How Loss Prevention Managers Can Help Store Managers Improve Store Sales

August 1, 2017 by Leave a Comment

Loss Prevention Officers and Managers catch shoplifters and dishonest employees. That is a common perception and in some stores it may be a true picture of what Loss Prevention departments do, with the additional caveat that they may have uniformed people who conduct receipt checks. If this is all that the department does it can be hard to sell store managers on the value of having them on staff if the budget for them comes directly from the store. It is even more difficult for small, independent retailers to justify hiring a Loss Prevention Officer although if the store is in a high crime area they may contract a security guard. There was a time when there was an “us versus them” mindset between store managers and Loss Prevention teams. Over time some larger companies have focused their Loss Prevention teams more on operational issues. For example, I worked for a company that had Loss Prevention conduct food product out of date audits. Their position was that this was a safety issue so it fell to the Loss Prevention team. I had no problem doing the audits, but as I looked at the amount of out of date items I was finding I had to question what the freight team was doing when they were stocking. Who was auditing their work because there were a lot of FIFO (First In First Out) issues I was identifying that were causing out of date problems.

     The solution is for a partnership where Loss Prevention can help store managers and owners improve sales and operations and store management provides administrative support for L.P. What is it that Loss Prevention can offer a store in addition to improved profitability by stopping employee theft or preventing shoplifting? As a Loss Prevention Manager I assisted the store managers in conducting prospective employee interviews. I was already interviewing my own applicants when I had job openings so helping the store fill their positions was not a big deal. L.P. can audit out of stock spaces on shelves. Certainly the focus of the L.P. Officer is on empty shelf space due to theft but if it is determined that merchandise is not being pushed properly by a stocking team then that information can be shared with management. The impact of not properly stocking merchandise results in missed sales and negatively affects profits.

     Loss Prevention departments can also support stores by applying electronic article surveillance anti-theft devices to merchandise. I have personally spent significant amounts of my time placing Checkpoint tags on CD’s, DVD’s, and electronics merchandise. I have also placed security tags on clothes, thwarting would-be shoplifters and keeping shortage down. You may be thinking that this should be a Loss Prevention job anyway but that isn’t necessarily the case. There are stores where tagging is left to a freight unload team or even delegated taggers. It saves the store money in these situations when L.P. jumps in and assists in tagging allowing the hours saved to be put to use somewhere else.

     Is it important to maintain some delineation between L.P. and stores? I believe there should be some dividing line and it may not always be clear. I have seen some managers give direction to L.P. Officers which began to interfere with their primary responsibility of catching shoplifters. I have also seen department managers start entering the Loss Prevention office when no one from L.P. was present and move cameras to watch their cashiers or employees to see if they were being productive. This potentially causes issues with ongoing investigations when cameras are not where they are expected to be. A partnership between L.P. and stores requires a mutual respect for areas of responsibility.  Likewise I have seen instances of L.P. Managers telling store employees were not doing a job properly rather than acting in partnership and mentioning an observation to the department manager.

     In a partnership, store managers may provide a store employee as a witness for L.P. when a shoplifting suspect is in the office. They may also provide a witness for a L.P. Manager when they are going to conduct a dishonest employee interview. Managers may also offer to purchase additional security equipment such as cameras when L.P. teams have been strong partners and have helped to keep merchandise on the floor and prevented shoplifting.

     There are many ways that stores and L.P. can be partners in making a store profitable. All it takes is thinking outside the box and building a relationship based on respect. Strong partners make a winning combination.

     

     

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Policies and Procedures: Do You Have Them in Place?

July 18, 2017 by Leave a Comment

In the United States alone, there are over half a million shoplifting incidents everyday. The losses are in the billions and the deaths associated to shoplifting incidents are numerous. Whether you have a store policy where every shoplifter is prosecuted, or whether your store prosecutes only if the amount stolen is over a hundred dollars, the policies and procedures have to be crystal clear for every employee that works in your store.

A store employee has to be knowledgeable about the store policy concerning a shoplifting incident.  Can any employee stop a shoplifter using any means necessary? Can they follow them even outside the store? Can they forcefully attempt to stop them before they leave the premises? Do they even know what to do and how to respond if they are witness to a shoplifting incident?

Training and informing your employees of the policies they must follow when working for you and your store can save lives and lawsuits. Safety should be your primary concern when dealing with shoplifters, and should be voiced to all your employees.

Training can be reinforced as a reminder of the policies the store follows regarding shoplifters during a brief hustle in the morning before customers arrive.The capital you invest in the training of your loss prevention team and other management employees can save you expensive lawsuits later on. 

Employees at stores like Walmart  have been involved in incidents where a shoplifter has lost his life because the employees did not follow the procedures set by the store. An employee at Home Depot has been terminated because he did not follow the strict policy set forth by the store concerning shoplifters. Who is at fault?  The lawsuits because of these incidents can come to the stores from the shoplifter and the employee that was terminated.  Could training have prevented these incidents?  It couldn’t have hurt.

A customers cannot be afraid to come of your store because of what they might have seen when a shoplifter was detained. They have to believe that you will do the best to protect them from being harassed or from getting hurt in case a shoplifting incident occurs when they are at your store.

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How To Hire Talented People For Your Business

July 5, 2017 by Leave a Comment

Hiring talented people for your business is going to cost you, and it should.  Hiring good employees takes time and money.  It is not only the salary you are going to offer when you hire an employee that is going to cost you, but the perks you offer them as well.  Hiring a good employee should be a tried process that you or your company have developed.  The cost associated with hiring a new employee is not something to take lightly.  And for the retail industry, the difference between hiring a good employee or a bad one can have bad financial consequences from the start.     Follow the links below for more about this topic.

Want To Hire Great Employees? Fix Your Broken Recruiting Process

It is sad that business leaders still complain about “talent shortages” when anyone who has applied for a job lately knows that the standard corporate or institutional recruiting process is badly broken.

It isn’t talent shortages that keep employers and willing and capable job-seekers apart. It’s the broken-down state of the recruiting process!

Leaders who are serious about hiring great people need to examine their own internal practices and fix whatever is broken.

Here is a simple checklist of common breakdowns to get them started:

Ten Broken Recruiting Practices To Fix

1. Job ads are too often written in an opaque, insulting way that doesn’t even try to sell a job-seeker on the opportunity — but instead lists endless Essential Requirements that few if any working people possess.

Can A Change In Retail Hiring Practices Help Save America’s Department Stores?

In their early days, department stores were the epitome of innovation. Towards the end of the 19th century, Marshall Field was challenging the old-fashioned notion that shopping should be conducted purely out of necessity. By emphasizing customer service (his famous motto: “give the lady what she wants”), offering luxury amenities for his clientele and turning shopping into a full-blown experience, he truly revolutionized the retail industry. At the turn of the century, his protégé Harry Selfridge brought the mentality of “the customer is always right” from Chicago to London, further revolutionizing the industry through ingenious marketing stunts and a customer-first approach at Selfridges & Co. 

Just one century later, the advent of the internet has once again revolutionized the retail experience – unfortunately, not to the benefit of most brick-and-mortar retailers. These days, shoppers don’t need to visit their local department store to purchase a new pair of shoes – thanks to the internet, they’re now spoiled with options in all kinds of colors, styles and sizes. Nowadays, we can purchase virtually any style of shoe from anywhere in the world at a competitive price point, and, for the most part, still receive fairly decent customer service.

A key portion of the retail apocalypse has been going on for decades

​A significant consequence of the downturn in brick-and-mortar retailing is that thousands of people are losing their jobs. 

In May, there were nearly 19,000 fewer people working in department stores compared to January, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, amid a record pace of store closures. This is happening because the US has built too many stores since the 1990s, and online shopping is booming.

A look back shows that retail jobs have been declining as a share of overall employment since the late 1980s.

“Employment in grocery stores, department stores, electronics stores, furniture stores, etc. has been declining as a share of total employment since 1989,” wrote Torsten Slok, the chief international economist at Deutsche Bank, in a note on Wednesday.

“Another way of saying this is that we have seen less growth in the retail sector relative to other sectors in the economy. Put differently, it is nothing new that the retail sector is underperforming, and looking at the absolute level of employment in retail it is currently close to the highest level in twenty years.”

 

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“I Can Out Sell My Theft & Inventory Shortage”….. Yeah Right

June 30, 2017 by Leave a Comment

If you believe that you can outsell your cash or inventory losses due to theft, you probably won’t be in business for long. Or if you do survive, you are no way living up to the margins you deserve. In my 35+ years of loss prevention particularly helping medium to small retailers, I have heard this more times than I can believe.

Consider this, as an example, if you have a net 2% profit over all. In other words after taxes, rent, payroll, merchandise cost, insurance…. you clear 2 cents on the dollar. Then a $100 dollar loss will cost you $5000 (100÷.02). Yes, FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS. You will have to purchase, ship, receive, stock and sell another $5K just to BREAK EVEN on a $100 loss. I doubt even a drug dealer would make money that way.

Don’t delude yourself. 

Now on the flip side. I do not advocate that you turn your store into a six sided steel box to protect yourself from shoplifting, employee theft, vendor fraud and paperwork errors. Exactly the opposite. I want you to have an open, friendly and inviting environment for your legitimate customers and employees. What you can’t be is naive to your shrinkage and loss problems.

First, realize that you must do inventories at a minimum quarterly, more often if things are seriously out of whack. Cycle counts for individual SKU’s that seem to be loss problems are also important. Do not wait until the end of a quarter or heaven forbid end of year to find out you have a problem. You have to go on offense not defense. Theft and shrink are business problems. Nothing more, nothing less. We can easily show you how to do this. You do not have a retail LP issue that has not been seen and dealt with before.

In regard to employee theft what are your hiring practices. As an LP professional that has personally conducted over 2300 investigations and interrogations of employees involved in theft, I started looking up the drain pipe to see where it is all coming from.  It starts with the application and employment interviewing.

For shoplifting; Do you and your staff know really know how shoplifters act. Probably not. Shoplifters are easy to spot. You just need to know what to look for. Stopping them is incredibly easy. Again, you just need to apply the correct tools and training.

But all of this is for nothing, if your retail attitude is not straight.

Another problem is business apathy. The “oh I am so busy I do not have time”. You don’t have time to keep your profits on your bottom line and not the thief’s? Then why are you doing all this? Making a living for you, your family and employees is all what it is about.

I have had people steal from me. It doesn’t feel good and it makes me angry.  I work really hard and try to work smart to provide my family’s income and the income for my employees. But the thought of simply covering it up in my own mind is unthinkable. It should be for you also.

Go on the attack. Fix your loss problems before they happen. Remember, we can help you with that. We are simply an email or phone call away.

Have a super retail day!

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Look For Red Flags When Reviewing Applications And Interviewing Job Candidates

June 30, 2017 by Leave a Comment

How many of you have done IT? You know the IT I’m talking about. You looked at an application, interviewed the candidate, had a bit of an unsettled feeling about him or her but hired them anyway. IT may be a few days, a few weeks or a few months later but IT becomes a reality, buyer’s remorse. You hired someone who turns out to be a dud. It may be they are calling out of work on a regular basis or perhaps they aren’t following directions on tasks you are assigning them. It may be that you think they are stealing money or merchandise from you. Whatever the problem you just wish you hadn’t hired this person. It is frustrating to make those types of employment decisions, but don’t feel like your small retail store is all alone because you have to make these hiring choices yourself. It even happens to big companies that have Human Resources departments dedicated to trying to hire and retain the best employees.

There are things the smaller store owners and managers can do to try to improve their chances of hiring good applicants for their stores:

  • First and foremost, if you aren’t doing background checks consider hiring Loss Prevention Systems Inc. (LPSi) to do them for you. Their team can dig into a candidate’s past to verify they aren’t hiding important information from you. They can do criminal background checks, verify employment, validate driving records, and so much more. By having a background check company conduct pre-employment screenings on your candidates you also protect your business from potential liability lawsuits if your employee were to harm someone while acting as a representative of your business.
  • When you are reviewing applications look for red flags on the application itself. This could be a significant gap between jobs. While a month up to three months may be explained as just a difficult time finding employment, more than that may be a cause for concern but not necessarily a deal breaker on its own.
  • Look for brief periods of employment or a pattern of going from one job to another, sometimes known as job hopping. While some of this may be expected from a teenager or a college student who may have to find summer work between spring and Fall Semesters it should not be the case for someone out of school for a year or so. Job hopping could indicate someone who has problems at work either with the job itself or the manager. It could also indicate someone who has been stealing and quit before being caught.
  • If your application asks if a former employer may be contacted, look out when the applicant indicates “no” and/or leaves the former supervisor’s name off of the application. There could be a reason they don’t want you to contact that employer.
  • When conducting interviews look for the way the applicant dresses. Regardless of how casual the atmosphere of a business may be it should still be expected that an applicant will come to the interview in at least business casual attire. If an applicant does not care enough to make an attempt to impress the boss in an interview it is highly unlikely they will attempt to impress the boss in their job performance.
  • Look for eye contact from the applicant during an interview. Some people do not know how to interview, have been out of the workforce for a while or may just be nervous so some glancing around is to be expected. On the other hand, there should be some eye contact and if it seems the person is avoiding it, you should consider this a red flag.
  • Cell phones! While they seem to be a necessity of life, they do have an off button. If your candidate fails to mute a phone and it goes off during an interview let it raise a flag. If the applicant asks if you mind if they take the call, I suggest you end the interview at that point. Very few life and death matters take place during an interview. It is more a matter of poor planning. They didn’t take time to mute their phone, turn it off or tell someone where they would be at the time of the interview. If you aren’t more important than that phone during an interview you won’t be more important when they start working for you.

When you hire someone you invest a lot of time and money in them. When you have to get rid of them you start the whole process over and invest more money. Don’t throw good money after bad, recognize red flags and hire right the first time.

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Smaller Retailers Retaining Talented Employees In An Improving Economy

June 30, 2017 by Leave a Comment

I remember the days when I needed to fill a position on my Loss Prevention Team and we could post an advertisement and I could easily get a dozen applications or more. Some of these applicants were talented and had extensive Loss Prevention experience and some had very little work experience at all but were looking for a job. The same thing happened when our Human Resources Manager would post job ads for cashiers, flow team or just about any position in the store, people needed work and took the time to sit at our application kiosks and apply on the spot. I’m not implying it was easy to conduct all of the interviews and sometimes the pool of prospective employees did not seem very appealing but they wanted the work and we could be somewhat choosey. The upside to this was that from a disciplinary and retention perspective, if an employee was not doing the job expected of them or they had attendance issues it was easy to go through the corrective action process and correct them right out the door. We knew we had people chomping at the bit for those positions.

     Another benefit for the store in a struggling economy was that good employees were fairly easy to retain. There wasn’t a lot of competition looking to hire new area or department managers. Talented employees also knew that they were probably going to get the maximum available hours and were sure of their position within the store. Going to another business had risk associated with it since there was no guarantee they would be getting the same hours or enjoy the management. While the employee may not have cared for all of the managers in our store, the managers’ styles were a known quality to the employee.

     Today the economy is improving and it is getting harder to hire and retain talented staff. Many national retail chains are now starting their employees out at $9 and $10 an hour. It is difficult to compete with these kinds of wages for entry level positions and for a small retailer, the choice could be hire at the rate but the cost of doing so is a reduction in the total number of employees you can keep on your team. If you are successful at bringing on an employee at minimum wage, how do you retain the talented employee who may be drawn to greener pastures on the other side of the fence? What can the small, independent store owner do? Let us offer some tips that can help you keep the great employees you can’t afford to lose:

  • Show your appreciation. It may seem silly but people want to know they are pleasing their manager/boss. Your store may be too small to have an employee of the month, it doesn’t work well when you only have a small number of people working for you. That recognition loses its value fairly quickly. Buying a drink for someone from a soft drink machine or bringing in pizza or snacks is always well received. It shows you’re thinking of them.
  • Get to know your employees and even learn something about their family. If something happens with their family member that they are proud of, like a child graduating from high school, give them an opportunity to tell you about it. If they have a sick family member or even a pet express your sympathy, maybe even suggest they take a day or two off to care for that person or pet.
  • Consider buying a small gift card of $10 or $20 every once in a while to a fast food place or a movie theater. Don’t necessarily make it in conjunction with any specific activity the employee did for you or any special sale they made. Do it at randomly and maybe place it in a “thank you” card with a note letting them know you appreciate their hard work.
  • Speaking of “Thank You” cards, there aren’t a whole lot of things that mean more than a hand written note mailed to someone’s home expressing gratitude for the service they provide to a company.

If a monetary bonus is in the budget following a successful inventory or prior to a holiday, like a Christmas bonus, it can go a long way to employee retention. A small bonus for someone making minimum wage can make a big difference for them.

It is hard for a small retailer to compete against the big companies, especially in retaining talent. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Demonstrate loyalty and appreciation for the people who make your company successful and they will return the favor.

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Do You Know What a Shoplifter Looks Like?

June 16, 2017 by Leave a Comment

 

  1.  A French Historian is accused of stealing American war heroes’ dog tags to sell on eBay. 

  2. Colorado publisher accused of stealing money from authors

  4.  Store clerk accused of stealing thousands in lottery tickets

The retail industry is not the only one dealing with theft in the United States.  The retail industry looses more than $35 million dollars  to shoplifting every day in the United States. But, theft does not seem to restrict itself to retailers, theft occurs in every place where the opportunity arises.  The shoplifter can be a member of a shoplifting ring, or a regular shopper who has a job, a family, or even financial stability.

There is not a profile of a typical shoplifter.  The shoplifter can be a government representative or a store clerk, a policeman or a French Historian, a shoplifter can be a member of your family or a neighbor.  Many of these people often times feel ashamed or are unable to talk about this issue with other people and are unable to seek help, but the problem does not go away, and everyone looses.

If you are in the retail industry and believe what a shoplifter looks like as they enter the store, then you have already lost against shoplifting. Training the management and employees of a store to combat shoplifting is an important aspect of any store that wants to be profitable.

Read more about this and other issues by clicking the links below.

Exactly What Is a Shoplifter and How Much Do You Know?

Industry veterans may find it odd to ask ‘What is a shoplifter?’ after years of experience. But it’s always good to revisit the fundamentals.

When asked “What is a shoplifter?”, most readers of the LPM Insider probably have a pretty good idea of how to respond. I do too, but it’s interesting what you learn (or re-learn) when you actually do some research on the subject. If you look up the definition of shoplifting, you will find different variations in wording. Some reference larceny, some concealment, and others talk about intent. But the basic definition boils down to this: shoplifting is the “theft of merchandise from a store or place of business.”

The terms “shoplifting” or “shoplifter” are not usually defined by law. The crime of shoplifting generally falls under the legal classification of larceny and can be a misdemeanor or felony, depending on the dollar amount stolen. State by state, larceny laws vary greatly.

For the average person, shoplifting is sometimes confused with burglary or robbery. However, all three are different. Burglary refers to unlawful entry into a building with the intent to commit a crime, especially theft. If a burglar is successful, they will not come in contact with another person.

Shoplifting girl sparks compassion from Atlanta police officer

Atlanta (CNN)In a rough part of this city’s northwest side, the call about a shoplifter at a discount store should have been straightforward.

For Officer Che Milton, it was the first call of his shift — on his fourth day on the job.
Inside the store, Milton met a sobbing 12-year-old named Heaven Staples.
“She’s crying, bawling. Tears everywhere,” Milton told CNN. “She was upset she was caught stealing.”
Heaven told him that she was stealing shoes because her 5-year-old sister needed them.
“I couldn’t put her in the system, being 12 years old, for stealing some $5 shoes,” Milton recalled. “I’d rather just take her home and see what’s going on.”
The ride was short. Heaven cried. Then, they walked in the door.
“That’s when I saw the conditions — how the conditions were in the house,” Milton said: five children and their big sister, Heaven, without much food or furniture.

 

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Can High -Tech Prevent Shoplifting?

June 14, 2017 by Leave a Comment

The causes for shoplifting are varied and the solution to these issues are not yet answered.  Many people shoplift because of a mental issue, while other shoplift because it is easy and profitable for them.

The National Association for Shoplifting Prevention states that shoplifting has become one of the most prevalent crimes committed in the United States every year.  Shoplifting though is viewed by many of the  people committing the crime as an issue of no importance, or one that does not affect the communities or the people around them.

For a retailer, the issue of shoplifting is a big problem that cost them billions of dollars every year.

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

Police give tips to prevent shoplifting

Albany police said the number of shoplifting cases usually increases during the summer, so they’re working to keep local businesses safe.

Police held a meeting for their business watch group on Thursday and shared tips to prevent shoplifting. Some of those include using and testing alarms and video surveillance systems regularly and leaving lights on at night to discourage burglars.

Police said businesses should also communicate with their neighboring shops and with police to share information and surveillance video.

Store Security Turns High-Tech to Prevent Shoplifting

That five-finger discount will kill your bottom line. With $45.2 billion lost to retail theft in 2015, some stores — hoping to avoid the estimated tens of thousands it costs to employ a two-person security team — are turning to higher tech solutions that don’t need to be paid overtime. Technology like facial recognition software that keeps an electronic eye out for known shoplifters can be tough for small independent retailers to afford. But proponents say it doesn’t just catch shoplifters, it discourages them in the first place.

There is more to shoplifting than meets the eye

​Last week The National reported that a 29-year-old Macedonian woman, a tourist visiting Dubai, was sentenced to two months in jail. She was arrested in January for attempting to steal lingerie, perfume and lipstick from the Victoria’s Secret store at Mall of the Emirates. She admitted the charges, but in her defence she claimed that she didn’t know why she shoplifted. “I have money, but I steal,” she told her prosecutors.

The UAE is home to some of the world’s largest shopping malls; it also has one of the highest per-capita retail shopping centre densities in the world. It makes sense, in this context, to understand why people shoplift. Globally, billions of dollars are lost each year to shoplifting. So understanding its causes and consequences and trying to find cures are good for business.

In the case of the tourist, we might never know, for sure, why she decided to stuff her handbag with goodies from Victoria’s Secret. More generally, however, psychology and those concerned with consumer misbehaviour have advanced many ideas about why some people shoplift.

 

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Customer Safety: Those Who Steal From Your Store Pose A Security And Safety Risk To Your Customers

June 2, 2017 by Leave a Comment

I don’t know how many times I have heard it, but I have heard it said that shoplifting is not a crime that is premeditated. I have heard and read the arguments that dismiss the seriousness of the crime and portray the criminals as opportunists acting on the spur of the moment. Implicit in the argument is the minimizing of the extent of Organized Retail Crime rings as well as the willingness of shoplifters to steal from your customers. I have even had people who think along these lines voice their disapproval when I had shoplifters I had apprehended and was walking to my security office. I recall one occasion when I apprehended three young men, about 14 years of age and was by myself. I had them stand with their faces against the wall as I had to get my keys out to unlock the door to my office. Two men were sitting outside my office and one muttered under his breath that I was being a butt, only he used a more colorful adjective. I looked at him and told him to mind his own business. The point is that there are people more sympathetic to the criminals than retailers and see shoplifting as a minor infraction at worst and mischievous behavior at best. The attitude among those that hold to those beliefs might change if they realized that these shoplifters aren’t necessarily choosy about who they steal from. They also don’t consider the safety risks posed by the careless acts of these criminals.

     Whatever your perception may be of shoplifters and no matter how you may try to excuse or rationalize the behavior, theft is a crime. Many of those engaging in shoplifting are engaging in other crimes as well. Frequently those crimes are against other customers in the store. How can I be so sure? I have caught some of those shoplifters who also took advantage of others. I recall a shoplifting incident in which I was following the suspect through the store and watched her concealing merchandise in her purse. I followed her through the store observing her pick up small items and hide them while pushing a shopping cart. I then saw her stop her cart next to another customer’s buggy. The second customer had a purse in her own buggy and a wallet was exposed, she was facing the merchandise and had her back to her belongings. The shoplifter stopped and while the victim wasn’t paying attention the shoplifter deftly removed the wallet and kept going, eventually placing it in her own purse. This was one of those rare situations when I made my apprehension while the perpetrator was still in the building. A victimless crime? A sudden, unplanned prank? I don’t think the woman who had her wallet stolen thought so.

     What other safety issues or concerns do shoplifters pose to your customers? Let’s discuss their actions once they have stolen. I have seen shoplifters grab and run with merchandise. There was nothing that caused them to run, they weren’t approached by Loss Prevention personnel and they didn’t see L.P. following behind, they simply snatched merchandise and ran out the door. I recall working for a department store and I was in the camera room conducting CCTV surveillance and a shoplifter entered the store. He immediately went to a table of men’s Polo shirts, grabbed an armful and ran back out. He jumped into a car parked by the curb and the driver sped off. There was no concern for the safety of the patrons entering the building, he made no attempt to look for small children or elderly people, he just shoved a door open and ran. The driver of the car was reckless in speeding away, endangering pedestrians and other drivers.

     There is nothing cute or funny about shoplifters. They hurt the profit line of the stores they steal from. They often victimize other shoppers, frequently stealing personal belongs or identification. They may also be in your parking lot breaking into cars.  Don’t underestimate the risks posed by thieves. Keep them out of your store in the first place by using retail anti-theft devices on all of your merchandise and offering significant amounts of customer service.

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Tips To Counter Website Advice For Potential Shoplifters

June 2, 2017 by Leave a Comment

There seems to be an advice website or YouTube video for nearly everything these days. Want to know who to call for home repairs? Need information about a car before you buy it? Looking for someone to date? Yes, it’s all on the internet, I’ve even completed some plumbing repairs and small vehicle repairs with the aid of online videos. Unfortunately, while there is a lot of help and good information on the world wide web, there are also sites that purport to be “informational” only but the information they provide supposedly tells people how to shoplift. What I find even more irritating is that some of these theft websites allegedly are written by former Loss Prevention personnel. The information they give is sometimes too accurate and could cause problems for a retailer who isn’t informed themselves on how to prevent thieves from stealing from them.

     Here is some ‘information’ that is published on the web and our advice can help you fight back against these shoplifter websites.

  • Website: Carry money with you, no money makes it hard to say it was spontaneous.
    Loss Prevention Systems Inc. (LPSI) Advice: It makes no difference if the shoplifter has or does not have money. Treat all shoplifters the same and be consistent in prosecuting within whatever your policies say.
  • Website: Carry a bag but don’t place anything in it. It may get you off the hook if they can’t find anything in it.
    LPSI Advice: Store Loss Prevention or Managers should never be stopping a suspect if they don’t know where the concealment took place and what was concealed. If you don’t know and didn’t see it, smother them with extensive customer service.
  • Website: Security does not go looking for poorly dressed people. They may pick on you out of boredom but they anticipate professional shoplifters will dress up a bit. Wear whatever you want.
    LPSI Advice: Loss Prevention professionals who do the job right look for signals that may indicate someone is going to shoplift and the types of clothes worn. Are the clothes unseasonable? Is the person wearing a bulky coat when it’s warm outside? Is the person in a known high theft area? Does the person avoid customer service from employees?
  • Website: If you get caught don’t act tough or be a smart “arse” (sic), cry, bawl, beg them not to call the cops, that your kids will be taken by CSV (child services).
    LPSI Advice: Always be consistent. Don’t play favorites and don’t do “favors”. Not applying the rules equally to everyone can actually get you into legal hot water. If there are children with the shoplifter there is nothing wrong with allowing them to call a family member or close, trusted friend to pick up the children. Often shoplifters who have no record of shoplifting have been caught before they were just released and not prosecuted. See how that works?
  • Website: Look for younger, or less ‘affluent’ associates who may turn a blind eye if they see you shoplifting.
    LPSI Advice: Train ALL of your associates on the importance of customer service and the necessity to report all suspicious activity. Perhaps initiate a reward program for employees who can demonstrate they have prevented a theft. This may be done if they can show clothes with torn off tags or an anti-theft device that was being tampered with and the associate walked up and disrupted the thief. Maybe it’s a fitting room attendant who finds merchandise hidden that a shoplifter was going to try to take into the fitting room. Age of an employee should never be a factor.
  • Website: Most employees at places with EAS (electronic article surveillance) door alarms (towers) view them as an annoyance instead of as an asset. If someone does respond to an alarm they are usually only allowed to ask you if you “forgot to pay for something”. They cannot threaten to call the police. There was no evidence.
    LPSI Advice: Ensure all associates are trained on appropriate EAS alarm response. Waving goodbye or saying, “It’s okay” is not appropriate. Employees should be asking politely for receipts and then looking for dates, time stamps, and verifying the items on the receipt are the items being carried out. If a discrepancy is found a manager should be called over. If nothing is found in bags or in the shopping cart, there are additional steps to take in order to determine the cause of an alarm.

     Loss Prevention Systems provides training for managers and staff on preventing shoplifting. You can contact LPSI for information on how to approach an EAS/Checkpoint system alarm. These are simply a few tips on how to overcome the tips from these “informational” websites. Don’t be a victim to shoplifters. You can prevent theft, reduce your shortage and increase profits. Proper training for you and your managers can pay big dividends regardless of what criminals may read on the world wide web.

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