Retailers wage war against shoplifters

[LPL]

Retailers wage war against shoplifters
The impact The battle


A store security officer watches monitors covering merchandise at Elder-Beerman department store at the Millcreek Mall. (Erie Times-News photo by Rich Forsgren)



By Tim Hahn
tim.hahn@timesnews.com

A man walks into a drug store and fills his coat with bottles of body wash.

The store manager, struck dumb momentarily when the accused thief asks him why he should care since he doesn't have to pay to put the body wash on his store shelves, calls police after the man drives off with his booty.

Police catch the man and put him in jail, where he awaits trial on retail theft and disorderly conduct charges.

"I don't think they ever change," Scott Long, a manager of the Rite Aid pharmacy at 163 W. 26th St., said of the shoplifters he and fellow manager Brian Sweeney — who dealt with the accused body wash thief in April — encounter regularly at their store.

"It's a never-ending battle," Long said. "We have reoccurring people. A lot of people will steal for the thrill of it. A lot of times they steal goofy stuff."

The appeal of walking out of a store with a five-finger discount hasn't waned, despite better theft prevention technology and decades of experience among retailers in studying the problem.

Shoplifting made up 32 percent of inventory losses in 2002, according to retailers surveyed in the University of Florida's National Retail Security Survey, up from 30.8 percent in 2001. That in turn causes customers to pay more for goods as retailers pass losses along.

In this region, Pennsylvania State Police Troop E saw its caseload of shoplifting incidents grow from 435 in 1998 to more than 500 in 2002, while the incidents handled by Millcreek police jumped from 48 to 83 in that period, according to statistics from the state's Uniform Crime Reporting System.

"It seems to be a regular occurrence with us," state police spokesman Cpl. Mark Zaleski said. "We spend a great deal of time on those crimes between the retail thefts and bad checks. As we see more and more of those businesses going up, just percentage-wise we're going to see our numbers go up."

The Erie station of Troop E in Lawrence Park, which has a coverage area that includes a large portion of the upper Peach Street retail district, handled 283 shoplifting incidents in 1998. The caseload grew to 459 in 2001 before dipping to 385 in 2002.



Shoplifters made off with $10 billion in goods in 2002, according to the University of Florida's survey of 118 retail companies. The stores victimized most were drug stores, followed closely by women's apparel stores and department stores.

Consumer Reports' analysis of the Retail Security Survey found that each adult pays $400 annually in additional merchandise costs largely as a "crime tax." That figure represents the money needed to offset losses from theft and robbery, said survey author Richard Hollinger, director of the University of Florida's security research project.

The items stolen from stores vary as widely as the people doing the stealing, said Lt. Richard Tombaugh, patrol division commander for the Millcreek Police Department. Some thieves go for high-end items such as electronics or designer clothes, while others reach for a pack of gum.

"I've seen all kinds of junk, from Pokemon cards to cosmetics to TVs and computers," added District Justice Paul Manzi of Millcreek.

Security personnel at Erie County Farms on the city's east side called police in February after accusing a man and woman of stuffing steaks, lobster tails and shrimp into a large bag. Wal-Mart corporate spokesman Tom Williams watched some of his company's loss prevention personnel crack a case in which people were putting phony bar codes on baby formula and buying it at pennies on the dollar.

Rite Aid's Long said he has seen soap, deodorant, condoms and aspirin leave in the pockets or purses of store visitors.

"A lot of times it's stuff they can get rid of quickly. Some people will walk into a bar and sell deodorant or aspirin to make quick money," he said.

The average shoplifter isn't looking for the big-ticket item, Hollinger said. Generally speaking, the items stolen from stores are products that can be resold, he said.

"If you want to know what gets stolen, go to a flea market," Hollinger said. "There's a rather significant underground economy in our country where most of the items are going through flea markets or pawn shops to be sold. DVDs, batteries, over-the-counter medications, that kind of stuff."



Ryan, a store security officer for Elder-Beerman department store, sits behind 18 black-and-white video monitors and two large color TVs in a second-floor office in the Millcreek Mall. Each video monitor is attached to a camera positioned somewhere in the store, while the TVs allow him to pull up one of those images for a better look.

Ryan, who did not give his last name for security reasons, said he can read a price tag on a dress shirt from his post. He can also keep a keen eye on a suspicious-looking person, make note of what someone took into a dressing room before the door closes and spy on someone stuffing something into his coat.

"It does lead to a lot of apprehensions," he said with a sly smile.

The camera system, which one company official said cost about $50,000, has proven effective in the stores Elder-Beerman believed would benefit most from them, spokeswoman Gloria Siegler said. The Millcreek Mall store was one because it has two floors, she said.

"We find that we are able to prevent (shoplifting) incidents three to four times more effectively with the cameras than without them," Siegler said. "We use them for asset protection to keep our prices lower and to protect our customers."

Retailers are battling shoplifting by putting a lot of money and manpower into it. According to Hollinger's survey, 32 percent of 2001 sales by retailers was invested in loss prevention payroll and 26 percent went for security systems.

Wal-Mart loss prevention employees go through a training academy in which a variety of inventory loss, or "shrinkage," issues are addressed. The stores also use extensive surveillance systems that feature cameras inside and outside of stores, Williams said.

Security systems and procedures are advancing, but they will never be the "silver bullet" to end shoplifting, Hollinger said. Professional shoplifters continue to hurt the industry because they know how to distract employees or remove security tags, he said.

The "mom and pop" stores also continue to suffer because they don't have the money for sophisticated security systems or loss prevention employees, Hollinger said.

"Here are businesses that struggle as it is as low-volume stores, trying to get by. They can't take the kind of losses that the big retailers can," he said.
Source: GoErie.com