Nedap will join The Foot Locker Foundation together with members of the athletic industry for its 18th annual "On Our Feet" fundraising gala

The event, which will take place on Tuesday, October 23 at New York City's Pier Sixty at Chelsea Piers, will benefit educational and other youth initiatives supported by the Foot Locker Foundation.

Read more in today's Vendor Spotlight below.
 

The Loss Prevention Foundation (LPF) Announces Newest Associate Level Partner
The Loss Prevention Foundation (LPF) announced its newest Associate Level Partner, Telaid. The Associate level partnership secures numerous LPQ and LPC certification course scholarships for Telaid to distribute to industry professionals. Headquartered in Niantic, CT and founded in 1981, Telaid has been providing technology lifecycle solutions for multi-site clients for over 35 years. Their mission is: Driving positive business outcomes by accelerating technology adoption through people, proven processes and value alignment. yourlpf.org
 

Tariffs on China Imports Will Impact EAS Product Costs
By Jim Wyatt, EAS Strategy and Product Consultant

Over the past 20 years, U.S. anti-shoplifting (EAS) equipment manufacturers have moved most of their production to China. This has been a windfall for retailers with the average price paid for AM or RF labels and tags dropping by about 50% over this time.

In September, the U.S. government announced a new round of tariffs would be placed on goods shipped from China to the U.S. The list of products exceeded 3,000 with a retail value of over $200 billion which included all EAS labels and tags. This 10% tariff was imposed in September, and the tariff will rise to 25% at the end of 2018.

Non-Chinese made EAS products will not be affected by these tariffs. A few EAS product manufacturers have retained production capacity in North America. For example, Sensormatic produces AM products in Mexico, and ALL-TAG Corporation produced RF Labels in Florida.

U.S. retailers might encounter a bit of "sticker shock" - especially when the 25% tariff rate kicks in.
 

Black Friday - Active Shooter - Tornados
Walmart's New Nationwide VR Training - AP's Modules
On Sept. 20th Walmart, as reported in the Daily on the 21st, announced the biggest VR (virtual reality) training roll-out in history in the retail industry. Where they're sending four headsets to every Walmart supercenter and two units to every Neighborhood Market and discount store. With more than 17,000 Oculus Go headsets in stores by the end of the year, every associate, including those on the floor who interact with customers the most - more than 1 million associates, will have access to the same training that their managers and department managers do at the Academies.

Walmart plans to use VR to train associates in three main areas: new technology, soft skills like empathy and customer service, and compliance.

With AP's compliance modules focused on Black Friday, Active Shooter, and Tornado response.

Obviously such a massive new roll-out limits the subject contents organizations can initially cover, especially when considering the depth and wide array of subjects that 1 million associates need to be trained on. So obviously any organization would be logically focused on the three listed above, given the risk factors and priority of promoting store safeness for both the associates and consumers.

"The great thing about VR is its ability to make learning experiential," said Andy Trainor, Walmart's senior director of Walmart U.S. Academies. "When you watch a module through the headset, your brain feels like you actually experienced a situation."

This represents a milestone for retail training and the entire industry will benefit from Walmart's program, given retail's normal turnover rates and the fact that other retailers will adopt the same training, the impact of which will be significant and covering these three topics alone will save lives, undoubtedly.

So this is a great development for the AP industry and retail as a whole. Let's hope it continues to develop and evolve as we see more retailers adopt it.

Our only question is what are the next three topics?
Gus Downing d-ddaily.com

SSN News Poll: Is 2018 the year of acquisitions for Security Integrators?
It's been a busy year for M&A, according to 69%
It seems as though 2018 is a hot year for financial transactions in the security industry. At the time of writing, Security Systems News covered more than 65 mergers and acquisitions this year.

"As the decision to sell is such a personal one for a business owner there is no universal 'right time to sell.' For someone who decides to sell today, the market is robust and will reward a well run company owner with a good price," John Cerasuolo, president and CEO of ADS Security, wrote in a News Poll response.

Sixty-nine percent of respondents noticed that it has been a busier year for mergers and acquisitions in the security space. 2018 is not much different in terms of M&A activity as compared to previous years, according to 22 percent or responses.

It has been a good year to sell? Half of all respondents have noticed that companies that have sold recently have gotten good multiples for their business.

"With all of the new entrants into the monitoring space, with newer, better technology, I believe that the value of existing monitored accounts will begin to fall rapidly," one respondent wrote. "Add the required CDMA radio sunset to LTE, and this will compound the issue. Existing customers have taken notice of the new technology, and want to incorporate these features into their systems. This will make acquired customers more vulnerable to attrition and more expensive to maintain. Believe the cost of acquisitions will begin to fall when the market recognizes these industry shifts." securitysystemsnews.com

The Convergence of LP & Cyber Security is Speeding Up
'The Impact of Drones on Security and Public Safety'
Unfortunately, away from all the headlines of cybersecurity lies a new, but equally concerning threat: rogue actors with easy access to inexpensive drones that can violate individual privacy, menace citizenry in public spaces, and deliver contraband or even lethal payloads.

Physical security and cybersecurity are different sides of the same security coin. As the cities of tomorrow emerge with more complex networks and connected and autonomous technologies of all kinds, city planners must consider physical security as an integral component of smart city security.

In a Washington Post July OpEd, Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen M. Nielsen, wrote: "Drone technology offers the potential to change our world - from enabling historic transformations in e-commerce to faster emergency response. But the technology also has a dark side. It can be used to spy on us, to threaten our critical infrastructure, or to attack crowds and public places."

The good news is that comprehensive cyber and physical security is possible, but it does require extending smart city security beyond its current 2D paradigm and digital emphasis.

Now is the time for smart city leaders to expand their concepts of security. Cyber is a well-documented new threat matrix which has received a lot of deserved attention. But the other very real new threat is the physical one posed by drones, which also needs to be addressed. To counter the growing drone-based threat, industry is moving quickly to design and manufacture sensors augmented with AI that enable comprehensive 3D security architectures at commercial price points.

As these physical security sensors are deployed and integrated along with cyber assets, smart city leaders will be on a path to creating a robust, multi-layered cyber-physical security solution that offers full-time situational awareness and protection for all residents. securitymagazine.com

Setting the Corporate Culture
Begins With the Senior Leader & Driven By the Field Team
Yesterday's article 79% of the Board Sees Middle MGT Setting Cultural Tone, published in cfo.com, clearly puts the responsibility of developing and setting the corporate culture squarely on every senior leaders shoulders regardless of what group you're leading.

With the most important step being integrating it throughout your teams entire program and ensuring that every team member clearly understands how to convey it and build it at the store level. Which quite frankly is easier said then done for most.

Because it requires constant vigilance, daily adherence, and translating it into human action and behavior. Which is the hardest thing to modify and or control long term remotely. Especially if the individual personality's don't necessarily fit the desired cultural blueprint so to speak. Therefore, long term, this expectation has to be incorporated in your staffing model and new hires have to be as close to that culture naturally in order to reduce risk and avoid conflict down the road. Because inevitably if an executive doesn't fit a particular culture there's really very little one can do to remold an executive.

However at the end of the day it's also the responsibility of the field executives to understand the culture before walking into it and be able to not just fit in, but to be able to expand on it if one is expected to help develop it throughout the stores and ultimately set the perfect example of what it should be.

But with the board expecting middle management to set the actual corporate culture the entire team has to be able live it, especially in today's viral community. As there's never been a time like this before in retail and having a positive well defined culture is is absolutely critical if the organization and or team expects to be successful. Just a thought - Gus Downing

lllinois Supreme Court ruling to clarify legal harm of biometric collection procedure violations
A suit against Six Flags Entertainment Corp. for violating the consent requirements of Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) is heading to the state's Supreme Court to determine the threshold for "harm" under the regulation, Bloomberg Law reports.

The definition of "aggrieved" under BIPA has been contented in various legal venues for a number of cases, and several privacy groups urged the Illinois Supreme Court to accept the plaintiff's definition earlier this year. biometricupate.com

Using data to prepare for extreme weather
Weather can be a primary driver of consumer demand and behavior. Now there's a service spearheaded by IBM that integrates geographically precise weather-related data and analytics with retailers' point-of-sale and marketing/operating data to offer the potential of delivering operational savings and revenue growth.

That potential was demonstrated in a survey of 1,000 C-level executives representing 13 industries in 15 countries, "How Weather Insights Can Grow Your Bottom Line," conducted by the IBM Institute for Business Value and Oxford Economics.

Several of the organizations surveyed are early users of IBM's Watson system and IBM's Weather Company division, a 35-year-old business acquired three years ago and expanded to integrate weather data with Watson analytics.

The Weather Company's services can be customized to provide weather-related insights on ways to enhance marketing, merchandising, operations, finance, administration and the supply chain, says Paul Walsh, director of weather strategy and business meteorologist for IBM's Global Business Services.

HR, LP BENEFITS

Store managers can use the service to determine staffing requirements, allocating fewer hours to staff on days when the weather is projected to be bad. Loss prevention also benefits, gaining insights into when the weather is projected to be nice, which would drive more traffic into stores, potentially creating a greater likelihood of higher theft. stores.org

450 anonymous Amazon employees demand Jeff Bezos to stop selling facial recognition software to police
An anonymous Amazon employee has written an op-ed for Medium demanding that Amazon cease selling facial recognition software to police forces. The employee, the authenticity of whom was verified by Medium's editorial staff, says that more than 450 Amazon workers wrote to CEO Jeff Bezos a few weeks ago to demand the company stop selling its facial recognition software Rekognition to police.

The letter also demanded that software company Palantir be kicked off Amazon Web Services for its links to ICE's deportation and tracking program. businessinsider.com

Bernie Sanders & Elizabeth Warren Asking Amazon About
"potentially illegal anti-union behavior"
challenging the corporate giant's labor practices shortly after it agreed to raise its minimum wage. The senators have sent a letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos over a video that warns managers at Amazon's Whole Food Markets about the dangers of union organizing, and ask him to respond to recently surfaced worker allegations that voicing their concerns led to retaliation from company management.

The move comes shortly after Amazon agreed to raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour earlier this month, following a campaign by Sanders and organizers to shame the company over low pay.

"We write to express our alarm at recent reports that your company is distributing anti-union materials to Whole Foods managers that directs and encourages potentially illegal interference with the rights of thousands of workers," Sanders and Warren write. "It is important to recognize that workers' rights do not stop at the minimum wage, and raising the pay of your lowest-paid workers, while important, does not give you a free pass to engage in potentially illegal anti-union behavior."

In late September, the tech news site Gizmodo published a story detailing a video produced by Amazon and sent to managers of the grocery chain Whole Foods Market, which was acquired by Amazon last year. The video, which has also been obtained by The Washington Post, lists "Warning Signs" of union organizing, such as using words like "living wage" and "steward," handing out fliers, and wearing union T-shirts.

"We do not believe unions are in the best interest of our customers, our shareholders, or most importantly, our associates," the video says. "When we lose sight of those critical focus areas we jeopardize everyone's job security: yours, mine, and the associates."

Legal experts said it was not clear if the video represents a violation of the law. washingtonpost.com

Heading Off Risks With Predictive Risk Intelligence
Across industries, stakeholders expect risk monitoring to provide intelligence that supports strategic decision-making. Predictive risk intelligence could help solve many of the more complex challenges.

Boards, shareholders, regulators, customers, and business partners increasingly expect organizations to provide a view into what could go wrong in the future and a real-time view of issues they currently face - not just insights on what went wrong in the past. Moreover, they demand organizations demonstrate that they can execute quickly on risk-management decisions.

Organizations can get an early warning system on emerging risks, potential loss and risk exposures, and external threats by using predictive risk intelligence (PRI). With PRI, organizations can enhance their ability to detect and monitor risks and make more informed decisions faster.

Advances in PRI are increasingly recognized as cornerstones to effective risk-monitoring programs. Respondents to the Deloitte and Forbes Insight Survey reported that risk-management programs help them increase operational resiliency; realize the value of new technologies; improve cost effectiveness and accelerate time to market, among other benefits. That only half of survey respondents acknowledged that they leverage comprehensive risk analytics to make strategic business decisions suggests a need for a more holistic risk-monitoring methodology. Continued on page two wsj.com

StarKist Co. Agrees to Plead Guilty to Price Fixing in US
StarKist and its co-conspirators agreed to fix the prices of canned tuna fish from as early as November 2011, through at least as late as December 2013. In addition to pleading guilty, StarKist has agreed to cooperate in the investigation. StarKist faces a criminal fine of up to $100 million. The amount of StarKist's fine will be determined at a sentencing hearing and the plea agreement is subject to court approval. justice.gov 

Sears - One for the History Books
'Eddie Lampert is the worst'
Eddie Lampert is no longer the chief executive of Sears Holdings. He is, however, still the company's chairman and largest single stockholder. He is also, based on comments he has made over the years - including a speech given to 1,000 employees at a company townhall meeting yesterday - either a liar or someone who is so divorced from reality that he is unable to accept that he has single-handedly destroyed the retailer.

Most industry experts agreed with the assessment of Mark Cohen, the former chairman and CEO of Sears Canada, who called Mr. Lampert a "ruthless, methodical asset-stripper."

Eddie Lampert is the worst _____. We'll leave it to others to fill in the blank. retailwire.com

Editor's Note: Over 10 years ago walking stores with the Associate Member Advisory Council, one of the industry's leading consultants predicted the end of Sears because of two factors: one was Lampert's move to silo the business units and form internal competition, and the other was that he simply wasn't a merchant and had no idea of how to run a retailer and grow customers.

Macy's & Marxent Partner on Largest VR Rollout In Retail History - 90 Stores
Virtual reality experience reduces return rates to less than 2 percent
Macy's and Marxent today announced that the companies' partnership is the largest virtual reality rollout in retail history, with approximately 70 Macy's VR installations in stores nationwide. The companies expect to add another 20 locations by January 2019. In partnership with Marxent, Macy's is enabling customers to discover products and make informed buying decisions using the Macy's VR furniture experience.

In the three pilot stores, VR-influenced furniture sales have increased by more than 60 percent versus non-VR furniture sales and decreased returns to less than 2 percent. Customers are more accurately visualizing their spaces and adding multiple furnishings with confidence. The program also allows Macy's to offer a full range of furniture in a dramatically smaller space. macysinc.com

Can You Require That Employees Attend Social Functions?
The holiday season is coming, and many employers will be hosting social events at the workplace and offsite.
"Under most circumstances, an employer can require an employee to attend a social function during or even outside of normal work hours," said Christopher Anderson, an attorney with Littler in Nashville. But there are a host of legal issues that employers should consider before requiring attendance at a social or team-building event.

For example, employees may have religious beliefs that prohibit them from attending an event that falls on a religious holiday or where alcohol is served. In these cases, an employee cannot be compelled to attend, Anderson said.

Make Exceptions If employees resist attending, evaluate their reasons on a case-by-case basis. In addition to faith-based reasons, some workers may prefer to avoid social functions due to mental or physical impairments or other legally protected reasons, he added. Event sites should be accessible to workers with disabilities, and employees should be excused if they can't participate in a meaningful way because of a disability. "It's a balancing act," Galbally said. "The critical point is to understand why the employee doesn't want to go."

Compensate Employees Nonexempt employees must be paid for all hours worked in accordance with the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and state wage and hour laws. So when attendance is mandatory, employees need to be paid for that time at their regular rate of pay and must receive overtime pay, if applicable. "Also, employers may not deduct hours spent at a required social function from exempt employees' salaries." shrm.org

Kriser's Natural Pet Stores - Asset Protection Manager Corporate posted
in New York, New York
The role of the Asset Protection manager is to improve company profitability by developing and maintaining effective AP programs to reduce exposure to theft and increase associate awareness. This position is also responsible for developing programs that increase store security and reduce overall liability. Reporting to the Director of Store Operations, the Asset Protection Manager will participate in the design of and ensure adherence to the operational policies and procedures that impact profitability through research and investigation. jobvite.com

Since opening in Chicago in 2006, Kriser's has grown and now has 45 locations spanning across Chicagoland, Southern California, Denver, Fort Collins, Houston, San Antonio, Austin, and with the acquisition of Wylie Wagg stores has moved into Washington D.C. and Virginia! krisers.com

Holiday hiring to top 700,000 - Target Leading the Fight For New Hires at 120,000

Tractor Supply to open 500 stores over next decade

Mattress Firm to close another 99 stores

Starbucks is restructuring it's European Operations with Layoffs

Walgreens to Open 600 LabCorp Medical Testing Locations in U.S.


Quarterly Results
Sally Beauty Q4 comp's flat