You could try putting a sign outside that says “no shoplifters allowed”, but I would bet that the sign itself would get stolen within a week.  What you can do is everything possible to keep them from stealing once they are inside the store, which includes using retail anti-theft devices and providing great customer service.  

I remember a time I watched a guy walk into the store with a huge coat on, and head straight for the jewelry area.  It was very hot outside, so the jacket was a good indicator that something was going to happen.  No one that worked in the jewelry department was in the area at the time, which was a big mistake.  Keeping high theft areas staffed is crucial if you want to prevent shoplifting.  The guy started looking up at the ceiling and directly at the cameras, so I had a good idea of what was going to happen next.  

He started looking in the showcases and attempted to reach behind the counter to open the large glass showcases.  This attempt was unsuccessful, so he started to look at the spinning jewelry showcases or spinners that were on top of the counters.   I was about to learn that these spinners were not as secure as we thought they were.  He then squeezed his fingers into the side of the spinner’s door, and knocked jewelry off of the fixture that they were hanging on inside the spinner.  The spinner cases were locked, but there was just enough flexibility in the doors for this to be accomplished.  After that, the guy pulled the jewelry out of the showcase and put it right into his pockets.  

As if that wasn’t enough, he decided it was a good idea to go to other departments and take other merchandise as well.  At this point, his jacket had visibly grown even larger in size as he continued to conceal merchandise into it.  He finally decided to leave the store, and of course he ran when I tried to talk to him.  Thankfully, law enforcement was able to catch him down the street, and I recovered all of the merchandise.

Needless to say, after that experience we reinforced the jewelry spinner cases and added additional hinges, locks and blocked the open spaces. We also put an Alpha Jewel Lok on each of the more expensive pieces of jewelry that were inside the case. You may think that this was overkill, but it worked very well.  If thieves attempted to pull the jewelry through the spinner doors again, the Alpha Jewel Lok would stop it from happening, because it is too large to be pulled through a small opening.  If by chance they were able to remove the jewelry from the case, they would still have the extra measure of the retail anti-theft devices attached to the merchandise, so the alarm would go off at the door if they were brave enough to attempt to leave with the jewelry.

For more information contact us: Prevent Shoplifting or call 1.770.426.0547

Alpha Keepers Can Reduce Baby Formula Theft and Prevent Shoplifting

If you are wondering who steals baby formula, and how can stop it from happening in your store, it’s time to pay attention and save yourself some money. To prevent shoplifting of baby formula or any other merchandise, you have to take steps to protect the items.  This doesn’t always mean that you have to lock up or use some form of retail anti-theft device, but it is often the best option.  In addition to using your staff to deter theft by offering customer service to patrons in high theft areas of your store, Alpha Keepers are a great option when deciding to protect your merchandise, and yes, there are even have keepers that will protect infant formula.  Protecting merchandise is often a more cost-effective choice versus increasing staff in high theft areas, because the devices can be used over and over again.

So who is really stealing baby formula, and how can you stop it from happening? Although this would be incredibly interesting to see, your infant formula is probably not being stolen by an angry gang of hungry babies raiding your store. The truth is not that cute.  Though there is some baby formula theft associated with personal use, but a good portion of the thefts also come from organized retail crime theft rings targeting the merchandise.  Baby formula thefts are serious business. These thefts usually occur in large quantities of merchandise being taken at once, and the products are mostly resold for profit, or even used in the making of illegal drugs.  To stop this from happening to you, you have to do everything possible to protect infant formula in your store.

If you run a small business, chances are that you don’t have a lot of extra money sitting around for payroll.  That’s the beauty of using retail anti-theft devices to prevent shoplifting.  You don’t have to have an employee sit there and constantly watch the merchandise.  Save your payroll and invest in the merchandise protection devices instead. The sight of the Alpha Keepers on your merchandise will be enough to stop some shoplifters in their tracks.  For those that aren’t deterred by the keepers will have a long, tough road ahead of them trying to remove them from the items.  The keepers not only provide a protective housing for the merchandise that is very difficult to defeat, but they also alert you if someone passes through your existing EAS system with the protected items.  You don’t have to worry about creating an inconvenience for your customers either, because the devices are quick and easy to remove for your staff.  This is because they will be able to keep a special key on them or secured at a register, that easily removes the devices.

You should already be checking the dates on the formula regularly, so it shouldn’t take you long to notice if you have products missing from the shelf.  The problem is the same as almost any other theft, that if you are not prepared by the time you notice the baby formula is missing, it’s too late.  If you don’t already have a camera in the area, it’s a good idea to have one installed.  The camera alone will help prevent shoplifting, but you should continue using Alpha Keepers and other retail anti-theft devices in order to make the most impact.  This can also help you identify shoplifters that are taking the items, aid in prosecution, and prepare you for the next time they come into the store.  This isn’t just to protect infant formula, but several other high theft items as well.  The small initial investment will help you save money over time, and keep your stock available for your loyal customers.  

For more information contact us: prevent shoplifting or call 1.770.426.0547