Same Time Next Week

Shoplifters are surprisingly creatures of habit. My initial assessment was that a shoplifter, who is desperately trying not to get caught, would work hard to vary the times and days that they would come into a store to steal. I thought they would want to take a surprise approach to their thieving ways. I was actually quite wrong in my assessment.

The truth is most shoplifters want to find a comfort zone to steal in. They are looking for a tried and true way to get in and out of a store undetected. That is why if they steal something and get away with it on the first try, they will continue to use those same methods and manners in their subsequent thefts.

Luckily for us, when a shoplifter develops a pattern, it makes it easier for us to catch them and put a stop to the shrink losses they are creating. By identifying the pattern they created, we can be one step ahead of them and can be waiting to catch them, just like this shoplifter.

I was working for a home improvement store. We started loosing large rolls of electrical wire worth several thousands of dollars. Since these were large, heavy items that were not frequently shuffled around, we set up a camera to see if we could find out where they were going. After a few weeks of watching, we saw that every Friday around noon a man came in, loaded a roll onto a cart and then switched the price tag out for a less expensive one. The cashier charged him for the roll of wire based on this lower priced tag.

Since we found his pattern, we waited until the following Friday. Sure enough he was just like clockwork. Noon came and so did he to walk off with another one of our rolls. This time, we were there to intercept the transaction and have him arrested.