Working On The Ground Level

In spite of all of my years of experience in catching shoplifters, I am always worried that they will spot me watching them. It’s not that it would be the worst thing that could possibly happen, mind you. More than likely the shoplifter will discard the merchandise before they make any attempts to walk out the door with it. It prevents the loss of product, which is ultimately what retail theft prevention is about.

What I personally don’t like is feeling like I have wasted all the time watching them, and the potential shoplifter leaves without any recourse. That means that they will probably come back in and make another attempt at stealing from my stores.

I spoke with one of my mentors about the concern and he gave me an interesting piece of advice- Get down on the ground to avoid detection. Now he wasn’t talking about sprawling down on the floor and staying there. He was talking about lowering down to avoid being in the shoplifters line of sight.

A shoplifter is trying to avoid detection at all costs. They are maintaining constant vigilance and eyesight towards anyone that comes within their line of sight. As such, they are focused primarily on the movements that are straight ahead, at their eye level.

A shoplifter is not looking down, to see if someone is kneeling down, spying on them. I have since developed my own trick to watching shoplifters closer up. I kneel down beside a table, or a rounder of clothing. So I don’t look suspicious to the shoplifter, or any other customers, I pretend to be tying my shoe. Even if my shoe doesn’t have actual laces on it, if I am fiddling with my shoe, no one is suspicious, and I am below the shoplifter’s line of sight.

Of all the cases I have watched that I have used this trick, not one shoplifter has known that I was watching them from a few feet away. I still feel like I could be noticed at any time, and I guess that feeling will never go away. I do know that my trick has been proven to work for me in the past, and will stay successful in the future.