How do we provide clothing security in an effective, cost conscious manner? It is not enough to train your employees and put Sensormatic tags on your merchandise, if it is more expensive in labor and hardware than the losses themselves. Here are the things you should consider before you do anything.
First, what is the real cost to your losses. If you lose a $100 item you have only lost $100, right? No you have actually lost much more. Here is the way you calculate that. Take the item at retail cost, in this case $100 and divide it by your profit margin. To keep it simple I will use the average, overall profit margin which is 2%. So, $100 divided by 0.02 = $5000. Yes that is FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS for a $100 item stolen. Because you will have to sell an ADDITIONAL $5k to break even on that $100 loss. AND that is not to make money it is only to break even. If you lose $100 every other day, well, you do the math. This is not just someone else’s problem it is your world also!
Next, how do we make clothing security cost effective? A clothing alarm such as a Sensormatic system can be expensive, however, if that is what your impression is then it is time to take a real look into the world of Sensormatic. There are very cost friendly systems available. But, more importantly you must have a reliable system that will cause you few problems. Sensormatic systems are a commercial grade and are meant to stand up to the rigors of challenging retail environments. Sensormatic systems’ Acousto Magnetic (AM) technology is over 50 years old. It is in most of the top retailers in the world. AM systems operate 24/7 with very few of the false alarms that other systems have. That is key because if you and your staff experience false alarms on a regular basis, then you will eventually have less trust in the system.
With clothing security we also have to consider what merchandise we need to protect. Many of our customers tell us they “want to protect everything”. Although, in some cases that is necessary, however, in most cases it is not realistic or needed. We need to take the emotion out of this equation. The Sensormatic tags are pretty inexpensive but the labor to put clothing security tags on every piece of merchandise could be costly in labor.
What you should consider is putting clothing security tags on approximately 20% of your merchandise that is causing approximately 80% of your losses. Clothing security tags on this amount of goods will tend to send the shoplifters down the street. Some determined shoplifters will look at stealing other items in your store. You will then identify those items and place Sensormatic tags on them also. At this point, if you maintain your tagging program most of your losses will go away.
You and your staff will need to be trained in how to respond to clothing alarms however, we take care of that for you. Our approach to clothing alarms is customer service based. This solves a number of problems including customer errors such as Sensormatic tags or labels from another retailer on merchandise they bring into your store causing an alarm. And errors on the part of your store’ staff. This could include failing to remove Sensormatic tags at checkout and Sensormatic tags on merchandise placed too close to the system at your doors.
Loss Prevention Systems will not just train you how to respond to a clothing alarm but how to identify and discourage a potential shoplifter while providing great customer service to your good customers.
For more information on Sensormatic systems, Sensormatic tags, clothing alarms and clothing security contact us today or call toll free 1-770-426-0547. Together we can solve your shoplifting problems once and for all.
Speak Your Mind
You must be logged in to post a comment.