4 Effective Loss-Prevention Tips for Store Owners
Has your retail business experienced losses caused by merchandise shrinkage? Perhaps it’s time you look at your store’s loss-prevention strategy. If you need some ideas on how to keep your merchandise where it belongs, here are four effective loss-prevention tips to consider.
1. Greet Every Customer
Greeting customers as they arrive in your store is a crucial way to stop thieves in their tracks. Shoplifters thrive on remaining as “invisible” as possible when trying to steal your merchandise. The less attention they feel on them, the more emboldened they become when trying to nab their items of choice. When your associate takes the time look up — even if they are assisting another customer — the culprit already knows the clerk has noted their presence and begins weighing the risks versus rewards. If they decide not to shoplift, you keep your merchandise right where it belongs. If they make their move, your employees stand a much better chance of catching them in the act and notifying security or the police.
2. Invest in a Trusted Business Security Camera Solution
Blind spots and areas that feature the latest and most popular items can prove problematic for your associates, especially if you only have one or two employees on the floor at a time. Business security solutions companies like Lorex offer you an array of high-quality cameras that can capture activity anywhere within your store. With such a service, you can make each camera and its placement as obvious as you’d like. That way, you can send a clear message that you are watching, or you can catch tricky thieves when they feel most confident.
3. Lock Dressing Room Doors
If you sell clothing and offer dressing rooms as a courtesy to your customers, it is your right to closely monitor and control those spaces. Since dressing rooms are often out of the way in the back of a store, and attendants are often tending to merchandise or customers, putting locks on the doors is a practical way to prevent theft. With unattended dressing rooms, shoplifters could take in several items, layer them underneath their clothing and flee the store before running into a clerk. With a lock on the door, a thief must interact with staff, which runs counter to their ideal condition of remaining invisible.
4. Keep High-Value Merchandise Under Lock and Key
Everyone has probably shopped for an item kept under the glass counter or behind tempered glass at the sales counter. Again, such a situation protects the goods by allowing limited access by employees, and it forces customers and shoplifters to interact with employees. Here, outside of employee theft, product loss is rare.
Loss Prevention Is an Ongoing Battle
You can reduce your worry over potential product loss by creating a full-scale loss-prevention strategy. Tightened security through human observation, locking up items or investing in a high-performance security camera system can help you reduce losses and keep your profits safe to allow you to continue serving your customers, employees and stakeholders.
