Prevent Shoplifting with these Strategies

By Mark Mahaffey


As a small business owner, you are no doubt concerned about shoplifting. The National Association for Shoplifting tells us that businesses lose more than twenty five million dollars a year because of shoplifting. With that amount of money being lost each year, it is obvious that shoplifting is a big problem that every business needs to be aware of.

In order to keep yourself safe from shoplifters, it is important to educate yourself about them. Even though no two shoplifters are exactly alike, many of them share common characteristics. If you become familiar with these characteristics, you may be able to recognize a shoplifter before he even steals from you! Education is protection when it comes to loss prevention.

Does your store have a dressing room where clients can try on clothing before they purchase it? If so, this is a place that you need to watch very carefully. It is so easy for a person to take things into a dressing room and then hide them in their purse or in their own clothing and then just leave your business with them!

It is a good idea to purchase tags with numbers on them. Assign an employee to work the dressing room by counting the garments that each customer wants to try on. Give the customer a numbered tag corresponding to the number of items that he or she has. Make sure the tag and the garment count match up when they come out of the dressing room.

Watch also for people who look nervous. Guilty people will often give off clues. They may look around nervously. They may also pick up items and put them down frequently, without seeming to be very interested in them. They may also move unnaturally.

Also be on the lookout for someone who comes into your store several times each day. In order to successfully rob you, it helps for a thief to have a good sense of the layout of your stores, what the employees typically do and what kind of merchandise you have. Watch out for frequent visitors and keep a sharp eye out on them!




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