I have employees that watch and catch shoplifters; their job is solely to prevent shoplifting. One day they spotted an individual who concealed an electronic item between two pairs of pants, then entered the fitting room of the business.  The fitting room attendant did not handle or touch the clothing against protocol and did not notice the electronic item.  The item was then stolen while the shoplifter was inside of the fitting room.

This is a common occurrence among our employees – a simple act such as handling the items going into the fitting room could have be enough to help prevent shoplifting. Training our employees to be aware of the techniques shoplifters use can really help prevent shoplifting in your business.

Having strong loss prevention programs in place is beneficial in protecting the assets of a business.  Having the expertise of a loss prevention consultant can make this daunting task a reality for businesses that may not know where to start in creating a program.

Once there are guidelines in place, employees can be trained to effectively prevent shoplifting through their everyday work.  Some basic guidelines are to teach employees to pay attention to the shoppers in their area, and to provide good customer service.  A potential shoplifter does not want attention, so if attention is provided to every customer in your business, the shoplifter knows he or she has been noticed.  This is exactly what a shoplifter does not want.

Additional loss prevention ideas are to have controls in place in areas like your fitting room.  Fitting room attendants should handle the clothing that goes into the fitting room to make sure that merchandise is not concealed within it.  The attendant should also count and limit the number of garments going in, and then make sure that is the number that comes back out.

When you help prevent shoplifting in your business, you decrease your shrink and increase your profits – common business sense.

To purchase Retail anti theft devices Check out our website.

For more information on how you can prevent shoplifting contact us or call 1.770.426.0547.

Have you ever seen the movie Empire Records? There’s a really funny scene in this movie where a shoplifter is seen by some of the employees. The kid tries to run out of the store and a “Benny Hill” type of chase scene ensues. The employees eventually get the shoplifter and though the scene is hilarious, it’s not exactly practical. You don’t want your employees risking their safety by trying to chase down shoplifters.

 If the store had been utilizing different skills to prevent shoplifting this might not have been necessary.

 If you run a small boutique or record store in this case you may not have a giant corporation backing you up with internal theft investigators, and fancy anti theft programs but I’ve got good news for you. You don’t need these things to prevent shoplifting in your store.

 In my many years of working retail, ranging from giant companies to small boutiques, one thing has always remained the same. Good customer service will prevent shoplifting every time! You can train your employees to pay attention to provide excellent customer service and protect your merchandise at the same time.

 A greeter at your front doors lets your customers know that you are happy to see them while letting possible shoplifters know they have been seen eye to eye by at least one employee.

 A sales clerk on the floor can easily walk around the store and help your customers get thing from high shelves and make suggestions to up-sale your customers while keeping an eye on the corners and aisles where you are experiencing loss.

 A fitting room attendant can help your customers get the right sizes and offer opinions while counting items going into and leaving the fitting room.

 These are simple loss prevention techniques that you can utilize to prevent shoplifting in your store so your employees don’t feel the need to chase down shoplifters!

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 For more information on how you can prevent shoplifting contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 – Atlanta Georgia

 

I know how it sounds; it can’t be that easy to prevent shoplifting in your business, right? Believe it or not, it really can be. We all like to think that the people that still from us are these evil, hardened, mean spirited criminals. But, in reality, most people that shoplift are everyday people that find a way to justify their actions for one reason or another.

Studies have shown that this “justification” is partly achieved by people feeling secluded or detached from the store. They think of these businesses as these large, cold companies and not as a warm and welcoming store. Shoplifters like to be able to disappear into the background and become a random face, not someone who has been individually identified. If you, as a company, pride yourself on customer service and making all customers feel welcome, you will make a giant first step towards being able to prevent shoplifting.

From the moment someone walks through the door it is important to greet them, make eye contact and most of all smile. When this occurs there are a few things that go through a potential shoplifter’s mind.

First, they now know they have been seen. They are no longer just a random face passing through the store. Shoplifters want to stay anonymous. By making eye contact not only are they not anonymous but facial recognition has been made.

Second, if they feel a connection to the store or enjoy there shopping experience it makes “justifying” a petty theft, that much more difficult. Most amateur thieves aren’t people who would still from friends, heck; they aren’t even people who would steal from acquaintances.

Simply having good customer service, being welcoming, making eye contact and yes smiling can help you and your company prevent shoplifting.

For more information on how to prevent shoplifting, stay up to date with our latest blogs or feel free to contact us.

Actually, there is no one best way to prevent shoplifting.  Wherever merchandise is displayed there will be shoplifters, like flies around honey.

The best approach is to use a combination of shoplifting prevention methods that are customized for your customer base, location, and merchandise mix.  Although shoplifters will steal most anything, there are particular groups and types of merchandise that need extra attention.  These are the items that are “high theft/high value”.

Some of the more common strategies used by retailers to prevent shoplifting are:

· CCTV is good deterrent, but much more useful if there is staff available to watch the real time; otherwise they can only prove an event occurred.  Added value is to disprove slip and fall claims.

· Trained plainclothes store detectives are a great for large businesses with the budget to support them. Word gets out fast that a store is arresting and prosecuting shoplifters.

· Uniformed Police or Security Guards are also a budget buster, but necessary in some areas where shoplifting is rampant and violence is a threat.  These are more of a robbery deterrent than a way to prevent shoplifting.

· Placing merchandise in lockable display cabinets is secure, but will it reduce sales, or take too much of the staff’s time to unlock and relock?  And will they remember to do it?

· Posted signs that indicate shoplifters will be prosecuted may prevent some impulse thieves, but it may be a turn-off to legitimate shoppers.

· Arranging merchandise to keep high theft items near an occupied wrap stand, raise the cashier area for better viewing, and eliminate hidden areas are low cost avenues to prevent shoplifting.

· Training staff in shoplifting awareness policies and procedures will show them how to act or react when they see or suspect a shoplifter in the store.  This is another low cost/high value activity.

· Increase staffing when shoplifters are likely to hit.  Opening, closing, and after school are prime times for some stores.

· Every customer should be greeted soon after entering the store, so they are aware that someone knows they are there.  This is also a great customer service strategy.

· Retail anti theft devices (EAS) such as Checkpoint Security Systems. Checkpoint Security Systems electronic theft detection systems are designed to detect merchandise that has active Checkpoint Security Tags attached and emit an alarm as the shoplifter leaves the store.  Checkpoint security tags can only be removed by the cashier at the point of sale.

The retailer who wants to prevent shoplifting at his place of business should consider combining several of the methods that apply to his situation.

To see the latest in Checkpoint Security Systems and Checkpoint Security tags, visit our Online Loss Prevention Store.

Call 770-426-0547 to speak with an expert about Checkpoint Security Systems, Checkpoint Security tags, and other ways to prevent shoplifting, or click here for more information.

Retailers look for ways to prevent shoplifting when shoplifting causes problems with the P&L.  The business owner has to buy replacement merchandise to replace merchandise that is gone but hasn’t been sold.  Shoplifting can cause inventory shortages up to 3% or higher of total sales for a given period, higher that the net margin percentage for many businesses.

There are a lot of ways to begin the battle to prevent shoplifting, so the merchant is faced with choices.  More staff?  CCTV? Lockable displays? Merchandising plans?  Staff awareness training?  Retail anti theft devices?

All these things contribute to reduce shoplifting, but the retail business owner has to weigh expense against savings; merchandise security against customer access; and customer inconvenience against an invitation to touch, feel, and try on or try out merchandise that is openly displayed.

In other words, what action is going to have the biggest ROI, and keep the merchandise on the racks and on the shelves until a legitimate customer purchases it?

Checkpoint Systems Electronic Article Surveillance is one of the best and most efficient ways to prevent shoplifting while still leaving merchandise accessible to interested customers.  Checkpoint tags and Checkpoint labels attached to high dollar/high theft articles mean that if merchandise that hasn’t had the tags or labels removed at the point of sale exits the store by the Checkpoint Systems antennas, an alarm will sound.  The presence of the antennas at the entrance/exit to the store is enough to deter all but the most determined shoplifters.  Genuine Checkpoint labels and Checkpoint tags must be deactivated at the register or removed by a special tool in order not to set off the alarm.  It is simply to much work for a shoplifter to attempt to do this himself, and a shoplifter would surely attract attention if trying to remove it.  Shoplifters fine it much easier to find another store with similar merchandise but no Checkpoint Systems protection.

For a look at what’s available from Checkpoint Systems, Checkpoint tags, Checkpoint labels and much more, visit our Online Retail Loss Prevention Store.

To speak with someone on even more ways to prevent shoplifting, call 770-426-0547 or click here for more information on Checkpoint Systems, Checkpoint tags, and Checkpoint labels.

Is it more difficult to prevent shoplifting by teenagers than it is adults?  Maybe so.

Teenagers and younger do know right from wrong, so there’s no difference there.  There is apparently more susceptibility to peer pressure, not just regarding shoplifting, but in just about everything they do.  It seems as though they listen to the same music, watch the same TV shows, and dress alike most of the time.

To the retailer, the reasons don’t really matter much.  It’s the result of teenage shoplifters that really hurt the bottom line.

I’ve seen signs at the entrances of convenience stores that limit the number of teenagers allowed on the premises at any one time.  I remember as a young person being watched whenever I went into a store with one or more friends, when no adults were present.  Clearly, shoplifting by teenagers is a problem for many retailers who are always looking for better ways to prevent shoplifting.

Teenagers are going to shoplift.  There is no doubt about that.  Not every teenager, of course, but according to the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office, around 24% of apprehended shoplifters are teenagers.

One reason teenagers are bold shoplifters seems to be that they are unafraid of punishment.  They realize that if caught as a first timer, they are apt to be dealt with lightly by the justice system, if not their parents.  As a facilitator for a county program aimed to prevent shoplifting among teenagers, I found very few apprehended teenagers had been told specifically not to shoplift by their parents.  Now I’m sure they were never specifically told not to steal a car either, but like shoplifting, because the parents never thought their kids would shoplift.

But the fact is that they do. 

One way to ease the retailer’s mind about shoplifting and the problems it brings is the installation of Checkpoint Security Systems EAS.  Teens and other shoplifters recognize Checkpoint Systems as they enter the store and realize that their plans to shoplift just ran into a snag.  Application of Checkpoint tags and Checkpoint labels to high theft merchandise makes shoplifting too much like work for the thief as they are unable to remove or deactivate the tags and labels (it can only be done by the cashier with the proper equipment) and they then decide to go to another store where there is no EAS equipment installed.

Short of barring teens from the store, Checkpoint Security Systems is the most efficient and economical way to prevent shoplifting from any retail environment.

Call 770-426-0547 or click here to learn more ways to prevent shoplifting, and information about Checkpoint tags, Checkpoint labels, and Checkpoint Security Systems.

Sometimes it is the little things that can become big ways to prevent shoplifting. A primary example is to arrange your shelving and displays to maximize the viewing area for your cashiers. For locations that are tougher to see you can use convex mirrors or cameras that are attached to monitors located at the front of your store.

 Shoplifters prefer not to be seen and if you are not careful you could create a great environment for theft without realizing. If you keep everything open and long line of sights, a potential shoplifter will feel as though they cannot move without being seen by someone.

 Another thing to remember is to keep your less expensive items close to the doors and the more expensive items further away. This will make it tougher for the shoplifting “track stars” that instead of trying to be stealthy, prefer to grab and item and 40 yd dash out your front door.

 Also, having helpful and friendly personnel great all of your customers can greatly reduce shoplifting as well. When an employee makes eye contact and greets your customers, it will make your paying customers feel welcomer but will also make your thieves realize that there is now someone who can identify them.

 If you find yourself still losing too much profit to people with sticky fingers, I would recommend purchasing an Electronic Article Surveillance system or as I like to call it, “one of those things that go beep beep beep when someone steals something” system. With one of these systems, you tag the merchandise that you do not want stolen and if someone tries to, even the track star, the system will alarm and let you and your associates know that a piece of merchandise is leaving the store when it shouldn’t.

 To purchase an EAS system or EAS tags visit our website.

For more information on how to Prevent Shoplifting or one of our many other blogs to improve your bottom line, visit us online or call 1-770-426-0547

The big box stores seem to have unlimited resources to devote to ways to prevent shoplifting, from a dedicated staff of loss prevention professionals to buying and using the latest and greatest retail theft prevention devices.

The “Mom and Pop” retail operations are able to everything the major retailers can do, although they have to do it on a smaller and more economical scale.

Although there may be no budget for a loss prevention staff, the duties of LP can be allocated among the other employees: management, sales, and stock.  Have both a prevention plan to deter shoplifters and an action plan so that everyone knows what to do if there is an actual shoplifting event occurring.  Be sure that everyone, especially management, knows what to do and takes part in the effort to prevent and detect shoplifting.

Prevention is the preferred way to avoid shoplifting losses, as opposed to recovering the stolen merchandise from the shoplifter, as it avoids confrontations and unpleasant situations occurring on the sales floor.  Not all shoplifters will go quietly to the office to talk the incident over.

One of the best and most painless ways to get a shoplifter’s attention and let him know that there are better places to steal is with the purchase and use of Electronic Article Surveillance (EAS) by Checkpoint Security Systems.  This is the equalizer between the large stores and the smaller operations.

The placement of the Checkpoint Security Systems antennas at the customer entrance/exit serves as a deterrent to any potential thief because it announces that this store takes shoplifting seriously by it presence.  The shoplifter will realize that his chances of being caught just went up exponentially.

All merchandise is protected either by Checkpoint tags or Checkpoint labels.  When the merchandise passes through the antennas with an active tag or label, an alarm sounds, alerting staff to attend to the customer who is exiting the store.  This is done in a low key, quiet manner, so as to not attract the attention of other shoppers.  The Checkpoint tags and Checkpoint labels can only be removed or deactivated by sales clerks at the point of sale with specialized equipment.

Shoplifters know Checkpoint Security Systems and avoid retail businesses that use them.  If a rat has a choice of taking the cheese that is in a trap or cheese that isn’t, which do you think he would choose?

Prevent shoplifting at your location and send the shoplifters on to other stores bu using Checkpoint Systems equipment.

Find more ways to prevent shoplifting and get more information on Checkpoint Security Systems, Checkpoint labels, and Checkpoint tags by calling 770-426-0547 or click here: Stop Shoplifting.

No one is in a better position to make decisions about solutions to prevent shoplifting than the affected business owner.  These decisions should never be made without a complete analysis of the factors that caused the inventory shrinkage problem and gaining all the information he can possibly obtain.  This is a decision that should not be made by the seat of the pants.

The cause of the problem may be obvious.  Management may receive reports from employees or even customers that have witnessed theft by shoppers.  Merchandise may mysteriously be missing from its place of display.  There are any number of things that may signal a shoplifting problem, the most serious being inventory loss that translates into lost profits.

One of the most effective solutions to prevent shoplifting comes from Checkpoint Security Systems.  The use of antennas from Checkpoint Systems, along with Checkpoint tags and Checkpoint labels will alert store personnel when an item that has not been paid for is leaving the store or department, but will deter all but the most determined shoplifter from attempting to steal from the store as well.

Antennas from Checkpoint Security Systems can detect tags on merchandise of all shapes and sizes.  There are Checkpoint tags designed to protect everything from hardware to underwear.  Checkpoint labels are attached to groceries, boxes, packages, and some types of apparel.   Almost any type or style of high theft merchandise can be protected by a tag or label from Checkpoint Security Systems.

No matter the size of the business, a Checkpoint Security System will be a cost effective solution because profit gained from selling merchandise that would have otherwise been stolen will quickly recover the cost of the system.

Click here to visit our Online Retail Loss Prevention Store.

Learn even more ways to prevent shoplifting by clicking here:  Stop Shoplifting or call 770-426-0547 in Atlanta Georgia.   

 

What maybe holding you back to prevent shoplifting is your own attitude? Retailers should look with in themselves before they invest in any systems or equipment such as CCTV. If you have an attitude of not attacking your shoplifting problem through customer service then you probably do not have a good foundation to build on. Any equipment or systems you add will simply be an investment that never pays off.

Customer service is the main tool to prevent shoplifting losses. Real customers love customer service, shoplifters hate it. The exciting part of this is that the more you do the better your sales. If your staff is aggressive with good customer service, knowing the products your store sells and is not adverse to approach each and every customer your sales will increase. And as important “add on sales” will increase. For example if an employee is assisting a customer who is purchasing an product that takes accessories is that employee discussing the good and bad points of those items. Are they making recommendations and offering additional items?

Doing this will expose the shoplifter. Shoplifters react differently. Shoplifters will resist the attention. Of course, some legitimate customers will not need as much attention but an experienced employee will notice differences such as a lack of interest in the product being purchased and indifference about price.

So what does your employee do now? If they suspect that the “customer” is possibility a shoplifter this is not the time to back off. If the “customer” is resisting customer service then the employee should stay in the area and be very visible. This will frustrate the vast majority of shoplifters. In many cases the shoplifter will move on to an easier target, your competitor.

Your store will earn the reputation as the place that provides good customer service. That will spread by word of mouth. Friends do tell friends. This will also happen with shoplifters. Shoplifters do talk and will share this information. Then the shoplifters themselves will be helping to prevent shoplifting in YOUR store.

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