Clothing Alarm-3 WC Blog 484
Clothing Security Tags-5
Getting Your Attention With A Clothing Alarm
I don’t know about you but I find alarms get my attention and a clothing alarm is meant to do the same thing. I think of my alarm clock waking me for work in the morning when I am in a deep sleep. That incessant beeping noise seems to come upon me suddenly and I am startled by the noise. I also get chewed out by my wife when I hit the snooze button and get up and shower and the alarm goes off again. My job is in a college library. When the alarm pedestal, at the doors, sound due to items that have not been properly checked out or are not supposed to leave the building I find my attention is immediately drawn to the location where the alarm activated. Then there is the fire alarm in our building that sounds occasionally due to a faulty sensor but we have to treat it as a real fire. That alarm is loud and certainly grabs my attention. There are also flashing ceiling lights that are meant to catch the attention of patrons and serve to alert any patrons who may be hard of hearing. All of these alarms do basically the same thing that clothing security tags do when they activate electronic article pedestals; they arouse the attention of anyone nearby.
I would be remiss if I did not spend time telling you what clothing security tags are and how they work. Clothing security tags may be soft tags that can be peeled from a roll of tags and applied to products or to hang tags. In some cases manufacturers may apply a tag to a piece of cardboard and conceal it in a product such as a purse or wallet. The other types of tags are made of a hard, heavy duty piece of plastic with a pin on one side and a clip that holds the tag in place. The tags are almost indestructible and require a special tool to remove them from a garment. Trying to take them off with any other means causes significant damage to clothing items. The removal tools are controlled by stores making them difficult to obtain by an individual who is not a retailer. Hard tags also have circuitry built into them that allows them to work with Checkpoint towers. It is the towers that will sound the alarm and flash the lights that gain the attention of employees (and the shoplifters!).
Is a clothing alarm really enough to deter shoplifters? It is. For one thing consider this, if it didn’t concern a thief whether an alarm was going to sound they wouldn’t go out of their way to try to force tags off of clothing so they could steal it. As a Loss Prevention Associate at a department store I watched as shoplifters attempted to take tags off of clothes. They would pull and twist but get flustered and abandon merchandise then often try to find something that was not tagged. I recall one young woman I caught for shoplifting but no clothing alarm had activated when she walked out of the doors. When I had her empty her purse of its contents there was a pair of jeans that were cut near the hip and waistband. I recognized that this was where clothing security tags would have been located. I asked if she knew the jeans couldn’t be worn. She acknowledged that she knew it but was too afraid to leave them. I reminded her that she would have been better off not having stolen at all and the removal of the tag had proven her intent. In most instances though the thief just gives up on the tagged products, stock shortage results prove it.
Clothing security tags can help reduce theft and improve profits for your store(s). Don’t be alarmed if you aren’t already using them, Loss Prevention Systems Inc. can help you get started. All it takes is a phone call.
Need information on clothing security tags? Give us a call at 1.770.426.0547 now.
I don’t know about you but I find alarms get my attention and a clothing alarm is meant to do the same thing. I think of my alarm clock waking me for work in the morning when I am in a deep sleep. That incessant beeping noise seems to come upon me suddenly and I am startled by the noise. I also get chewed out by my wife when I hit the snooze button and get up and shower and the alarm goes off again. My job is in a college library. When the alarm pedestal, at the doors, sound due to items that have not been properly checked out or are not supposed to leave the building I find my attention is immediately drawn to the location where the alarm activated. Then there is the fire alarm in our building that sounds occasionally due to a faulty sensor but we have to treat it as a real fire. That alarm is loud and certainly grabs my attention. There are also flashing ceiling lights that are meant to catch the attention of patrons and serve to alert any patrons who may be hard of hearing. All of these alarms do basically the same thing that clothing security tags do when they activate electronic article pedestals; they arouse the attention of anyone nearby.
I would be remiss if I did not spend time telling you what clothing security tags are and how they work. Clothing security tags may be soft tags that can be peeled from a roll of tags and applied to products or to hang tags. In some cases manufacturers may apply a tag to a piece of cardboard and conceal it in a product such as a purse or wallet. The other types of tags are made of a hard, heavy duty piece of plastic with a pin on one side and a clip that holds the tag in place. The tags are almost indestructible and require a special tool to remove them from a garment. Trying to take them off with any other means causes significant damage to clothing items. The removal tools are controlled by stores making them difficult to obtain by an individual who is not a retailer. Hard tags also have circuitry built into them that allows them to work with Checkpoint towers. It is the towers that will sound the alarm and flash the lights that gain the attention of employees (and the shoplifters!).
Is a clothing alarm really enough to deter shoplifters? It is. For one thing consider this, if it didn’t concern a thief whether an alarm was going to sound they wouldn’t go out of their way to try to force tags off of clothing so they could steal it. As a Loss Prevention Associate at a department store I watched as shoplifters attempted to take tags off of clothes. They would pull and twist but get flustered and abandon merchandise then often try to find something that was not tagged. I recall one young woman I caught for shoplifting but no clothing alarm had activated when she walked out of the doors. When I had her empty her purse of its contents there was a pair of jeans that were cut near the hip and waistband. I recognized that this was where clothing security tags would have been located. I asked if she knew the jeans couldn’t be worn. She acknowledged that she knew it but was too afraid to leave them. I reminded her that she would have been better off not having stolen at all and the removal of the tag had proven her intent. In most instances though the thief just gives up on the tagged products, stock shortage results prove it.
Clothing security tags can help reduce theft and improve profits for your store(s). Don’t be alarmed if you aren’t already using them, Loss Prevention Systems Inc. can help you get started. All it takes is a phone call.
Need information on clothing security tags? Give us a call at 1.770.426.0547 now.
