Without Checkpoint Tags Those Jeans Were Made For Walking!

While out shopping with the family recently I had occasion to tell a work story. After a few groans and eye rolls from my wife and 7year old, I began pointing out that much of the apparel they were looking at had clothing security tags, in particular Checkpoint tags. Big items, small items it didn’t matter clothing security was everywhere. Clearly this store, a run of the mill retailer who shall remain nameless, wasn’t messing around. They had realized that investing time and money upfront was going to pay dividends come inventory.

At this point the family was near mutiny so I began the actual story.  It was my first year doing LP and my partners and I had returned from a meeting outside of the store. We were barely a few feet inside the doors when our fitting room associate called us over and informed us that a girl had been in the store since the doors opened and repeatedly went into the fitting room with the max of six garment. This process had been repeated dozens of times before she finally left without buying anything.

Classic that this happened while we were gone but even worse we knew that the fitting room made the likely hood of making an apprehension very slim, unless of course she would be nice enough to exit it with less than she started with. This of course hadn’t been the case.  After a quick review of the video we confirmed several hundred dollars in theft. Our lack of clothing security, in particular clothing security tags had allowed our guest to put on and wear out dozens of pairs of jeans, leggings and bras without leaving behind a single shred of proof. 

I hate losing. Especially when a simple investment in Checkpoint tags, just very basic clothing security and it would have been avoided. Having the clothing security tags on the garments would have likely driven away the prospective thief. She had clearly been very concerned with detection and spent considerable time slowly building up the amount she was taking, all the while being very careful to not leave anything behind. 

Checkpoint tags would have forced her to make some hard decisions, ones that would prevent her from remaining undetected. If she took the time to remove the clothing security tags on the sales floor she risked detection. Removing them in the fitting room would leave evidence and leaving them on would prevent her and out jeans from walking out the front door without triggering the alarm.  It was a costly example of how a lack of clothing security exposes you to serious losses. 

After that year’s inventory our apparel shrink had gone from the traditionally expected overage to a pretty steep amount of shrink. It was then that the they made the move to begin taking clothing security seriously and protect their inventory with Checkpoint tags. The results were immediate. Our clothing apprehensions increased but more importantly our recoveries by staff increased, very quickly accounting for a few thousand dollars in merchandise customers “forgot” they had put in their bags. 

I concluded my story to thunderous applause, well more like the sound of my family running away from me but that doesn’t change the facts about clothing security and the success of the Checkpoint tags. In a world of $135 jeans and $30 designer underwear even a small amount of merchandise lost can be a significant hit to your bottom line. Don’t let your hard earned profits and your jeans go walking out the front door. 

Need information on Checkpoint Tags?  Give us a call at 1.770.426.0547 now