Fighting a battle against clothing thieves can be difficult, merchandise may be hidden in purses or bags or it may go into a fitting room and worn out of the store. How many times do you find stray price tags, hang tags, etc. lying on the floor of your fitting room. Add to the effort to prevent shoplifting, the fight against return fraud and a clothing retailer can feel like they are fighting a lost cause. Now, what if you could fight both battles with ONE solution? The Alpha ink tag could be the weapon you need in your arsenal to fight theft AND fraud.
The Alpha ink tag is designed for items such as denims, jackets and sportswear, but you may find they can be used for a wide variety of clothing lines. The tags are alarmed so attempts to leave the store with the merchandise will activate EAS antennas. The built in ink capsules ensure that if someone attempts to force the tag off the ink will spill onto the merchandise and ruin it, making it useless for return fraud.
In the first department store I worked at we had a major problem with ball cap theft and we needed to take steps to prevent shoplifting in that department. Baseball hats were a prestige item and one issue we encountered with traditional EAS soft tagging on the hang tags was that teenagers were leaving tags on even if the hats were purchased. We could not risk stopping someone leaving the store with a hat on just because tags were hanging off. If the EAS alarm sounded, that seemed to make the wearer even happier. When we implemented an ink tag program we saw an immediate reduction in the theft of ball caps which ran around $20 each at the time. The ink tags were apparently NOT cool to have on a hat and much of the theft stopped.
In that same store we also saw a lot of clothing return fraud. We did not ink tag everything, since ink tags were a new item and we wanted to see the impact, but we did tag a number of higher priced jackets and denim items. I clearly remember “customers” attempting to return clothing items with spots of dye on them. It was apparent they had tampered with the ink and tried to protect the garment and their efforts had failed. Excuses ranged from, “I don’t know how that got on there” to “They forgot to take the tag off when I bought it so I tried to take it off myself.” The return would be denied and the “customer” left with a useless piece of clothing.
The tags we were using in my first store were a first generation product and designed only to deter theft and prevent fraudulent returns, they were not capable of working with an EAS alarm. The Alpha ink tags are a superior device because they provide visual deterrence, being large enough to stand out when placed in a conspicuous location on a garment. They will sound the EAS alarm if someone attempts to walk out of the store without having the device removed from the clothing at the point of sale. Of course if someone were to get the tagged clothing out of the store somehow, if they attempt to remove the tag they will, in all probability stain the clothing, rendering it useless for wear OR return.
Whether your store specializes in selling sporting goods clothing or you sell blue jeans, you can benefit from Alpha ink tags. You may find that you can prevent shoplifting and fraud with one easy solution. Reap the rewards of investing in ink tags.
For more information on Alpha Ink Tags contact us or call 1.770.426.0547
