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How Retailers Watch You
garzpacho writes, "With $30 billion lost to shoplifting and employee theft last year, retailers are turning to increasingly sophisticated electronic surveillance systems to fight theft. Some systems, like RFID tags, have been well-publicized by privacy advocates. Others are less well known: video surveillance systems are being tied to software that can recognize specific types of activity and identify individuals; and data-mining software is being used to analyze everything from shoppers' habits to irregular register activity." From the article: "Despite this revolution in retail tech, you won't find many stores bragging about their new security tools. No one wants to tip off shoplifters or advertise that they suspect their customers. That's why so much of the technology is hidden in the first place. But another reason stores don't talk much about surveillance is that they know it sparks concerns about privacy. Consumer groups and legislators have opposed the spread of RFID and video surveillance for just that reason."
Sorta related... Yesterday at Target a hispanic man and women set off the door alarm when they went through. A white women went through after them during the alarm. The guy started flipping out because he felts his rights were being violated and he was only stopped because of his skin color. He was yelling "Why does she get to go by? Cause shes white!" He was screamin at the top of his lungs all the way to the car...it was pretty tense.
There is a reason they are sticking to you like fleas on a dog....I can sum it up in one word....
COMMISSION!
They get paid a commission on the sales. It is the same in places like Radio Shack. Want to get their attention real fast? Next time they ask, "can I help you?" Simply answer, "No thanks, just shoplifting". You then get about 3-4 people just following you around the store....It is great fun the whole family can enjoy...;-)
For the humor impaired, that last part is a joke.
B.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
When I worked at Fred Meyer as a teenager, we were told a few things:
- We can't stop anyone unless we actually see them stuff merchandise into their pockets/bags.
- If the item taken from the store is visibly determined to be less than $50, let it go.
- Otherwise, chase, but don't run too fast as to attract aggression from the accused, as far as the end of the parking lot.
- Security leaves at 6pm on weekdays. They don't work weekends. No videos are taken in any part of the store.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
There's lots of precedent for these kinds of issues. Basically:
- they can only detain you until the police arrive
- they can't detain you once you've left the store ("unlawful detainer")
- they can't ask to see your receipt
Note that this last point only applies to non-membership retailers -- if you're a Costco member (for example), you've agreed in advance to their terms and conditions. Regular retail stores do not have such an agreement with you.
What happens next can be quite telling: I once had the Chief of Police drive over to my house from the next town because the Wal-Mart there (biggest employer and biggest retailer in said town) alleged that I had shoplifted. In the Big City, the cops would have told Wal-Mart where to stick it.
Here's another article: http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=1297922&p age=1
Some stores are just more with it than others. Like J Crew, Gap also uses the sewn-in EAS tags, but they seem to be pretty bad about deactivating them (and about telling customers to cut them out). I found this out the hard way when I didn't notice one in my 3-year-old's jeans and she set of theft alarms wherever we went.
When I worked in Accessories at Dillard's in Austin, I was right near an exit to the parking lot. Our alarms went off all the time, but it was seldom because of our own merchandise. Most often, it was because of stuff from the Gap (I can't help wondering if the Gap even bothers to turn on their security system, because it seems like active tags make it out of their stores pretty regularly). We did not remove other stores' tags: customers were always sent back to the store where they purchased the items to have the tags removed.
Interestingly enough, a store's own employees usually account for the majority of shrinkage. I didn't realize quite how closely they monitored us until one day security called me at the jewelry counter and asked whether I had just seen my co-worker at the watch counter take a very expensive watch out of the display case and add/remove links. They wanted to know if I had any idea what she was up to, and even asked me to keep an eye on her for the rest of the shift!
I'm sure they also monitored our actual cash register transactions pretty closely. The whole register system had an OS/2 database backend. It was pretty cool actually - you could pull up all kinds of statistics about the sales pretty much in realtime. I know they kept track of things like whether credit cards were scanned on the electronic signature pad or if the customer signed on hard copy (in which case, the store paid a penalty fee to the signature pad company), so I'm sure they also audited other employee actions as well.
Here are some of the strategies our store used:
Of course, like you (and the article) said, you have to use the technology properly for it to really make a difference.
I worked at two convienence stores during college who handled shrinkage in vastly different ways:
-The first store was a national chain (let's just say it had a couple of numbers in the name and that I wore a green smock for my work uniform). We were told specifically that under NO circumstances should we attempt to apprehend or detain a suspected shoplifter. Said company was much more concerned with the safety of its employees than the loss of a few dollars worth of overpriced merchandise.
-The second store was a regional chain, where because of shrinkage, the employees were "encouraged" (read: expected) to confront shoplifters, detain them if possible, and notify law enforcement. Pretty hard to do when you're the only person working, it's late, and you have to close. Employees were also held liable for any "gas & dash" incidents (people filling up, then driving off without paying). This chain has spent thousands on hiring a private investigation firm to not only analyze security camera footage synched with register records, but park PIs to watch stores and confront any employee who leaves a store with merchandise to ask for a receipt.
You can probably figure out which of these stores is known to the punk kids in town as the easier shoplifting target.