If shoplifting is the second largest area of retail loss, how do you fight it?
Training!!!. If you are not teaching your associates how to prevent shoplifting to begin with you will never, ever succeed as a retailer. The key is the way they are trained. The main focus should not be on catching the shoplifter.
Even though this is important, prevention is much more profitable and will lower retail loss.
Prevention training involves the actual approach to a suspected shoplifter. It is simple, can be entertaining as you drive the shoplifter insane and send them down the road to someone else who is doing nothing but watching their revenue walk out the door. The approach is different for each situation. Every employee that works the sales floor should be trained in this method. This should also be made a job duty. If you do this you will decrease your shoplifting losses. You do not need to have specialized employee, be a loss prevention or security expert to approach a suspected shoplifter.
Don’t be the store down the road that is watching their revenue walk out the door.
•A well-lighted area deters shoplifters. Retailers must maintain adequate lighting. A Shoplifter tends to gravitate towards less traveled, darker more concealed areas like hidden areas and corners to conceal the merchandise they are stealing.
•Limit your customer exits and entrances. Loss prevention security begins at the door. It also requires to many employees to watch multiple exits. Large retailers know this and genneraly have only one entrance and exit. Close off or make any unused door an emergency exit with the approiate hardware.
•Keep displays and shelving low so they can be seen over by an employee. A major part of retail loss prevention is insuring that you are training and empowering your employees to be your eyes and ears in loss prevention. Make sure they can see every where possible in the course of their normal duties. Teach them how to approach any suspicious customers.
You must have a procedure for loss prevention security measures that should be followed if there is an emergency or the power goes off:
•An employee must be stationed at the front door.
•Do you have flashlights ready for this purpose? Do you test them monthly?
•Is there a procedure for ringing up sales without the POS? The power is out. Do your cashiers know how to use a calculator? Is there a battery operated calculator kept at each POS? Do cashiers know how to calculate tax? Do cashiers know what your stores tax rate is?
Retail loss prevention security forces your losses down and profits up.
Need more information? retail loss prevention or call 1.770.426.0547
It’s not hard to figure out if you keep some anti shoplifting basics in mind:
· Early in the morning, just after opening because what are you focused on? Opening the store, getting the cash into the drawer, dealing with problems from the day before and most important that first cup of coffee.
· On busy days because shoplifters like to blend into a crowd. They do not want to stand out. They will dress and act like your average customer.
· When a sales floor is unattended. What else can you say to this except “duh” do not leave the sales floor unattended. Any anti shoplifting methods stop with out employees.
· At closing time. Like at opening we are focused on wrapping up the day, counting the drawers, straightening up for tomorrow, securing the store and of course going home.
In other words shoplifters steal anytime WE give them the opportunity. Any anti shoplifting program will not work without a little planning and common sense.
Trying to prevent shoplifting is a difficult task if you do not know who the shoplifter is. The best way to prevent a shoplifter from succeeding in you store is to start with knowing the three types of shoplifters:
Impulse Shoplifters – This type of shoplifter steals because you provide them with opportunity. Most want the merchandise for personal use
Amateur Shoplifters – Steal consistently and enter your store with the intent to steal. Amateur shoplifters generally keep the merchandise they steal. However, they may steal for friends or others and give or sell them the merchandise.
Professional Shoplifters – These thieves steal to sell the merchandise. This is their job. This type of shoplifter is usually skilled and quick.
Prevent shoplifting by using anti-shoplifting techniques and equipment. These methods will shut down all levels of shoplifters.
Shoplifters use deception to confuse employees. This could be a diversion such as a Shoplifters partner creating a disturbance in another part of the store, pulling employees away from the merchandise to be stolen.
I have seen situations as simple as a screaming child to faked slip and falls to fake “customer complaints” that get loud. To prevent shoplifting you must train to deal with these situations. If an incident occurs only a limited amount of employees should respond. Others should actually stay away from the incident and turn their attention towards the balance of the store and customers.
Another way to prevent shoplifting of this type is to use your public address system. Make a “ghost call” such as “security to sections 3 and 12”. This will throw the shoplifters off since the shoplifters do not know where these “sections” are and you have announced two that sound like they are far apart. At that point your legitimate customers could be Security personnel as far as the Shoplifter would know.
So you have a store that is too profitable, and you want to increase your losses, what do you do?
One of the easiest ways to lose merchandise and profits is to invite shoplifters into your store.
Shoplifters come into stores where it is easy to steal. You can get a reputation as a store that is easy to steal from by totally disregarding every customer who enters! When he or she walks in, don’t even look up from what you are doing to acknowledge or greet the customer in any way. That way, the potential shoplifter will feel more at ease.
Next, as the shoplifter appears to be browsing, continue to ignore him or her and keep doing your stock work or paperwork, or even go back in the stockroom out of sight. This will give the shoplifter ample time to select and conceal merchandise without fear of being detected.
Arrange your displays so that there are lots of areas to hide behind and are out of the line of sight of the sales counter.And finally, place all your small and most expensive merchandise far away from the counter. Near the exit door is best.
By following these simple guidelines, you can help increase your store’s losses and reduce profit.
And by ignoring all customers, even the legitimate ones will want to stay away and shop somewhere else.
But if you’d rather avoid shoplifters, please and satisfy your customers, simply pay attention to each customer that enters your store, make everyone feel welcome, and provide genuinely great customer service to everyone.
