anti-theft devices

HOW SOCIAL MEDIA CAN HELP BUILD SUBSTANTIAL SHOPLIFTING CASES

August 2, 2016 by Staff Editor Leave a Comment

Facebook and other social media sites can be a proverbial gold-mine of information; especially if you are dealing with a rather stupid criminal. In my job, I see and interview dozens and dozens of “professional” shoplifters every month. My job is to get as much Intel as possible from them and make bigger cases. Often, that means working very closely with local and state law enforcement officials and even other retailers. No other time have I had such a prolific criminal than with “Jane”.

I first met Jane at my home store (I am responsible for 30). My agent apprehended Jane and several of her cohorts after they attempted leaving the store with several hundred dollars’ worth of clothing concealed on them. After they left for jail, I started my research. Facebook has become my first stop. 10 seconds later I find her page. Completely open to the public. First thing I see is this:

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure this one out. As a seasoned investigator, Just looking at this told me it was stolen. Based on some other photos, I knew this came from one of my stores. Since Jane was nice enough to keep her profile public and include a time, date and location stamp on those pictures, I started my research. Within an hour, I found corresponding CCTV footage of her entering another one of my store locations. Sure as heck, I had video of her stealing everything in this picture. I started scrolling from there. I found that she was also returning stolen goods for gift cards. She posted some shots of a few from my stores. In the comment section (which generates a lot of activity) she was kind enough to take a photo of the rear of the card. I suspended the funds ☺

With all this great information, I decided to compile it all and share it with law enforcement and my LP contacts throughout the state. I was able to make some significant cases on this very prolific shoplifter from some simple research on a social media page. In fact, the evidence was enough to cut several warrants for her arrest, which caught up to her relatively quick in a place, far, far from her home. ☺

To me, what’s even more ridiculous is reading the comments on her “items”. It would seem as though everyone on her “friends list” is well aware of how she is obtaining the merchandise and are even encouraging the actions. These are the types of people that hurt big box retailers and that can put small shops out of business. These are the shoplifters we need to focus on and the ones that the criminal justice system need to come down hard on. The only thing that will stop Jane from stealing is being behind bars. This is her full time job.

Jane is not alone. Across the country and in every city, there are shoplifters that are targeting your stores that do this for a living. They steal full time instead of getting a job. As Loss Prevention professionals, these are the cases that deserve prosecution to the fullest extent allowed by law.

So the next time you’re dealing with a shoplifter, take the extra step and see what you can’t uncover from their online footprint. You may be surprised at what you find!

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Fighting Shoplifting In Your Store

July 20, 2016 by Staff Editor Leave a Comment

Prevention is one of the most important aspects of loss prevention. Trained personnel with the ability to respond effectively when a crisis arises, can save lives and money to the retail store. CCTV while providing a great help to loss prevention personnel, and being used by most retailers, is often viewed as dated technology that even when used is not used properly. Trained personnel on the floor can be a powerful prevention “tool” for the loss prevention team, while providing a deterrent to the possible shoplifter entering your store.

For more about this and other topics, follow the links below.

LP101: Commitment to Loss Prevention Training & Development

As contradictory as it might sound, the stability of our loss prevention program is largely dependent on our ability to react and respond to change; and that begins with our people. The evolution of a successful and productive team is an ongoing process. Every member of our team has both personal and professional objectives and agendas, all of which will impact their approaches, their performance, their outlook and their potential.

Most managers understand the importance of getting the right players on their team, and putting those players in the right roles. We attempt to hire talented individuals, place them in positions where we feel they can be most successful, and provide them with the appropriate loss prevention training to meet the needs and expectations of the job.

Establishing and maintaining the expertise necessary to perform our required function demands that we develop the knowledge, skills, proficiencies and abilities of our team. Strong loss prevention training practices help build success. We train to cover the bases—the rules and guidelines, the fundamental competencies of the job, the essential ground rules that help to make people better at the position that they are in.

IN LOSS PREVENTION, DATA — AND YOUR GUT — IS KEY FOR DECISION MAKING

Have you ever experienced a nagging feeling before you’re about to finally make a big decision? You’ve weighed all the data, you’ve considered every angle, but something is keeping you from moving forward. Rather than ignore that nagging feeling and forge ahead, Shelley Row says we need to get to the bottom of it.

Row, an author and expert on executive decision-making, addressed a group of loss prevention professionals gathered for the NRF PROTECT Loss Prevention Conference and Expo — a group that faces difficult decisions on a daily basis, be it combating shrink, performing interrogations, investigating organized retail crime rings or responding to active shooter situations. In researching and interviewing executives about their decision-making process, Row related what she heard to neuroscience and the mechanics of how we use different parts of our brain to make different kinds of decisions.

Loss Prevention: Research Findings from Professor Martin Gill

I recently led a study looking at the future of loss prevention.

Supported by Marks and Spencer but involving representatives from loss prevention in leading retailers, the study posed questions on the scope of loss prevention work; how budgets are set and influenced and how expenditure and on going work is justified; and the perceived effectiveness of a different measures used to mitigate loss. A full copy of the report is available here.

What did the study find?

Sometimes technology is presented as an unqualified good, but this is to oversimplify the position. Sure, it offers real opportunities to better understand threats and therefore to improve the response.

But getting the right technology is tricky. There is a lot out there and determining what is best is one problem, and things change quickly; it can be difficult to keep up.

And offenders use technology too, and rather effectively, committing offences from afar. These people can be difficult to detect and even more difficult to prosecute.

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Local Police and Their Communities

July 15, 2016 by Staff Editor Leave a Comment

shopliftingdollarsign The amount of calls reported by Walmart stores to the local police are staggering. According to the Tampa Bay Times, Walmart stores in Tampa report an outstanding 16,800 calls in only one year and in only 4 counties. That’s 2 calls per hour, every hour, 24 hours a day. That’s your taxes working for Walmart. While the lack of police surveillance of other neighborhoods can affect those communities, Walmart monopolization of the police force should be analyze, and stopped for good.

For more about this and other stories, follow the links below.

Retail Loss Prevention and Law Enforcement – Can They Work Together?

Law enforcement and LP should work together on retail theft prevention.

For years, there have been those that have questioned whether retail loss prevention and law enforcement can effectively work in partnership with one another. For example retail loss prevention professionals have often felt frustrated that law enforcement wasn’t concerned about helping them with their business. In reality, detectives may have been focusing on other pressing crimes, such as a rash of burglaries, sexual assaults, or other crimes against people.

Consider the aftermath of a “grab and run” incident. From a law enforcement perspective, the number of people who had access to a particular area when a loss occurs may be very high, with little or no available means to identify who the perpetrators might be. Some believe that law enforcement has the ability to further clarify and zoom in on video already recorded to extract a better image.

Walmart

Thousands of police calls.

You paid the bill.

Police come to shoo away panhandlers, referee parking disputes and check on foul-mouthed teenagers.

They are called to arrest the man who drinks a 98-cent iced tea without paying and capture the customer who joyrides on a motorized shopping cart.

The calls eat up hours of officers’ time. They all start at one place:

Walmart.

Law enforcement logged nearly 16,800 calls in one year to Walmarts in Pinellas, Hillsborough, Pasco and Hernando counties, according to a Tampa Bay Timesanalysis. That’s two calls an hour, every hour, every day.

Local Walmarts, on average, generated four times as many calls as nearby Targets, the Times found. Many individual supercenters attracted more calls than the much larger WestShore Plaza mall.

When it comes to calling the cops, Walmart is such an outlier compared with its competitors that experts criticized the corporate giant for shifting too much of its security burden onto taxpayers. Several local law enforcement officers also emphasized that all the hours spent at Walmart cut into how often they can patrol other neighborhoods and prevent other crimes.

N.C. law enforcement, retailers to combat organized retail crime.

CORCA is aimed at bringing together local law enforcement agencies and the N.C. Retail Merchants Association to better communication retail theft that is more complex than shoplifting.

At Thursday’s press conference, the alliance leaders stressed the difference between organized retail crime and shoplifting. Organized retail crime usually involves complex schemes and is organized to convert illegally obtained merchandise or cash into financial gain by theft or fraud.

“These are criminals,” Steve Walker, the asset protection director at Walgreens, said. “They are not shoplifters.”

Raleigh Police Department Detective Scott Womack added that often these thefts are connected to drug abuse, street crime and even terrorism.

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What Shoplifting Costs The Taxpayer

July 7, 2016 by Staff Editor Leave a Comment

The financial damage shoplifting does to the retail industry is measured in billions of dollars every year. For the tax payer, the financial burden that they have to endure due to the constant calls made by retailers to the police due to shoplifting is equally damaging. Walmart is one of the retailers with the most call to the police due to shoplifting incidents, and it is unlikely things will get any better.

For more about this and other topics, follow the links below.

Macy’s barred from detaining, fining New York shoplifting suspects

An injunction was granted this week barring Macy’s stores in New York from detaining and fining suspected shoplifters in response to a class action lawsuit, according to court records from the Supreme Court of the State of New York.

The lawsuit filed by Cinthia Orellana and later joined by Samya Moftah claims the loss prevention units in some Macy’s stores in New York operate “like a typical jail, equipped with holding cells.”

The women claim they were detained, coerced into signing confessions and forced to pay to be released, all before law enforcement involvement, according to court documents.

Officials for Macy’s, headquartered in Cincinnati, have told multiple media outlets that its loss prevention practices have changed since the women’s alleged incidents.

Judge Manuel Mendez stated that New York law allows a business to detain suspected shoplifters for the purposes of investigation and questioning and allows businesses to fine shoplifters five times of the cost of the merchandise up to $500.

However, Mendez suggested Macy’s was pairing the laws unfairly.

Cop Quietly Pays For Family’s Essentials After Shoplifting Bust

A kindhearted cop in Redmond, Washington, came to the rescue of a family after the mother and father were allegedly caught trying to shoplift essential items for their children.

The Redmond Police Department officer stepped in after managers at a Target store decided not to press charges against the couple, reports local station KING.

He quietly took the diapers and clothing, which the parents were accused of trying to steal for their two kids, aged 8 years and 4 months, back to the checkout.

After paying for the items from his own pocket, he handed them back to the family and informed them where they could go to obtain more help.

News of his act of kindness emerged after an eagle-eyed police supervisor spotted the details in a shoplifting report. The department posted an excerpt from the account on Twitter.

“Sometimes our officers don’t tell us everything,” the post stated. “An attentive supervisor spied this in a recent shoplifting report.” It is now going viral.

Crimes at Jacksonville’s big box stores last year cost taxpayers $75K

Most calls at Walmart deal with shoplifting.

ACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Police officers in Jacksonville spent 3,533 hours — the equivalent of 147 days – responding to petty crimes at Walmart stores in Jacksonville last year, I-TEAM research found.

Officers spent another 667 hours working shoplifting and other minor calls at Target stores in the city.

An analysis of data from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office found 5,298 police calls to the 15 Walmart stores in Jacksonville in 2015 – five times the number of calls to the eight Target stores in the city.

The Walmart on Normandy Boulevard had the most calls: 864. Shoplifting made up half of those calls, followed by thefts, then disputes.

The Walmart store at 103rd Street came in second and had 668 police calls for service last year, with the a similar breakdown of offenses.

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Shoplifting; A Social Problem With No Clear Answers

June 30, 2016 by Staff Editor Leave a Comment

Research for many years now, have found that the best way to prevent shoplifting is through customer service. If people are greeted by the store personnel as they enter the store, they are less likely to shoplift. The retail industry’s billions of dollars lost every year due to shoplifting and employee theft, are a social problem that they have no answer to, and regardless of how much they invest in technology, the problem seems to be getting worse not better.

For more about this topic follow the links below.

Bamboozled: The job that could get you arrested

Mystery shopping gigs are real, but they’re also a common job title you’ll see when a scammer is looking for a victim.

And now, fraudsters are giving this job scam a new twist. One that could land you in jail.

But first, the real thing.

Retailers will hire “mystery shoppers” to visit their businesses — unbeknownst to the employees — for an objective look at the shopping experience. The mystery shopper will be instructed to look at specific things about a business, and then go back to the company to report his or her experiences.

Mystery shoppers are typically paid a fee for their time, and they’re also reimbursed for items that are purchased during a store visit. These amounts are often pre-approved by the company that hires the shopper.

The fakes work differently.

Crimes at Jacksonville’s big box stores last year cost taxpayers $75K

Most calls at Walmart deal with shoplifting.

Officers spent another 667 hours working shoplifting and other minor calls at Target stores in the city.

The Walmart on Normandy Boulevard had the most calls: 864. Shoplifting made up half of those calls, followed by thefts, then disputes.

Police Cars Parked Along Admiral Wilson Boulevard In Effort To Prevent Crime

CAMDEN, N.J. (CBS) — For weeks, marked police cars have been stationed at businesses along Admiral Wilson Boulevard in Camden.

Two police cars have been parked around the clock at gas stations along Admiral Wilson Boulevard. Generally, there are no officers in the cars. Camden County Police Chief Scott Thomson says it’s designed to deter crime from robberies to shoplifting to graffiti.

“It’s a reminder to those that may be up to no good — whatever it may be on that spectrum of illegal activity — that we’re nearby, and that we’re watching at all times,” he said.

Thomson says the cars are part of a wider bid to work withbusiness owners to address blight and dilapidated properties in neighborhoods.

“We were seeing an increase in the amount of graffiti, trash, broken-down cars, boards falling off of abandoned buildings,” the chief said. “And considering the fact that 80,000 cars a day travel along that route — I don’t want that to negatively define our city.”

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You Are Losing More Money Than You Realize

June 30, 2016 by Staff Editor Leave a Comment

Yep, you probably are! The shoplifter that walked out the door with your $45 item cost you MORE actual money than $45!

Many Retailers do not understand the actual impact of theft. For example:

You experience a $45 loss (shoplifting, employee theft, vendor fraud…). Is that $45 the total impact on the bottom line? Nope, you actually lost $2,250.00 in real money.

For your organization to simply recover or break even on a $45 loss, you would have to sell an additional $2,250.00 to break even! ($45.00 divided by .02% profit margin). This is on top of your normal sales.

WOW, how many more items are you going to have to order, receive, count, mark, prepare paperwork for, stock, and finally sell just to produce these extra sales? Theft/Shrinkage really cannot be recovered from because you should have had those sales to begin with.

Add to that the loss of sales because the stolen item was not available for sale to a legitimate customer.

You then begin to understand why one third of U.S. business failures are blamed on theft.

The obvious solution is to prevent the theft (we can help with that), errors and abuse that cause loss in the first place.

Loss vs. Sales

So if we assume for a moment that your company has a 2% bottom line net profit margin. Two percent is considered an overall retail normal margin. Yours may be higher/lower. The net profit is your final profit after all expenses such as payroll, payment to vendors, rent, taxes, utilities….

The chart below shows the sales required to replace losses due to theft:

AMOUNT OF LOSS 2% PROFIT MARGIN SALES

NEEDED TO REPLACE LOSSES

$100 $ 5,000

$500 $ 25,000

$ 2,500 $ 125,000

$ 5,000 $ 250,000

$ 7,500 $ 375,000

$10,000 $ 500,000

$12,500 $ 625,000

$15,000 $ 750,000

$17,500 $ 875,000

$20,000 $1,000,000

Inventory shrinkage cancels millions of dollars in sales. That means all of your hard work for an entire year can be wiped out by a single loss. Loss Prevention Systems can fix your shoplifting problems!

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HOW SHOPLIFTERS CAN DECREASE THE VALUE OF YOUR BRAND

June 30, 2016 by Staff Editor Leave a Comment

I’m sure you’ve already read how shoplifters cost you money. It’s probably hard to digest the dire financial implications that shoplifters have on all of our businesses. Without adequate controls in place, you are putting your business and your financial well-being at risk, and honestly, you just can’t do that. That’s why we have to have a camera system and why EAS systems are a necessity and not just a “nice to have” technology. That’s exactly why we have to invest in exception reporting tools to help us identify criminal activity and why we preach the value of exceptional customer service in our stores.

Value. Your customers shop with you because you provide them with value. They could shop at 12 other stores and some of them might even be more competitively priced than you, but there’s something that draws them into your store. That’s the value of your brand. Retailers have a following just like any band, performer or Hollywood movie start. Believe it or not, you have fans, some of which will refuse to shop anywhere else. Ever stop to think what it is about your store that causes this? There could be several reasons, really. In my personal experience (I have a few stores that I exclusively shop at for different needs). All have a few things in common.

In stock position is number one on my list. If I am going shopping, I normally know exactly what I want. I don’t spend a lot of time browsing and normally don’t need a whole lot of help from a store employee. I simply expect that the item I want be available for me to grab and go. Having available inventory for your customer is key component to your success.

If you’re constantly targeted by shoplifters and dishonest employees, those in demand items may not always be available for your legitimate customers. How many times have you walked a customer out the door because you didn’t have the thing they were looking for, even though you do stock that particular item? More times than you care to admit, I’m sure. So not only did you lose the item to theft, you’ve lost the sale to the customer as well. If that happens enough times to enough customers, you’ll be known as the retailer that “never has what I need in stock”.

Customer engagement is another factor I consider. I don’t often ask for help, but when I do. I expect an employee to be readily accessible, close by, knowledgeable and friendly. I also want to know that the employee is aware that I am in their area and available to help should I need it. This makes me feel that my business is wanted and appreciated.

Shoplifters will target stores that they know they can operate in with impunity. Those are the stores where employees ignore customers (you know the stores I’m talking about here). If a thief knows you are not paying attention, they will rob you blind and then come back for seconds. Customer service is one of the best methods to deter a criminal.

As a retailer, you have to offer value to your customers. You definitely can’t do that if your employees don’t engage your shopper, you don’t have the item in stock and your prices are out in left field compared with your competitor. Setting yourself apart from the competition is what drives business into your store and will keep you in business. As retailers and small business owners, remember that your brand carries value. Whether it’s a positive or negative value rest solely on your shoulders and has a direct effect on how your approach shrink and external theft.

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EXACTLY HOW DO YOU LOSE MONEY TO CREDIT CARD FRAUD

June 30, 2016 by Staff Editor Leave a Comment

You have (or I hope you have) read the last article on preventing check fraud. It’s a great way to protect your business from a different avenue of fraud. Another, much more popular and prevalent scheme is credit card fraud. The United States lags far behind the other major countries in the fight against credit card fraud. We’ve only just begun adopting chip and pin technology and it will be several more years before we see magnetic strips become a relic of the past. So exactly how can you identify and prevent a fraudulent change from happening in your store and how exactly do you lose money on these transactions?

Credit card fraud is the one of the biggest, single fraud scheme affect my stores. While the criminals evolve their tactics quite often, there are some general rules you can follow to identify possible fraudulent transactions.

Large Dollar Gift Card Purchases| Normally, a legitimate customer will not purchase 3 $500 in back-to-back transactions with 8 different credit cards. This is a red flag and should involve management immediately.
Multiple Transactions with Multiple Credit Cards| This is another red flag that could help you identify criminal activity. The average American owns about 3 credit cards. If you have an individual using 5-8 credit cards to make several big ticket purchases, then you’re probably dealing with some fraud.
The Credit Card Lacks the Eagle Hologram|Holograms are hard to fake (although I’ve seen some really good ones). Often, the counterfeiters will skip over this step, so I always look for the eagle.
Typos| Since a lot of counterfeit cards come from manufacturers overseas, every now and then, you can spot a typo on the bank’s name, or even the credit card company (I’ve personally seen “MasterCard” about a dozen times.)
Verify ID on all purchases over $X. Now this one is tricky. About 3 years ago, this was an easy, sure fire way to spot a fraudster, as the ID and the card name would not match. Over the past 18 months, we have seen these groups become highly sophisticated in this area. They will now very often, imprint the actual name of the criminal on the card. They also imprint the card with an account number that is not the account number that is embedded in the magnetic strip, which makes identifying the card as fake at the point of sale almost impossible.

So now you have a few best practices to use in your fight against credit card theft, but you may still be asking yourself, “Why should I care? Then bank covers the loss to the customer anyway.” While that statement is absolutely true, the banks will then issue a “charge-back” to the retailer that accepted the fraudulent purchase. This means you can be out thousands upon thousands of dollars if you’re not proactive in your approach to identify and prevent fraudulent credit card purchases in your store.

Essentially, what that means is the criminal impacts two people; the customer that is a victim of identity theft and the retailer that must then cover the cost of the transaction. For a large corporation, it may not be a big deal to dole out tens of thousands of dollars per month in chargebacks, but to a small business owner, even a few hundred could make the difference between being in the red, or black.

My best advice to you is that you follow the guidelines above and update your POS systems to accept the new chip and pin technology. Hopefully, in the coming years as the old tech is phased out and the more secure chip technology takes over, brick and mortar credit card fraud will be a distant memory. (Online fraud, however will take center stage… but I’ll save that for next time.)

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Shoplifting Prevention

June 21, 2016 by Staff Editor Leave a Comment

When dealing with a shoplifter, your employees are at risk of violence. Knowing the company’s policies on how to approach and deal with a shoplifter must be known by every employee in your company. A loss prevention training seminar that will help your employees or your loss prevention team deal with such situations is imperative for your business. Safety is always the most important issue when dealing with a shoplifter, and your employees should know this fact. A law suit that can cost your business millions of dollars is not something you can afford to have. Call us, we will walk you though our programs and find the one that meets your need.

For more about shoplifting news, follow the links below.

$20 million lawsuit filed against Arundel Mills security

The family of a suspected shoplifter who drowned in 2014 near Arundel Mills mall has filed a $20 million lawsuit against the shopping center’s security staff for allegedly chasing him to his death.

The family of Tavon Talley filed the lawsuit against Valor Security Services and Mydatt Services in Baltimore City Circuit Court in February. A judge has denied a motion by the defendants to transfer the case to Anne Arundel Circuit Court and allowed the dispute to move forward to trial.

As of Friday, a trial date had yet to be scheduled, according to online court records.

Reached by phone Friday afternoon, Thomas P. Bernier, the Baltimore attorney representing Valor Security and Mydatt Services, declined to comment citing the ongoing litigation.

A spokesman for Mydatt Services, Valor Security’s parent company, did not immediately return a call for comment.

According to the complaint, on July 7, 2014, Talley was at the Zumiez store, which sells skate and snowboarding equipment, when a manager came to suspect the 26-year-old of shoplifting.

Connecticut’s Facial Recognition Bill: A Model for States?

State legislators step back from a bill that would limit such technology and instead take a reasonable approach — that should serve as a model for state legislators considering regulation for other emerging technologies.

Earlier this year, the Connecticut General Assembly was considering a bill that would prohibit the use of facial recognition technology for commercial applications unless companies got prior consent from consumers to gather that information — a move that would have severely curtailed the deployment of the technology. Fortunately, state lawmakers listened to reason and revised the bill so that it now simply requires retailers to display signs indicating that their establishments use facial recognition. This type of reasonable approach to regulating new technology should serve as a model for state legislators considering regulation for other emerging technologies.

Facial recognition is a form of automated image recognition that uses computer algorithms to uniquely identify an individual in a database based on a photo. Concerned with the growing accuracy of the technology, some privacy advocates have argued that facial recognition is a threat to privacy and public anonymity and have recommended the government impose restrictions on both public– andprivate-sector uses of it.

Police: Long Island Macy’s Loss Prevention Employee Steals $69,000 In Perfume

MANHASSET, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) — Police said a trusted security guard in charge of theft prevention at a Long Island Macy’s used his position to steal.

As CBS2’s Jennifer McLogan reported, Juan Adriano Infante, 21 allegedly got away with $69,000 worth of Chanel perfume.

The Morrow family, who are loyal customers at Macy’s of Manhasset, were disappointed to learn of the heist of products from Chanel – their favorite fragrance.

“He was security and he was stealing?” Ms. Morrow said.

Police and prosecutors said Infante, the loss prevention associate for Macy’s, entered the stockroom where the high-end perfume is kept in storage. Police alleged that Infante carried box after box out of a side exit – making off with 1,000 expensive bottles of perfume.

It happened after he mysteriously disabled the alarm, police said.

“He would actually call the fire alarm company; have them disengage the fire alarm. At that point, he would walk out of the store – the side exit; put these fragrances in his car,” said Nassau County police Detective Lt. Richard Lebrun.

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Is Technology The Answer To Shoplifting And Employee Theft?

June 15, 2016 by Staff Editor Leave a Comment

What is the solution to shoplifting and employee theft? Are harsher punishment by law the solution to this devastating social problem? Technology aimed to help retail stores prevent this problem do not seem to be helping yet. As the technology advances, so does the professional shoplifter. Meanwhile the losses due to shoplifting and employee theft are becoming retailers greatest problems to date.

For more about this and other stories, follow the links below.

Shoplifting: Retail’s $45 Billion Problem

Retailers are struggling to keep tabs on shoplifters who are increasingly becoming their top source of loss, averaging $377 per incidence, up $60 from the year before.

At 39 percent, shoplifting was found to be the biggest contributor among factors that led to overall inventory shrinkage in 2015 causing a $45.2 billion loss across the United States, according to NRF’s 2016 National Retail Security survey. The new numbers reflect a $1.2 billion increase in losses from 2014.

The inventory shrink averaged 1.38 percent of retail sales and saw 47 percent of retailers reporting losses in 2015.

“With a constantly evolving retail landscape, loss prevention becomes more complex every day,” said NRF Vice President of Loss Prevention Bob Moraca. “LP professionals have been working diligently to find advancements in technology aimed at deterring crime in our industry, sometimes even before it happens – but as our techniques get more sophisticated, so too do the criminals.”

Another factor adding to inventory shrinkage was a rise in robberies that exclusively targeted jewelry stores. The average loss reported by robbed stores increased from $2,465 per incidence in 2014 to $8,180.17 last year.

RETAIL INVENTORY SHRINKAGE INCREASED TO $45.2 BILLION IN 2015

The 2016 National Retail Security Survey, conducted in collaboration by the National Retail Federation and the University of Florida, reveals that retailers’ inventory shrink averaged 1.38 percent of retail sales, or $45.2 billion in 2015, up by $1.2 billion from 2014.

According to the report, 47 percent of retailers surveyed reported increases in overall inventory shrink in 2015, with shoplifting accounting for the greatest cause with an average loss of $377 per incident (39 percent), up nearly $60 from 2014.

Robberies continue to be a growing expense for retailers, costing an average of $8,180.17, up from $2,465. The rise in robberies in 2015 was driven by an increase in jewelry stores reporting extremely high average losses.

Gieves & Hawkes Installs RFID to Prevent Shrinkage, Track Inventory

The U.K. men’s wear retailer is using a solution from Catalyst to invisibly secure the doorway at its two newest stores, and to make sure its products are always in stock.

Apr 05, 2016—

To improve inventory visibility and prevent loss, men’s clothing retailerGieves & Hawkes has deployed a radio frequency identification system at its store in Birmingham, England. The solution tracks goods as they are received and stored in the back room or store front, then prevents unpurchased merchandise from being taken out the front door by sounding an alert, as well as storing data regarding which item is being removed. The company is expanding its RFID deployment to its newest store, located in of Hackney, an East London borough. The technology is provided by RFID solutions companyCatalyst. Both Gieves & Hawkes and Catalyst are owned by Li & Fung.

Gieves & Hawkes is a high-end men’s custom and ready-to-wear clothing retailer based in London, with more than 200 stores in China alone, as well as eight stores in the United Kingdom. The company was founded in 1771, making it one of the world’s oldest tailors. Britain’s royal family and royal military have worn its custom suits and clothing for several centuries. (Gieves & Hawkes did not respond to requests for comment.)

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