Don’t Let the Alarm Spook You on Your Way Out

A few years ago when I was a new loss prevention investigator, still during my training period, I came into my office at the beginning of my shift and my boss was already watching two male individuals in the electronics department. He said that they had been walking around the area for quite some time and acting rather suspicious. Almost instantaneously after he pointed out the two males to me they each selected a Nintendo DS and quickly left electronics while looking around.

Although I was not aware of it at the time, I now realize the manner in which they left electronics typically presupposes theft. We had the DS’s in anti shoplifting devices so I was very curious as to how they intended to remove alpha cases. This however, was not their intention. They entered our furniture department and simply placed the DS’s, anti shoplifting cases included, into the front of their pants. Immediately, the two began to head towards the front of the store. Because of the speed in which they concealed the items and made it the checkpoint systems at the front of the store, we were not able to get outside quick enough to detain them. Luckily, as the two exited the store our checkpoint security system alarm went off. One of the males continued out the door, but the second got scared and turned around to run back into the store. We were able to detain the second male and retrieve our merchandise still inside the alpha cases.

Incorporating checkpoint security systems with the proper anti shoplifting devices into our store’s retail theft prevention program gave us the upper hand in this situation.  Without a checkpoint system in place and the merchandise inside checkpoint security tags the alarm would have never gone off. Because of this, any store wanting to strengthen their retail theft prevention efforts would be remiss not to include a checkpoint system with the relevant checkpoint security tags for your merchandise. Who knows, maybe you can just scare future shoplifters into not leaving your store.

Visit the Loss Prevention Store to purchase retail anti theft devices from Checkpoint Systems.

For more information on Anti Shoplifting, Checkpoint Security System or Checkpoint Security Tags contact us at Retail theft prevention or call 1.770.426.0547