Can Bottle Locks Help Curb Thefts of Goods in Transit?

If you own or manage a store that sells wine or liquor, you should already know that the best way to ensure bottle security is to use bottle locks. But sometimes the theft occurs before the liquor even makes it to the store. Many trailers containing merchandise are now equipped with GPS to locate the stolen trailer, but you may be locating an empty trailer if the thieves work fast enough. Very recently, I read a news story about a trailer theft of liquor totaling $100,000. That is a huge loss for even for a large company. Knowing this, wouldn’t it be a good idea to protect the liquor bottles from the point of origin? That’s right, I’m talking about protecting merchandise against cargo theft, or the theft of goods in transit. The company buying the merchandise would likely be responsible for the cost of securing the merchandise, but who exactly would be responsible for actually placing the devices onto the products.

One way to do this is to have the bottle locks placed onto the bottles when they reach the distribution center, and that would help keep your merchandise safe until it reaches its final destination. But this wouldn’t protect the merchandise before it reached the distribution center.   In a perfect world, the best time to attach bottle locks to the merchandise is before they leave the manufacturer. This would ensure that the merchandise was immediately secured before being transported anywhere, by any means of transportation. Regardless of which point the bottle security devices are attached, the likelihood of them being stolen will decrease at that point. 

Think of it kind of like manufacturers that offer source tagging, only with bottle security. With source tagging, the security tag is already inside or attached to the merchandise packaging when it leaves the manufacturer.   This allows the items to be protected from the manufacturer to the store shelf. I would like to think that if thieves know that a trailer contains merchandise protected by security devices, and that it will take a huge amount effort to remove all of them, they would think twice about stealing the merchandise from the trailer or shipping container. One problem with this would be that the thieves probably won’t know what exactly is in the trailer until it is opened, unless the shipping container is branded or contains some kind of advertising on the outside.

If this is the case, you could always add a notice that the merchandise is protected. Why not? This would be similar to the way that signs on homes with alarm systems are used to make burglars think twice before attempting to break into your house. There’s no guarantee that a thief still won’t try to break in, but if given the choice of a home without a security system, and one without one, I’m betting they will choose the one that isn’t secured.If you think it sounds expensive to have your shipment of liquor secured with bottle locks, imagine how much it will cost you if you lost a whole shipment of your merchandise. You might not have an order as large as $100,000 coming in, but even if the shipment is worth $1,000, it would likely be a huge blow to a small business. How much time would it take you to recoup that kind of loss? I think it’s always a better idea to be prepared, and make sure that your merchandise is protected, instead of wishing you would have done something before it was too late.

For more information about bottle locks contact us or call 1.770.426.0547