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What can you do to protect your business?
It is no secret that shoplifting has been on the increase over the past two years, but the scale can be hard to comprehend. According to the National Retail Federation's 2021 National Retail Security Survey 57% of stores indicated an increase in theft from previous years and CVS reported that they have seen a 300% increase in theft from their stores since the pandemic began.
The causes of this crime wave are multi-facetted. Firstly, e-commerce had made it easier than ever for thieves to sell their stolen goods. Online platforms require no identity verification to sell products on them making it easy for thieves to sell their ill-begotten goods while keeping their identities secret from the authorities. Secondly, there has been an overall increase in crime in most major metro areas over the past two years. This has police stretched thin and made them less able to fight back against property crimes. Finally, thieves have developed new tactics that allow them to steal a lot more a lot quicker. The most important of these new tactics is the “flash mob”. This is when a large group of thieves steal from a store with no attempt to hide their activities from store employees. Often, they’ll have so many people stealing all at once that it’s impossible to stop them all.
So, what can stores do to protect their merchandise from these ne'er-do-wells? The easiest thing to do to prevent theft is to invest in EAS products. Just by having an EAS antenna at your door it signals to shoplifters that this is a store that takes shoplifting seriously immediately decreasing the likelihood of theft. By also having your products tagged with EAS products mean that the thieves will not be able to steal without setting off your security system. If you want to be especially protective buy screamer or spider tags. These tags alarm if they go through an EAS system and will keep alarming until deactivated with a detacher. This makes it hard for the thieves to get away as the alarm will continue to go off on the product, they stole. The return on investment for EAS products greatly outweighs the shrinkage which occurs without any EAS products at all.
Additional resources:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/07/business/retail-theft-shoplifting-robbery/index.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/16/fed-up-with-rise-in-thefts-and-shoplifting-small-biz-owners-take-action.html
