Jim Mires named Vice President Loss Prevention and Safety for Sally Beauty
Jim was previously the VP of Store Operations for Town Shoes Limited for over a year before taking this new role. He's held a variety of leadership roles including Vice President of Loss Prevention, Senior Regional Director Field Operations, and District Manager for DSW, Inc., District Manager for Pottery Barn Kids, District Manager for Old Navy, Regional LP Manager/District Manager for Gap, Inc./Old Navy and Director of Loss Prevention for Six Flags Theme Park. Congratulations Jim!

Submit Your New Corporate Hires/Promotions or New Position

WE'RE LIVE Today 9 am to 4 pm Watch the LP Industry on d-ddaily.net/live-in-nyc

15 companies that are defying the retail meltdown by opening hundreds
of new stores
While many retailers are closing stores, some are rapidly building new locations, with at least one - Dollar General - adding as many as 900 stores this year.

A large majority of the retailers that are opening new stores this year are discounters, including Dollar General, Dollar Tree, Family Dollar, Aldi, Lidl, Five Below, and Hobby Lobby.

Those retailers and others will collectively open more than 2,100 stores this year, according to a Business Insider analysis based on company data. businessinsider.com

Mall Stores Seek 'Under-The-Radar' Closures
To avoid publicity, retail stores in U.S. malls are closing without a formal announcement and honoring the length of their lease, CNBC reported.

Of the approximately 2,500 retail stores that weren't department stores and closed in U.S. malls over the past year, approximately 980 chose not to announce their closure. They are also avoiding attention by letting their leases terminate, Jim Sullivan, president of Green Street's Advisory Group, told CNBC.

"Many important national retailers are closing ... where there hasn't been fanfare, and it hasn't been as obvious," Sullivan said. "A lot of the focus has been on anchor-store closings, which is an important part, but some of these other signals are happening under the radar with the in-line tenants, which can be just as important but not as obvious." pymnts.com

NRF Foundation: Cultivating the Next Generation of Retail Talent
Ellen Davis, executive director of the NRF Foundation, shares insights about the upcoming gala and student program.

As executive director of the NRF Foundation, the National Retail Federation's nonprofit arm, Ellen Davis focuses on finding and developing the next generation of retail leaders - and she's inspired by the new talent in the pipeline. Here, Davis shares her perspective on the current state of retail and why she's optimistic about the future as well as goals of the foundation's upcoming gala.

WWD: What is the NRF Foundation?

Ellen Davis: The NRF Foundation focuses on identifying, inspiring and developing the next generation of retail talent at all levels, from entry-level hourly associates to full-time, corporate career paths for college students.

WWD: Do you have difficulty convincing college students to consider working in retail?

E.D.: It doesn't take a lot to convince them once they understand what the career opportunities actually are, but there are a lot of young people who never consider a career in retail because they worked in retail once and they think they know what retail looks like. For these students, who may be pursuing degrees in marketing, finance or technology, our focus has been helping them understand that those jobs exist within the retail industry. That's what our Student Program, happening this coming week in New York at NRF 2018: Retail's Big Show, is designed to do.

WWD: How does this program specifically help retailers?

E.D.: From a business perspective, individuals with these credentials are better prepared for a job in retail, and they're more likely to stay in that job longer. With low unemployment in the United States, one way to find employees is to look for those that are interested in work but may have barriers to entry. RISE Up is designed to help people who are looking for their first job or their second chance get into the retail industry. Through this program, we're actually lifting people up and bringing them into the workforce. Read the full interview here wwd.com

In a Tight Market, Job Recruiters Turn to Inmates
As Labor Pool Shrinks, Prison Time Is Less of a Hiring Hurdle
A rapidly tightening labor market is forcing companies across the country to consider workers they once would have turned away. That is providing opportunities to people who have long faced barriers to employment, such as criminal records, disabilities or prolonged bouts of joblessness.

In Dane County, Wis., where the unemployment rate was just 2 percent in November, demand for workers has grown so intense that manufacturers are taking their recruiting a step further: hiring inmates at full wages to work in factories even while they serve their prison sentences. These companies were not part of traditional work-release programs that are far less generous and rarely lead to jobs after release.

"When the unemployment rate is high, you can afford to not hire anyone who has a criminal record, you can afford to not hire someone who's been out of work for two years," said Lawrence H. Summers, the Harvard economist and former Treasury secretary. "When the unemployment rate is lower, employers will adapt to people rather than asking people to adapt to them."

The tight job market hasn't yet translated into strong wage growth for American workers. But there are tentative signs that, too, could be changing - particularly for lower-paid workers who were largely left out of the early stages of the economic recovery. Walmart on Thursday said it would raise pay for entry-level workers beginning in February; its rival Target announced a similar move last fall. nytimes.com

Tyco Retail collaborates with Google Cloud to power new store solutions for digital transformation
Tyco Retail Solutions today announced it is collaborating with Google Cloud to strengthen its market leadership in next generation real-time analytics and store execution and performance solutions. Google Cloud Platform provides a future proof infrastructure with global scale, security and high performance for Tyco Retail's world-class global retail customers.

The adoption of the Google Cloud Platform signals Tyco's commitment to the evolution of its solution platforms for the development and deployment of its next generation of retail analytics and store solutions. Tyco Retail and Google Cloud will collaborate to deliver use cases marrying real-time edge intelligence and decision-making with core cloud computing. businessinsider.com

Checkpoint Systems Announces Its First In-Store Underfloor RFID Solution to Improve Retail Inventory Management
Checkpoint Systems, a leading global supplier of Electronic Article Surveillance (EAS) and RFID solutions for the retail industry, today announced here at the NRF Big Show an underfloor RFID antenna, UF-1.

Delivering the same market-leading quality as Checkpoint's more traditional EAS antennas, but using unique, patented RFID reader technology, the UF-1 system offers a large read range, with the added benefit of harnessing the power of RFID data to improve inventory management within a completely invisible solution. businesswire.com

Checkpoint Systems Introduces Innovative Electronics Platform for Its EAS Antennas
Checkpoint Systems, a leading global supplier of Electronic Article Surveillance (EAS) and RFID solutions for the retail industry, today announced here at the NRF Big Show a radical shake-up of its range of EAS antennas, with the introduction of a revolutionary new electronics platform.

NEO will deliver enhanced detection and connectivity to retailers, enabling them to improve store operations. The powerful new electronics represent a seismic shift in the way radio frequency-based (RF) EAS solutions perform in store and enable the sensors to become a key part of the connected store environment.  businesswire.com


LPRC Winter Meeting - Wednesday, January 17
Current and prospective Loss Prevention Research Council members are planning to meet in NYC after the NRF Big Show on Wednesday, January 17 to brainstorm group initiatives and other industry issues. The LPRC would like to extend an invitation for you or a delegate to join! (Non-members welcomed)

RSVP to jessi@lpresearch.org if you or someone on your team would like to participate.

Location: Bloomingdale's - 160 East 60th Street New York, NY 10022
Date: Wednesday Jan 17, 8:00am - 12pm eastern
● 2017 LP/AP Research Highlights
● 2018 Focus on Innovation Chains
● RFID/Signatures
● Anti-Robbery
● SOCLab Command and Control

Intel Underfoot: Floor Sensors Rise as Retail Data Source
Online clicks give retailers valuable insight into consumer behavior, but what can they learn from footsteps? It's a question Milwaukee-based startup Scanalytics is helping businesses explore with floor sensors that track people's movements.

The sensors can also be used in office buildings to reduce energy costs and in nursing homes to determine when someone falls. But retailers make up the majority of Scanalytics' customers, highlighting one of several efforts brick-and-mortar stores are undertaking to better understand consumer habits and catch up with e-commerce giant Amazon.

Physical stores have been at a disadvantage because they "don't have that granular level of understanding as to where users are entering, what they're doing, what shelves are not doing well, which aisles are not being visited," said Brian Sathianathan, co-founder of Iterate Studio, a small Denver-based company that helps businesses find and test technologies from startups worldwide. usnews.com

J.Crew shuttering its Mall of America, Southdale stores

Sold-out NRF Foundation Gala raises $2.8 million to support student scholarships and retail career initiatives

Apple stores are slammed because of the $29 battery replacement offer

Mississippi Legislature, 2018 Regular Session, Senate Bill 2303: AN ACT TO AMEND SECTION 97-43-3, MISSISSIPPI CODE OF 1972, TO REVISE THE DEFINITION OF ORGANIZED RETAIL THEFT AND ORGANIZED RETAIL THEFT ENTERPRISE

South African protesters ransack H&M stores over 'racist' ad

Last week's #1 article --

Joplin, MO: Mall Security Guards Quit Over Alleged Safety Concerns
Ray Martinous and Bob Jacobous quit their jobs as security officers at Northpark Mall shortly before Christmas. The now former security guards say ERMC, the company Northpark Mall contracts for security and housekeeping services, has ignored the need for security cameras inside and outside the mall.

"We had a senior shopper who was struck by a careless driver, turned out to be a hit-and-run driver," says Martinous. "Right there, should have been enough to have cameras installed, both inside the mall and outside. We were depending on the mall director to tell them, hey, we need cameras here. She comes up and says, I need you to write a report on every shoplifter who gets away. I asked her, what is the point here? She said, well, I have to get enough reports of crime going on so I can get these cameras out here."

Martinous says pictures included with this story show a security guard sleeping on the routine job and also during CPR training.

A statement from CBL Properties, the company that owns Northpark Mall, reads, "We contract with a third party to provide security services for the property. Once made aware of these allegations, we contacted our vendor, and corrective action was taken." koamtv.com

ALTO US Partners with Crime Risk Forecasting Leader CAP Index to Solidify ALTO's Supply Chain Risk Management In-transit Solution

MIAMI, FL - ALTO US, an innovative technology provider in the retail and supply-chain asset protection industry, has partnered with CAP Index, Inc. to create a unique and innovative offering to support dynamic in-transit monitoring capabilities into the end-to-end ALTO Assurance risk management platform.

By adding CAP Index's industry-leading crime risk data into ALTO's comprehensive in-transit analytics assessment model, supply-chain managers will have additional information at their fingertips to improve their in-transit risk mitigation efforts. "Understanding what you are driving into and making decisions on where to stop or rest is critical in today's just-in-time decision making process for the shipper, carrier, and driver. We believe this partnership is a major step in assisting industries with the critical mitigation of in-transit risk. The addition of this key layer of data intelligence enabling the ALTO's platform to predict, analyze, visualize, and better manage in-transit transportation risk is a real game-changer to the end user," said Steve Longo, Vice President of Strategic Initiatives at CAP Index.

The collaboration in product design with CAP Index continues to galvanize ALTO Assurance's vision and industry support as an innovative solution provider in North America after more than a decade serving retailers and shippers in Latin America and Spain with proven success. "One of the challenges has always been to be able to layer the right pieces together to galvanize a comprehensive and holistic view of current or potential events. The combination of ALTO Assurance and CAP Index is one more step in delivering a comprehensive but easy-to-use solution for the end user. This allows us to continue to evolve our robust analytics platform and acknowledge the renaissance taking place in the supply-chain security industry that we strongly support and are pleased to play an active role in," said Maurizio Scrofani, CCSP, LPC, Vice President of Supply Chain Security and Intelligence for ALTO.

Read full press release here.

How retailers can protect themselves against mobile payments risks
More and more retailers are turning to smartphone-reliant technology to streamline the buying experience. In addition to contactless payment apps provided by cell phone providers, many retailers are rolling out their own contactless payment systems.

However, as the use of these technologies increases, it is important for retailers to identify the potential risks that arise and ensure that they have the appropriate insurance coverage.

While contactless payment systems allow for a faster checkout time, these systems work only if the network is up and running. If the network servicing the retailer's application or the network servicing the payment system goes down or is interrupted, the retailer could suffer significant loss of business and loss of profits. Typically, a retailer will have "business interruption" or "loss of business" insurance for lost profits and extra expenses if a business suffers a suspension of operations.

Similarly, a retailer will want to ensure it has cyber insurance coverage that responds to a ransomware attack if it suffers an attack on its mobile app or contactless payment system. This coverage should specifically cover the cost to hire a consultant, the cost of ransom to terminate an ongoing ransomware attack and unencrypt data, and the cost of ransom to prevent an imminent attack.

In addition, as with traditional payment systems, a retailer is always at risk of liability resulting from a breach resulting in unauthorized disclosure of customer information. These breaches can easily result in multi-million-dollar losses and related reputational risks to retailers, as can be seen by some of the recent breaches suffered by retailers and other businesses. This potential liability will likely need to be addressed by a cyber insurance policy that covers breach notification costs, credit monitoring costs, and other costs resulting from a data breach or phishing attack. digitalcommerce360.com

The insider threat is the greatest cause of organisation vulnerability
when it comes to the threats posed by cyber attacks
When people think about cyber attacks they tend to conjure up images of shadowy nation state spies, Eastern European crime syndicates and bedroom-bound hacktivists. This makes for a good story and undoubtedly does exist, but the truth is that organisations are potentially exposed to an even greater risk from within their own organisation. Employee negligence and malicious insiders may not attract the same kind of headlines, but they represent a serious threat to corporate revenue and reputation nonetheless.

It's a tough problem to fix and that's why it continues to cause serious challenges for IT security teams. However, with the right approach, focused on plugging cyber security skills and awareness gaps, there is light at the end of the tunnel.

In the SANS Institute study from July 2017, just 18% of respondents said they had formal incident response plans that include the possibility of an insider attack. Although half (49%) said such a plan was in development, almost a third (31%) claimed they had no formal programme to deal with threats from insiders.

This needs to change. Today is an age where data is the new currency - in fact, it's the lifeblood of any business. It's inevitable that malicious internal actors will at some point try to access that data, whether for monetary gain or to cause chaos and disruption. It's also likely that mistakes will be made by staff at some point which could have a similarly serious impact. Only through proper planning can you effectively minimise the chances of damaging cyber-related incidents. information-age.com

Uber's tool Ripley let it remotely disable staff laptops
As Uber has expanded -- opening offices in 78 countries worldwide -- sometimes local authorities have raided its offices. Police have wanted emails, documents and information on drivers and employees. It's happened in Paris, Hong Kong, Montreal and other countries.

In order to address these types of situations, the ride-hailing company uses software to protect its data, which is commonplace among companies that operate internationally. One type of software the company devised and reportedly used from Spring 2015 to late 2016 was called Ripley, according to a report by Bloomberg.

Ripley -- which was said to be named after Sigourney Weaver's character in the 1979 sci-fi movie "Alien" -- could remotely disable, lock or change the password on employees' computers and smartphones.

The idea was for Uber's team at its San Francisco headquarters to be able to shut down a device if necessary. The company used it at least two dozen times in situations with authorities in foreign countries, according to Bloomberg. cnet.com

How retailers can use artificial intelligence effectively

Visa survey shows Canadians ready to replace passwords with biometrics

Solution Providers: Have a video or commercial you want to publish? Contact us 

The strength of a collaborative approach to fight counterfeiting online
The thousands of counterfeit items that litter the black market not only undermine intellectual property rights, impacting upon the creativity of those who created them, but the practise feeds into creating an unethical labour market that can be used to subsidise organised crime.

Operation 'In Our Sites (IOS) VIII', finalised in November 2017, resulted in the disruption of more than 20,520 domain names illegally selling counterfeit merchandise online, with items available for sale ranging from pharmaceuticals to electronics.

A recent report entitled 'Illicit Trade: Fuelling Terror Financing and Organised Crime' published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) describes the financial damage that is likely to result from a climate whereupon consumers feel liberated to purchase "designer" sunglasses and "brand name" handbags, with the total economic and social costs as a result of counterfeiting and piracy worldwide estimated to reach USD1.54-USD1.87 trillion by 2022 - a significant jump from 2013 when it stood at USD737 to USD898billion.

Global threats will most likely continue to push demand for authentication and brand protection devices, including holograms and track and trace technologies to deliver overt and covert protection. Banknote, ID and automotive applications herald new opportunities. Yet in order to combat the root cause it is important that authorities address the problem, embracing international communication, open-mindedness and collaboration. Added value authentication solutions advocated in ISO 12931 enable examiners to verify the authenticity of a product, differentiating it from that which is illegitimate. securitynewsdesk.com

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd Targeted By US Watchdog For Fake Items Again
Bloomberg has more details on the development, which will no doubt further exacerbate the already-strained relations between the United States and China: The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative on Friday included Alibaba's Taobao online marketplace on its list of "Notorious Markets," citing a high volume of reported counterfeiting and piracy. The agency acknowledged steps Alibaba has taken to make it easier for fakes to be removed, but said "the enforcement program reportedly continues to be burdensome and insufficient to end the sale of counterfeit products on the platform." stocknews.com

Amazon Seller Arrested for Fraud
An online seller was indicted for fraud involving shipping insurance claims and was arrested. According to the US Attorney's Office, the indictment alleges that the man filed false insurance claims with the Parcel Insurance Plan (PIP), which provides insurance against loss or damage stemming from the delivery of parcels through the USPS and private carriers.

The indictment alleges that from February 2013 through July 2015, the man submitted false claims to PIP requesting payment of over $480,000, and that he received payments of $364,183 for these claims. ecommercebytes.com

Brooklyn, NY: Police search for suspects behind Macy's $2,400 fur coat robbery
Police are searching for three suspects who allegedly stole a fur coat from a Macy's store. Officials say two women and a man stole the brown fur coat from the Macy's on Emmons Avenue back on Jan. 3. The coat is valued at about $2,400. Police say the alleged thieves simply took the coat off the rack and walked out of the store. news12.com


Watch shoplifter steal jewelry from Century Girl in New Orleans
The owner of a Magazine Street boutique is asking for the public's help to identify a man who she says stole thousands of dollars worth of jewelry from her store.

The unidentified man pocketed rings from Century Girl Vintage, 2023 Magazine St., New Orleans, on Wednesday (Jan. 10), owner Leah Blake said.

An employee said the man entered the store just before closing. In surveillance video, he can be seen casually walking to the rear of the store and grabbing items that he doesn't put back.

In sharing details about the theft in a Magazine Street business forum, Blake learned that a shoplifter with a similar description had stolen jewelry from Sterling Silvia, 3110 Magazine St. nola.com

Submit Your New Hires/Promotions or New Position

Featured Job Spotlights

 

Featured Jobs

To apply to any of today's Featured Jobs, Click Here

Sponsor Today's Internet Jobs 

Want to Be a Better Leader? Start By Giving Useful Feedback -- Here's How
Effective feedback is critical to helping your employees grow, and even better their skills for future success. The key is to follow these three tips when giving transformative feedback. Don't skip the punch line

Coaching Up! How to Give Feedback to Your Boss Even If You Are Intimidated
Employee aren't the only ones who can benefit from feedback, providing effective to bosses can also help the entire organization develop and grow. If you're nervous about sharing your opinion, follow these five tips for coaching up! Speak Up!

Last week's #1 articles --

Six Steps to Get Promoted This Year
It's a brand new year, and if you're looking to kickstart your career into high gear, now is the perfect time to do it! Whether you're trying to get a promotion, or just improve your work performance, here are six steps that will help you get closer to your goal. Rally support

These Eight Phrases Are Killing Your Chance for a Promotion
Words matter more than you think, especially if you're working for a promotion. Certain phrases and words could cost you your dream if uttered at the wrong place or time. Here are the comments you want to avoid making! Choose your words carefully

Submit Your Group LP Selfie Today!

Sometimes it's not what you say that's important as much as it's what they feel six months after the conversation. Being a good wordsmith is a skill, but ensuring that what you say leaves the right impression long term is a true art and one that is only reached by reflection and intention.

Just a Thought,
Gus

Not getting the Daily? Is it ending up in your spam folder?
Please make sure to add d-ddaily@downing-downing.com to your contact list, address book, trusted sender list, and/or company whitelist to ensure you receive our newsletter. 
Want to know how? Read Here