After spending years trying to prevent losses and instill superior clothing security in my stores, I recently had the chance to be on the flip side. I had a partnership with one of the other managers at a neighboring retailer. We called each other frequently to discuss trends and share ORT information. One day he asked me to help him do some shoplifter awareness training for his store. I would come in as a customer and start stealing. It would be a test to see how many associates were aware of what was going on in their departments.

So on the scheduled time and date I entered. One of the first things I did was to go to their accessories department and pick out a large bag. I was able to find one without any Checkpoint tags on it. As I rode up an escalator to the clothing upstairs, I pulled the tag off.  Now it looked to everyone on the second level that the bag was mine.

I then spent the next thirty minutes stuffing the bag with as much merchandise as what I could fit. I tried to use as many shoplifter-warning signs that I could think of. Selecting multiple items without regard to size or color. I looked through items to find which one did not have any sort of clothing security tag.  I wanted to get out the doors without sounding the clothing alarm.

By the time I was done, I had been to the top five shrink areas and made it out the door with approximately $4000.00. In a recap later, my colleague told me about some of the phone calls from associates when they saw me stealing. I don’t feel too bad about being a poor shoplifter. The associates learned a lot that day. Not just about how a shoplifter operates, but also how important clothing security and Checkpoint tags are.

Please note: This training exercise was conducted in an extremely controlled environment. We had approval from both corporate headquarters and both parties signed a written agreement. The associates were aware that the test would be conducted on that day, and the entire test was filmed. All merchandise was returned in new condition as soon as I exited the store.

Visit the Loss Prevention Store to purchase a clothing alarm or clothing security tags.

For more information on Checkpoint tags, clothing security, clothing alarm, or clothing security tags contact us at security tags on clothes or call 1.770.426.0547

Even though it’s still cold outside, many clothing retailers are marking down the cold weather product and making way for the new spring collections.  For most it is also the beginning of the new fiscal year so the time to add clothing security, such as clothing security tags and a clothing alarm, is now.  Here are the reasons why.

First, putting security tags on clothes is not really an option if you want to keep profits high.  Shoplifting is at an all-time high and not store is immune.  To add to the already theft laden market, warm weather clothes are the easiest to steal.  It is pretty conspicuous when someone puts on a second jacket and tries to walk out.  It is also obvious when large sweaters are stuffed under someone’s shirt.  What is not obvious is when that women puts on a high dollar bikini and walks out.  The customer who pockets the new sunglasses or steals a pair of shorts is not obvious.  The smaller / skimpier products are just plain easier to steal and must be protected.

Since we have to put security tags on clothes I suggest using Checkpoint tags.  Checkpoint tags are cost effective.  Checkpoint tags are also reliable and known to shoplifters so they are a great theft deterrent.  You will also need a clothing alarm from Checkpoint as well so that when the customer tries to walk out with concealed product you will be alerted and can respond to the potential theft.

 The second reason to get your clothing security now is that it is the beginning of the year.  The price of this investment isn’t going to change so by making this acquisition at the beginning of the year you get to reap the benefits of your investment for the full year instead of only part of the year.  It just makes sense to get your full money’s worth by buying sooner rather than later.

Visit the Loss Prevention Store to purchase a clothing alarm or clothing security tags.

For more information on Checkpoint tags, clothing security, clothing alarm, or clothing security tags contact us at security tags on clothes or call 1.770.426.0547

A very large portion of my job that doesn’t involve conducting investigations is performing audits. I am a whiz at audits. I can audit anything and everything, quantify the data and then present a very accurate look at the pulse of a store.

One of the biggest areas that I audit is security tags on clothes. When it comes to clothing security, having something like Checkpoint tags is really an industry standard. Having proper execution of those tags? Sometimes it seems like it is an optional program.

The first part of the audit is to know what the standards are for that type of clothing. Is it above $50? Only certain brands? The next step is to take a random sampling of that product group (say 25 or 50 items) and start counting how many Checkpoint tags are attached. Take note that the clothing security tags are in the right place on the garment.

You should now be able to convert your findings into a percentage. Is this an acceptable number? Some retailers expect at least 95% compliance. Others may only require 80 -85%.

I would compare these percentages against current losses, recovered tags, and apprehensions and see if there is a correlation to poor clothing security standards and current shrink trends. Generally there is a big solid line connecting the two.

I also look at associate engagement in those areas with high or increasing shrink, and poor clothing security. Again, there is usually a common denominator present.

The last thing is to take those findings to the management staff. Having concrete numbers to back up what I am trying to enforce goes a long way. It also helps my managers have something concrete if any sort of performance action is needed with the department’s associates.

 Visit the Loss Prevention Store to purchase a clothing alarm or clothing security tags.

For more information on Checkpoint tags, clothing security, clothing alarm, or clothing security tags contact us at security tags on clothes or call 1.770.426.0547

It’s not an ideal situation, but you’ve got to be kidding yourself if you don’t admit that the occasional security tag on clothes is missed. While we try hard to ensure total accuracy, it can be difficult to be 100% all the time. Fear not, there is a bright side to this situation. Recently while watching cameras in my store I observed a subject with a large bag browsing the denim. What tipped me off that this subject was suspicious was that the subject wasn’t just browsing for the right size or color; they were looking for the pairs that didn’t have checkpoint tags attached. After further observation I observed the subject concealing the merchandise and I was able to apprehend and recover our merchandise.

Checkpoint tags are not easy to defeat by the average shoplifter. However everybody knows that as our technology in clothing security advances, so does the professional shoplifter advance. Yet again, there is a bright side! A few weeks ago two individuals came into my store with bags from another retailer. The subjects began grabbing a large amount of merchandise very quickly and we barely had a chance to clear the fitting rooms before they got in. There was no time to get a detailed list of what they grabbed and they paid no attention to if the merchandise had clothing security tags or not. They must have known a way to remove the tags so that they didn’t set off the clothing alarm at the exit. All we knew was that they went in with about 30 items. When they came out it was tough to know for certain, but their bags seemed a bit larger. We rushed to the fitting room to find it a mess with about half the stuff they went in with. The biggest sign we had to know that they had stolen was the pile of about 10 clothing security tags hidden under some of the merchandise. After apprehending the subjects we were able to recover our merchandise and identify some professional shoplifters that had been terrorizing the area for some time.

The ideal situation is for clothing security to protect our merchandise from theft every time. But the bottom line is that everything can be defeated, and the key is to use the flaws of security tags on clothes to your benefit.

Visit the Loss Prevention Store to purchase a clothing alarm or clothing security tags.

For more information on Checkpoint tags, clothing security, clothing alarm, or clothing security tags contact us at security tags on clothes or call 1.770.426.0547

All of us within the loss prevention field have had those moments where we question how people can prove to be so lacking in common sense or logic.

It wasn’t until around five in the afternoon last Saturday that our shoplifter du jour walked through the first floor mall entry point.  Right away the woman set off every alert signal in the profession: clothes that didn’t fit the weather, an almost immediate focus on the cameras, and she made a path for one of the most secluded corners of the first floor, which just so happened to be located next to the designer shirts.  With two LP detectives observing through the CCTV and one on the floor we bore witness to this young woman pull two empty shopping bags from her pockets and then began moving from rack to rack deftly pulling clothes from there hangers and dropping them in her bags in front of dozens of other customers, some of whom spoke out or reported her actions to store employees.  She paid no attention to the fact that there were Checkpoint tags on the items she selected.  It took her all of three minutes to get her fill and try to escape through another entrance where immediately all of the clothing security tags triggered the alarm just as two LP detectives and three local police officers converged on her.  In spite of the witnesses who pointed her out, in spite of the clothing alarms that alerted everyone to her theft, in spite of the blatant video evidence she protested her innocence and insisted we were all crazy and she would see us on the end of a lawsuit.

Right now she is facing five years in prison for the extent of her crimes.

Visit the Loss Prevention Store to purchase a clothing alarm or clothing security tags.

For more information on Checkpoint tags, clothing security, clothing alarm, or clothing security tags contact us at security tags on clothes or call 1.770.426.0547

For those of us in Loss Prevention, Organized Retail Crime is probably the second biggest threat to a store’s bottom line right behind internal theft.  Every ORC syndicate is different in methodology and composition and therefore each one must be discovered and dealt with differently.  There is no ‘silver bullet’ no ‘perfect system’ to catch these seasoned thieves in the act and they have been at it for so long that shoplifting is their primary source of income; therefore they have made it their business to know our capabilities and our equipment.  It doesn’t mean we can’t catch them, but it does mean they are among the hardest shoplifters to stop.

At my particular store, ORC syndicates target high end clothing and accessories nine times out of ten.  Even with our extensive camera network and with security tags on clothes and purses they still manage to beat us a fair amount of time.  But, every so often we manage to stop them by taking advantage of what we know and what we have at our disposal.  At my store we use Checkpoint tags on our clothes and purses.  The ORC groups know this and all have their methods for dealing with them be it taking them to a fitting room and snapping off the tags with tools or stuffing them in foil-lined bags to try and confuse the clothing alarm.  Usually, while they go about trying to remove or disable the clothing security tags they have something else going on to catch our attention or screen their movements.  Even if they have a plan to be in and out before we have time to react, the amount of time they need to invest to deal with the Checkpoint tags gives us the opportunity to stop them.

Visit the Loss Prevention Store to purchase a clothing alarm or clothing security tags.

For more information on Checkpoint tags, clothing security, clothing alarm, or clothing security tags contact us at security tags on clothes or call 1.770.426.0547

When you work in clothing sales, you start to live in a different sense of seasonality. Swim suits start to show up in the dead of winter. Coats make their appearances in the sweltering heat of August. This is in addition to the constant change of new product on a daily basis in some retailers. When you spend significant payroll hours remerchandising and setting new POGs, clothing security is often pushed to the bottom of the priority list.

It may seem that the need for clothing security doesn’t always outweigh the costs involved starting it up. Here are some common concerns about clothing security tags.

Hard tags are expensive: Yes, the initial investment can be a large sum of money. However, Checkpoint tags cannot be deactivated. The pins and tags are physically removed at the point of purchase. That means the tags are reusable. Once the initial purchase of hard tags is made, there is a minimal financial upkeep.

How will one product work for all my merchandise? The clothing security tags have different sized pins or lanyards that will accommodate just about every scenario needed.

Regardless of which season’s clothing you are getting in, there is a Checkpoint tag designed to fit. After your clothes are tagged, they will stay secured no matter how many times they are moved around. It will be one less thing to check off when you do your next plan o gram.

 Visit the Loss Prevention Store to purchase a clothing alarm or clothing security tags.

For more information on Checkpoint tags, clothing security tags, clothing alarm, or clothing security contact us at security tags on clothes or call 1.770.426.0547

Having a clothing alarm in your store is obviously the best clothing security device you can employ. That being said the system is only as good as the people and policies that work and are enforced within those same four walls. Being a multi unit loss prevention manager allowed me to see how good or how bad a clothing alarm could work depending on the store staffs. In the good stores the employees were trained from day one on the importance of clothing security, how to place security tags on clothes, how the clothing security tags functioned and how to properly react to a clothing alarm.

Knowledgeable store managers knew that having a Checkpoint system was a benefit that if worked with properly could reduce the store’s shrink. They also understood that the weakest employee would be their weakest link in shrink reduction. An inept employee could affect the clothing alarm system a number of ways; for example, they could improperly place security tags on clothes causing damage to the product or offering little or no deterrence to the potential shoplifter, they could simply forget to apply the checkpoint tags and they could improperly react to a clothing alarm by overreacting or not reacting at all. The good store managers are always on top of training and auditing compliance of the consistency and proper application of the checkpoint tags.

One of my stores was constantly having issues with attempts and successful defeats of the clothing security tags. This is a huge red flag that there are much larger problems within a store. I immediately called my district sales counterpart to review and crunch some numbers. We sat down and reviewed inventory counts as well as daily, weekly and monthly sales trends and quickly realized that shrink was trending up and sales were trending down. I knew this would be the case but I wanted my sales partner to be there when I put the two trends together so that he could see how I came about that conclusion from a few defeated checkpoint tags.

To forcibly attempt to defeat security tags on clothes you bring a lot of attention to yourself as well as make a lot of noise. Having this many repeated offenses within one store told me that the staff was not employing good customer service and had become task oriented as opposed to paying attention to their surroundings and more importantly to the customer. I invited my sales partner to sit in the LP office and watch the performance of his staff. Within an hour we had concluded that indeed a mass training effort was needed, and as a side note he helped me and one of my store detectives apprehend a shoplifter who had cut a couple checkpoint tags and stuffed shirts down his pants.

My sales partner could not believe we had found poor sales numbers and poor customer service practices as a result of finding defeated clothing security tags. I explained to him that the checkpoint system is helpful on many levels and every piece if studied can give you insight as to the entire business not merely loss prevention. From that point on we shared a great partnership that opened many insights for both of us into either side of the business. That type of partnership allows for deeper understanding of business decisions that on the surface you with which you may not agree. Clothing security is imperative and necessary but one must never forget to utilize every facet of the checkpoint system. I always tell my peers never doubt what a checkpoint system can do for your business.

Visit the Loss Prevention Store to purchase a clothing alarm or clothing security tags.

For more information on Checkpoint tags, clothing security, clothing alarm, or clothing security tags contact us at security tags on clothes or call 1.770.426.0547

I worked a case regarding a theft ring that was into designer handbags. I partnered up with one of the other retailers in the mall where we were anchor stores. They had suffered big losses in this department, and were sure that we would be next on the list.

Immediately we got to work on our clothing security. The checkpoint tags were already in the store for a different product group. It was the most obvious way to push clothing security into the handbag department.

In addition to the checkpoint tags, we talked to our handbag department, telling them to be extra vigilant. If they saw even the slightest thing that made them suspicious, they were to call us. We made extra visits to the department and made sure our CCTV covered the area completely. We were sure we were set.

Sure enough, a week later, the ring came into our store. It was right at closing time when the associates were finishing up for the day. There were five of them. They came in, each grabbed as many bags as they could and ran out the door. I heard the clothing alarm, raced to the door, and saw as the last one exited. They had a car waiting for them.

Not wanting to face a five to one showdown, I contacted the local PD and gave them the license plate number from their vehicle. I knew exactly what had been taken and had the video to back it up. Because of the checkpoint tags setting the clothing alarm off, we had an immediate reaction to the theft.

The PD was able to recover all but two of the bags because of this timely information.

  Visit the Loss Prevention Store to purchase a clothing alarm or clothing security tags.

For more information on Checkpoint tags, clothing security, clothing alarm, or clothing security tags contact us at security tags on clothes or call 1.770.426.0547

 

While working for a mid sized clothing retailer I experienced the growing pains of a company trying to implement goals and policies from a large clothing company. One of those tools was the Checkpoint system which is a rf based clothing alarm system. It is the best clothing security system on the market. The decision to employ a clothing alarm that requires security tags on clothes lets you know from the beginning it is an interactive process to make use of storewide clothing security. That interactive partnership is not just within the loss prevention department but with all employees including management. This can prove to be a challenge since any requirement that demands more work and additional payroll can cause conflict among department heads.

The main conflict was between loss prevention and the sales department. The sales department assumed that the loss prevention department would responsible for placing all of the checkpoint tags on the product. Three people could not place the security tags on clothes while also protecting the store. The sales department and loss prevention had to sit down and review Checkpoint’s training materials which very explicitly explained that implementation and success was based on every employee’s willingness to take part in the deployment of the system. While the structure was being installed we jumped into the main differences between the departments to diffuse the problems before the system installation was complete. Once we reviewed the overall clothing security plan which included attaching, auditing and removing clothing security tags, it was fully understood by both sides that they had to work together to ensure a successful deployment. The training material and the support from the checkpoint representative were the grease on the hard to mesh gears. The training material mapped out the success to clothing security in a very detailed fashion. The main overall point throughout the training was triumph through teamwork. We also learned that consistency on the application of the clothing security tags was very important as well as daily or weekly audits of the checkpoint tags for compliance.

The process was slow only because of the friction that already existed within the company between sales and loss prevention. I do feel though that because the checkpoint system required interaction from everyone it brought the two departments closer whether they liked it or not. Employees from both sides of the fence working shoulder to shoulder placing security tags on clothes gave them all a vested interest to protect inventory as well as insight into each others day to day activities. Loss prevention took care of the auditing process to ensure the checkpoint tags were placed on the clothes correctly and consistently. The sales department ensured all employees knew how to react when the clothing alarm was activated if someone attempted to take a piece of clothing from the store without the clothing security tags being removed. The sales department also ensured the checkpoint tags were removed at the point of sale to reduce false alarms. It was every employee’s duty to ensure the detacher that removed the clothing security tags was kept secured at all times. In the end the checkpoint system became a healing salve that allowed the company to grow closer and start the process of growing together to become bigger and better everyday.

Visit the Loss Prevention Store to purchase a clothing alarm or clothing security tags.

For more information on Checkpoint tags, clothing security, clothing alarm, or clothing security tags contact us at security tags on clothes or call 1.770.426.0547