Shoplifting Prevention and Your Inventory

Keeping track of your inventory this holiday season is not an easy task.  The time and work that this task takes is not easy for many managers to keep up with, nor something they relished doing.  But maintaining an accurate inventory is not only good to keep up with customers likes and dislikes, but to keep a closer eye if shoplifting is happening in your store.

For more about this and other topics, follow the links below.

Business Security: 10 Tips to Prevent Shoplifting

In 2010, shoplifting accounted for 31% of retail inventory loss, according to a University of Florida retail security survey. This loss cost retailers about $10.94 billion during that year, according to a Washington Post article about the survey. 

Items most commonly stolen include clothing, books, music, jewelry, watches, tires and car parts. “Everyone thinks about little Johnny stealing a pack of bubble gum, but there are also professional gangs that target stores and steal billions of dollars every year,” says Joseph LaRocca, an adviser for the National Retail Federation, in the article.

While security cameras can help identify suspects after a theft occurs, there’s plenty a retailer can do to prevent shoplifting from happening in the first place, according to the North Carolina Governor’s Crime Commission and the Specialty Retail Report.

1. Greet customers as soon as they come into the store. Addressing customers removes their anonymity. Shoplifters are known to avoid stores with attentive salespeople

5 Quick and Low-Tech Tips To Prevent Shoplifting in Your Retail Store

As a small business retailer, it’s not always easy to just throw money at problems like shoplifting and take advantage of all the technology that big box retailers may be privy to. Whether it’s cameras, door scanners, or facial-recognition software, sometimes their big-ticket cost just doesn’t fit with your small business security budget.

But when you recognize facts like shoplifting costing retailers upwards of $13 billion each year, it’s important to identify it as a problem that needs to be dealt with.

So, what’s a boutique owner to do? In this post, I’ll be looking at cost-effective and low-tech tactics that you can start implementing right away.

Let’s dive in.

1. Keep Your Store Organized and Products Well-Placed

How easy should it be to identify whether something has gone “missing” from your store? Empty space on your shelves should be enough of a visual cue to signal something has gone wrong.

However, if your store is messy, disorganized, or a maze to get through, it can be harder to notice that you’ve been “gotten” until it’s too late.

Security expert and founder of Crime Doctor, Chris McGoey recommends the following: “You want to keep all your merchandise “faced,” which means pulling your products to the edge of the shelf to create a solid wall of product. If someone sweeps the shelf, then it is easy to tell.”

Impact of retail theft: Costs customers, hurts business fuels drug trade

Shoplifting is a crime that happens often, but many people don’t often stop to think about its impact. The retailer suffers, shoppers pay more and police resources are expended.

Walmart is one of many stores that are frequently targeted by shoplifters.

Posted Nov. 14, 2015 at 8:15 AM

Shoplifting is a crime that happens often, but many people don’t often stop to think about its impact. The retailer suffers, shoppers pay more and police resources are expended.

“From the law enforcement side (retail theft) can take up a lot of resources when it comes to investigations which can be problematic when there are other emergencies coming in and other cases that need worked on,” said Pennsylvania State Police spokesman Robert Hicks. “From a societal point, we all know when businesses lose money from theft that their prices increase which impacts all of us as consumers.”

Police calls

Last year, Walmart reported that around 1 percent of its total profits had been lost to shoplifting — for a total of $3 billion. Greg Foran, head of U.S. Walmart operations, said in a statement earlier this year that without theft, prices could be lower.

Other stores targeted by shoplifters sell items that are easy to resell, such as scrap metal from home improvement stores like Lowe’s or Home Depot and movies, music and video games from electronics stores like Best Buy.