Retail loss prevention should be dedicated to providing a safe environment for customers to shop and employees to work.

Many companies forget about how customer and employee accidents and injuries can negatively impact their profits. Several times have I visited stores where the owners or management aren’t really concerned with safety issues or don’t truly understand the impact of a customer accident or an employee injury.

Retail loss prevention has a big responsibility when it comes to safety. These professionals have the task of ensuring potential safety issues are identified and corrected as soon as possible. Issues such as merchandise in the stockroom and some areas of the salesfloor stacked closer than 18 inches to the fire sprinkler systems. In some locations, there are electrical paneling, and electrical related equipment stationed or stored in the backrooms. Merchandise should never be stored or placed any closer than 36 inches to these areas. Loss prevention should be concerned with correcting these potential safety risks.

I experienced an instance at a company I worked for where a number of violations lead to the injury of one employee and ended up costing the business hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills and fines. The store refused to make simple changes to policies pertaining to the use of trash compactors.

In this instance, an employee was sent into the compactor to dislodge an item. In a rush, the operator and employee did not enact the safety feature, and failed to notify others of what had happened. As a result, the employee in the compactor suffered a serious leg injury when the compactor was accidently restarted. Loss prevention responded to the incident and conducted an accident investigation.

Indeed, the employees were negligent and admitted that they were never properly trained on the use of this equipment, nor were they encouraged by members of management to be safe.

Retail loss prevention provides a great service to any retailer or business, whether it’s conducting investigations involving theft, or conducting accident investigations, retail loss prevention must always be focused on the goal of profitability.

For more information on loss prevention visit us at retail loss prevention  or call 1.770.426.0547

I’ve been in the retail loss prevention field for over a decade. The other day my daughter, who’s now 12, asked me, “Dad, what’s loss prevention ?” I was almost offended. “I leave home everyday” I thought, “and bring home the proverbial bacon so that you can have those ungodly-priced tennis shoes, and you don’t even know what I do?” However, her question caused me to do an impromptu poll of my friends and family and I found that my daughter wasn’t alone. A great deal of people have no idea just what loss prevention is, so I decided to take a moment to explain.

Retail loss prevention is a sort of private investigation into various kinds of theft or larceny. The focus of these investigations usually center on shoplifting or organized retail theft, internal theft, embezzlement and credit and check fraud. The purpose of these investigations is to maximize profits by reducing the overall shrink within a company. We use many different tools to complete these investigations including: Exception-based reporting, CCTV surveillance, EAS (or Electronic Article Surveillance), audits, reports, integrity shops and many others.

Why all of the hullabaloo? Inventory shrinkage costs American retailers over $31 billion a year. That’s a lot of cash, clams, bread or ducketts, no matter how you look at it. Why should the average person care about retail loss prevention ? At some level or another we are all consumers. When a company loses sizable profit due to inventory shrinkage they are left with little choice but to raise prices on merchandise in order to offset that loss. That means higher prices on everything from t-shirts to toilet paper. So, in the end retail loss prevention helps keep life affordable for everybody.

For more information about loss prevention contact us: retail loss prevention or call 1.770.426.0547

Loss prevention is a broad topic in the retail environment.  Its expanse can make it difficult for a business owner to identify what aspects may be beneficial to his or her organization.  By learning more about what options are available to combat loss, businesses can choose what is right for them.

Loss prevention is any type of policy or procedures a business chooses to use to reduce loss of inventory and increase profits.  Apprehending shoplifters is one aspect of retail loss prevention, but proactive measures are also important.  For example, teaching your employees to provide excellent customer service can help prevent theft.  Shoplifters do not want employees’ attention – so that is exactly what a business must provide.

Also important is making sure that basic controls are implemented and followed.  If your business has a fitting room, make sure that employees are trained to monitor what enters that room.  If there is merchandise that is locked up in cases, make sure all employees understand the importance of keeping the merchandise secure until it is purchased by the customer.  You’d be surprised how many employees will unlock a case, and then hand the secured merchandise to a customer instead of ensuring that the merchandise immediately goes to the cash register.

Key controls are also important.  Make sure that keys to back doors, secure merchandise cases, fitting rooms, etc, are properly logged and only given to responsible associates.  Employee theft is common enough without lax controls within the business aiding the process.

Anyone can be a potential shoplifter – the rich, the poor, the elderly or the young.  Loss prevention is an important part of any business that has a vested interested in protecting their assets.

 For more information contact us: loss prevention  or call 1.770.426.0547.

How can retail loss prevention boost your profits? Use CCTV.

Retailers worldwide benefit daily thru the use of CCTV to protect assets, increase safety and give a piece of mind. In the world of Retail Loss Prevention, CCTV is a staple. From Investigations of dishonest employees to reviews of customer alleged slip, trip and fall instances and other potential risks and liabilities.

A retailer in a metropolitan market found a return on their investment when the use of CCTV equipment helped the local police department recover thousands of dollars in stolen merchandise. An undercover loss prevention agent working the particular store, observed a team of suspects enter the health and beauty aisle. The suspects, working in teams of 4, quickly cleared off several bottles of shampoos, baby formula and men’s razorblades. The people worked so efficiently, they were sometimes in and out of the store before the loss prevention agent could get out to the salesfloor.  After the last 3 times these suspect had “hit” this store in the last week, the loss prevention agent quickly notified the local police department of the suspect’s presence. Working the store’s CCTV system, the agent kept uninterrupted surveillance on the suspects. While on the phone with the local police department, the loss prevention agent was able to position the responding police officers outside of the store. As the suspects exited, the agent maintained surveillance as the local police department apprehended all four of them.

The loss prevention agent was subpoenaed to court and was able to provide the local prosecuting agency with video evidence of the multiple instance of theft this group had conducted. As a result of the proper use of the CCTV equipment, the store was able to recover a large amount of its losses after the local police department recovered thousands of dollars in stolen merchandise from the suspects.

Retail loss prevention  can create, write and execute loss prevention policies for most companies that can dramatically improve their overall profitability.

For more information visit: retail loss prevention or call 1.770.426.0547

By definition, retail loss prevention  is a type of private investigation into larceny or theft. It is police and detective work for the private business instead of the general public. Businesses that do not take into consideration basic loss prevention and asset protection procedures will not survive.

The focus in retail loss prevention is on shoplifting, fraud and employee theft. According to the 2006 National Retail Security Survey, shrink is divided into five categories:

46.8% Employee theft
31.6% Shoplifting
14.4% Administrative error
3.75% Vendor error
2.86% Unknown error

To understand  retail loss prevention , a business needs to understand shrink. Shrink is merchandise or assets that are unaccounted for – and the loss is usually identified during an inventory. A business’s books will tell how much merchandise the business is supposed to have, based on receivings, shipments, etc. The difference between the books and what merchandise is actually there is called shrink.

A business must analyze its operations in order to identify factors that contribute to loss. Strategies must then be implemented to combat shrink. As illustrated in the statistics above, employee theft creates the most loss for a business and has to be taken into consideration when creating a program to reduce shrink. Many businesses only focus on shoplifting as a contributor, but employees can actually steal much more.

Retail loss prevention is a necessary effort in order for a business to be successful and profitable.

For more information contact us: retail loss prevention or call 1.770.426.0547.