Stop Jacket And Coat Thefts With Clothing Security Tags

Keeping your clothing secure may seem like a challenging endeavor for stores with limited staff and financial resources, but it doesn’t have to be anymore.  There are affordable solutions to help you prevent shoplifting in your store, like Checkpoint tags.  One of the stores I previously worked for at the time only carried leather jackets and other coats seasonally, so as soon as they arrived at the store, we got to work making sure they were all protected with clothing security tags. We knew that when the weather started to get cold, the jacket thieves weren’t going to be far behind.  The previous year, we lost several jackets, so we were going to do everything in our power to stop the same thing from happening this time.  This meant we had to keep a close eye on the merchandise.  

We started by facing a camera directly on the clothing racks and counting the coats every couple hours.  We did this so if we lost any of them, it wouldn’t be too difficult to narrow down who had stolen them when we looked at the video. We put a big obvious hard tag on the jacket where you could see it, but we also dropped some soft Checkpoint Tags into the inside pocket of the jacket.  We did this so if the thieves were able to somehow remove the larger obvious tag, they probably wouldn’t expect there to be an extra soft tag hidden on the inside of the jacket, and the alarm would go off at the door when they exited with the merchandise.  For some reason, these particular thieves would leave the empty hangers on the rack, so we would always know when they had stolen a jacket.  I don’t know why they would leave it on the rack and not put it down somewhere else, but I don’t know why shoplifters do half the things they do.  

After we reviewed video of the area, we figured out who was stealing the clothing, which was two different people that were working together. A man and woman would come into the store and try on the jackets separately.  One tried on the clothing while the other would keep a look out for anyone in the area.  They would then casually walk around the store without a care in the world, and walk right out the door wearing the jacket.  It didn’t look suspicious at the time because it was cold outside, and the thieves tucked the clothing security tags that were on the end of the sleeve in the pocket of the jacket.  These shoplifters didn’t care that the EAS (Electronic Article Surveillance) alarm went off as they exited the door, because as soon as they exited, there was a car waiting for them right off the sidewalk, and they were gone quickly.  

Their luck finally ran out the day we caught them with help from local law enforcement, who were able to apprehend them after fleeing following a theft at our store.  When the police stopped the shoplifters, the clothing security tags were still attached to the jackets.  Also, the video we had saved of the same thieves setting off the flashing door alarms on the other occasions helped make it easy to seek charges on the shoplifters for previous jacket thefts.  

For more information contact us: clothingsecurity.net or call 1.770.426.0547