As if you didn’t have enough to worry about, the latest issue of Stores magazine (the monthly publication of the National Retail Federation) reports that Organized Retail Crime is estimated to have had an impact on 85% of all retailers in 2008.

Organized crime can hit your store in the form of a ring of professional shoplifters (or “boosters”), or a group of hackers who infiltrate your web site and steal sensitive data. Fraudulent bar code labels, theft of merchandise from shipping docks, and false returns of goods are all part of the ORC threat. Altogether, the FBI estimates that ORC costs retailers a staggering $30 billion in losses annually.

The 85% figure is expected to go up this year.  As Stores mentions, “the current economic downturn has fueled ORC fires.” Richard Hollinger, head of the department of sociology and criminology and law at the University of Florida, and compiler of the annual National Retail Security Survey, states “we’re getting information about a whole new group — people who have never stolen before but are now financially desperate and making very bad decisions.”

Many of our larger competitors are reacting to the downturn by cutting staff, and this is a tempting cost savings for us as independents as well.  But as Richard Hollinger says, “We’ve always known that greeting customers when they enter [the store] is the best deterrent for professional or amateur shoplifters.”  If at all possible, you should never have just one person working in your store. It is too easy for a professional shoplifter, working with an accomplice, to distract the sole employee while the other person takes whatever merchandise they can grab.

Professional thieves sometimes work an entire neighborhood, or mall, when they come to town.  Do you have a system in place to notify your fellow business owners, and the police, of suspicious behavior?  E-mail can be an easy way to do this, but keep in mind that many of us don’t check our e-mail while we’re on the sales floor. Use the phone if at all possible.

Exchange and return abuse can be abated by the use of a credit-only policy, and also consistently taking names and addresses on your return form to prevent repeat returns from the same party.  If you are suspicious, there is probably a reason.  Follow your intuition and insist that your policies be followed.

Invite your police department to meet with you and your fellow businesses so that you are certain you are doing all you can to prevent being victimized.  Our local police force here in Madison offers a shoplifting prevention program called STOP.  We know that they are more knowledgeable than we are about crime of all types, and welcome their expertise.

No one likes to think about crime, organized or disorganized, being a part of a shopkeeper’s life. But you owe it to the long-term success of your business to become security savvy. 

Happy Retailing,

Carol “Orange” Schroeder