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By some estimates, shoplifting accounts for as much as $30 billion in retail loss per year in America. The average loss for a store amounts to nearly two percent of gross sales, which impacts profitability. For this reason, store owners are understandably concerned with how to prevent shoplifting and how to structure their retail loss prevention procedures.
Preventing shoplifting requires both a proactive approach to monitoring customers, usually with video cameras and surveillance, as well as coaching on how to discern the furtive movements of a shoplifter. There are risks to confronting a suspected shoplifter, including the possibility of being mistaken or that they put the merchandise back on the shelf while you weren’t looking, so read every piece of information you can find on this topic and consult with your local police department to know your rights.
Consider the following retail loss prevention measures:
• Cameras – Make sure they are of sufficient quality to actual identify a person after the fact. Grainy images will be of no help to police and may have less likelihood of standing up in court.
• Signs – “We prosecute for shoplifting” may have a psychological effect, but don’t overdo your signage either, as your honest customers may feel that they are under suspicion.
• Monitoring – A dedicated, uniformed security person in the office watching the video feeds, or a plainclothes secret shopper who patrols the sales floor.
It is important to realize that shoplifters have no particular “look” to them. If you follow around a disheveled patron simply because he looks like he’d want to steal, you might overlook the well-dressed woman who cleverly conceals expensive merchandise in her purse.
If your store is particularly susceptible to theft, you can deter thieves and thereby prevent shoplifting by having unconcealed cameras in prominent locations, as opposed to cameras that are concealed. The cameras should be monitored by security personnel or, at the very least, highly trained employees, as you don’t want an overzealous “deputy” to cause embarrassment by falsely accusing someone. (We’ll cover what to do if you need to make an apprehension in a separate article.)
As we’ve pointed out before, retail loss prevention is time consuming and can be expensive. But given the huge losses that theft and larceny can result in, you can see how important it is to prevent shoplifting wherever possible.
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Allied Lock and Safe is a Wholesale distributor of Pemko, KwikSet, Baldwin, Olympus and Security Products.