WRAPPED UP WITH SPIDER WRAPS
What a rough few weeks this has been…. I really love when I get to come out of my office and get to work out on the floor. Usually, I’m stuck behind a desk and computer while my teams get to have all the fun. I’m very lucky to work with such a motivated team. It is truly amazing just how many shoplifters we catch each and every week. I am also thankful for the almighty Alpha Spider Wrap. If not for these tools, I may lose thousands this year.
Of course, if you weren’t living under a rock, you’d know that this season’s hottest new tech gadgets were those so called hoverboards. While they don’t really fly, they sure as heck flew off our shelves! With a price point of nearly $500, I was truly surprised at how well these items sold for us. On the other side of the spectrum, we had a duo try to make off with several of them. It’s a good thing we knew a thing or two about how to prevent shoplifting.
I came in one morning and noticed that our display was missing 4 hover boards. Awesome, I thought. That’s $2k in sales! Woohoo!! So I make it to my desk and start running my daily reports and I notice that I didn’t see a sale for those items the day before. Not good… Not good at all. A bit of camera research and a pot of coffee later, I found our culprits. Male and female waltz into the store, place 4 hover boards in a shopping cart and stroll out of the front door. No one batted an eye. I was beyond mad. I pay two people to verify receipts at the door; their primary job is to prevent shoplifting by being a physical presence. You obviously can’t do that if you’re too busy playing on your phone.
I sent out an area bolo with pictures of the suspects and made a felony theft report with my local police department. By that afternoon, several stores had contacted me as they also had been victimized by this pair. Altogether, they hit 5 stores, stealing 4 per store in a single day. That’s $10,000 in one day. ONE DAY! Time for some serious soul searching. Time, my friends, to use some spider wraps.
Within an hour or so, I had all the stores in the district use some left over spider wraps to protect these products. Hindsight is 2020 I suppose…. I then began running down any and all leads I could develop. I had to catch them before they started selling the product and I would be out that money for good. Looking at the stores they targeted, I noticed a distinct pattern that they stuck to. If I were to surmise, based on that pattern, I knew exactly where they were headed to next. I jumped in the car and high-tailed it across town. I knew that all the EAS devices in the world wouldn’t prevent shoplifting; I would have to physically stop these two; with a little help.
I was right on the money. About two hours after I arrived at the store, the lovely couple arrived. They quickly found the hover board display and began loading them up, as they did the previous day. The female noticed the spider wraps, but it wasn’t going to stop them. 4 more in the buggy and out the door they went. I was ready though…
Once outside the store, they figured they were home free; with no idea that I, along with several police officers were watching; waiting for them to get to their vehicle. They quickly loaded the hover boards into the back seat and jumped in. They went nowhere. Before they could blink an eye, they were surrounded by law enforcement. Once detained, officers opened the trunk and found every hover board that had been stolen. I was lucky enough to recover my product and send these two up the river for a few weeks.
For more information about Alpha Spider Wraps, contact us or call 1.770.426.0547
What a rough few weeks this has been. I really love when I get to come out of my office and get to work out on the floor. Usually, I’m stuck behind a desk and computer while my teams get to have all the fun. I’m very lucky to work with such a motivated team. It is truly amazing just how many shoplifters we catch each and every week. I am also thankful for the almighty Alpha Spider Wrap. If not for these tools, I may lose thousands this year.
Of course, if you weren’t living under a rock, you’d know that this season’s hottest new tech gadgets were those so called hoverboards. While they don’t really fly, they sure as heck flew off our shelves! With a price point of nearly $500, I was truly surprised at how well these items sold for us. On the other side of the spectrum, we had a duo try to make off with several of them. It’s a good thing we knew a thing or two about how to prevent shoplifting.
I came in one morning and noticed that our display was missing 4 hover boards. Awesome, I thought. That’s $2k in sales! Woohoo!! So I make it to my desk and start running my daily reports and I notice that I didn’t see a sale for those items the day before. Not good… Not good at all. A bit of camera research and a pot of coffee later, I found our culprits. Male and female waltz into the store, place 4 hover boards in a shopping cart and stroll out of the front door. No one batted an eye. I was beyond mad. I pay two people to verify receipts at the door; their primary job is to prevent shoplifting by being a physical presence. You obviously can’t do that if you’re too busy playing on your phone.
I sent out an area bolo with pictures of the suspects and made a felony theft report with my local police department. By that afternoon, several stores had contacted me as they also had been victimized by this pair. Altogether, they hit 5 stores, stealing 4 per store in a single day. That’s $10,000 in one day. ONE DAY! Time for some serious soul searching. Time, my friends, to use some spider wraps.
Within an hour or so, I had all the stores in the district use some left over spider wraps to protect these products. Hindsight is 2020 I suppose…. I then began running down any and all leads I could develop. I had to catch them before they started selling the product and I would be out that money for good. Looking at the stores they targeted, I noticed a distinct pattern that they stuck to. If I were to surmise, based on that pattern, I knew exactly where they were headed to next. I jumped in the car and high-tailed it across town. I knew that all the EAS devices in the world wouldn’t prevent shoplifting; I would have to physically stop these two; with a little help.
I was right on the money. About two hours after I arrived at the store, the lovely couple arrived. They quickly found the hover board display and began loading them up, as they did the previous day. The female noticed the spider wraps, but it wasn’t going to stop them. 4 more in the buggy and out the door they went. I was ready though…
Once outside the store, they figured they were home free; with no idea that I, along with several police officers were watching; waiting for them to get to their vehicle. They quickly loaded the hover boards into the back seat and jumped in. They went nowhere. Before they could blink an eye, they were surrounded by law enforcement. Once detained, officers opened the trunk and found every hover board that had been stolen. I was lucky enough to recover my product and send these two up the river for a few weeks.
For more information about Alpha Spider Wraps, contact us or call 1.770.426.0547
