Interface "Ask Our Expert" video series

What is POS Exception Reporting?

Jim Mack, VP Products and Solutions, Interface Security Systems, explains how Point of Sale (POS) Exception Reporting solutions can help retail chains and restaurants identify internal theft and opportunities to train employees. He also talks about how the ROI from POS exception reporting can be further improved when integrated with security cameras. 

To learn more about POS exception reporting, please visit https://interfacesystems.com/business-intelligence/pos-exception-reporting/
 

'National Theft Crisis' Continues to Make Headlines
ORC needs stricter penalties, US Chamber of Commerce tells Congress
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce – the world's largest business organization – is imploring Congress to step up enforcement against rampant retail theft.

In a letter to Congress (published in the D&D Daily on March 30), the organization outlined specific actions – including passing legislation seeking to stop the resale of stolen goods — that it hopes policymakers will take to tackle the "significant increase in retail theft and organized retail crime" impacting large and small businesses across the nation.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce Chief Policy Officer Neil Bradley cited a recent survey indicating that 54% of small business owners experienced an increase in shoplifting in 2021.

Meanwhile, another survey conducted by the National Retail Federation showed that larger retailers lost an average of more than $700,000 per $1 billion in sales in 2020 due to organized retail crime. That's an increase of more than 50% in the last five years.

These crimes are not only affecting businesses, but harming the entire community, according to Bradley.

"These crimes are not victimless," he said. "In addition to the growing number of thefts that turn violent, innocent consumers, employees, local communities, and business owners and shareholders bear the costs of rising retail theft."

As a result, 25% of businesses raised prices in order to offset losses, according to Bradley. Some businesses were even forced to close in response to these crimes, he added.

The organization wants Congress to pass the "Integrity, Notification, and Fairness in Online Retail Marketplaces for (INFORM) Consumers Act" to prevent stolen goods from being resold on online marketplaces. foxbusiness.com chainstoreage.com

Retail 'Siege Mentality' Amid Theft Surge
You’re Not Imagining It. Stores Are Locking Everything Up.
Retailers have rushed to lock things up — from razors and soap to socks and pistachios — as theft has soared during the pandemic, prompting frustration among shoppers encountering an increasingly long list of everyday items that suddenly require flagging down an employee. They are looking to reduce shoplifting, as well as more coordinated attacks by criminal gangs that target products they can steal in bulk and easily resell online, with some groups netting millions in profits.

Nearly 70% of retailers reported a rise in organized retail crime last year, contributing to theft and losses of as much as $69 billion a year, according to the Retail Industry Leaders Association and the Buy Safe America Coalition.

“Everyone is locking everything up. It’s a siege mentality,” said Joe Budano, CEO of Indyme, a San Diego-based company whose security devices are used by Walgreens and other big chains. Its help buttons, which sit on top of locked cases and when pushed begin flashing and issuing a request for assistance over the store’s loudspeaker, are selling in record numbers, with sales up 40% this year.

RTC sells a line of plastic windows that sit on shelves and prevent thieves from grabbing more than one or two products at a time before an alarm is sounded. They can be left unlocked, but a larger percentage of retailers are now asking for the locks. “We can hardly make enough of them right now,” said Gary Cohen, a vice president at the company.

While the rush to lock things up may have started in big cities like San Francisco plagued by rampant theft, it hasn’t stopped there. As thieves have found it more difficult to steal items in urban areas, where stores have locked things up or even closed permanently after being targeted, they are increasingly stealing from suburban and rural stores, prompting efforts to lock items up there, too, said Jeff Jones, CEO of Vira Insight, a major manufacturer of locked cases.

Retailers aren’t clueless. They know customers hate finding stuff locked up. It typically results in a 15-to-25% reduction in sales, said Budano, who adds that customers who don’t want to go through the hassle of flagging down and waiting for an employee will just leave. forbes.com

Thefts Up 70% - Burglaries Up 36% in Chicago
Chicago records 36 percent jump in crime as some violent crime drops
Chicago has seen a 36 percent increase in overall crime since last year, though shootings and murders fell slightly. The city, which has a history of high gun violence, saw other crimes like burglaries, thefts and car jackings rise over the past year.

Shooting incidents declined by 11 percent and murders were down 6 percent from this time last year, when Chicago recorded the most homicides in 25 years.

Burglaries were up 36 percent, thefts were up 70 percent and carjackings were up 43 percent, according to police data tracking crimes through March 27.

The crime trends in Chicago were similar to those in major cities including New York and Los Angeles. Overall crime complaints in New York City rose by nearly 45 percent thus far this year, city data showed. However, murders in the city dropped by roughly 5 percent, with shooting incidents up by about 17 percent.

Across the country in Los Angeles, homicides were down about 13 percent this year compared to last, and shootings declined by around 8 percent.

But robberies and car jackings were up, and the city recorded a nearly 12 percent jump in violent crime overall, Los Angeles Police Department data indicated. thehill.com

Minnesota's ORC Effort
Sen. Limmer champions legislation to address organized retail crime
“In 2020, 75% of retailers saw an increase in organized crime, and I authored my bill in response to this drastic surge,” said Senator Warren Limmer (R-Maple Grove). “Currently, 34 states have already defined organized retail crime, and by putting this definition into Minnesota law, we will have a modernized tool to address the changing ways organized retail crimes are carried out.”

He continued, “This bill will have an important impact on distinguishing between common petty shoplifting and organized crime. My hope is that this bill will provide prosecutors and law enforcement an updated tool to help address the theft going on at retailers of all sizes across Minnesota.”

S.F. 3487 would establish the crime of organized theft. This crime occurs when a person steals or fraudulently obtains retail merchandise from a retailer; resells or intends to resell it; advertises or displays it for sale; returns it to the retailer for anything of value; or the act occurs withing five years of a previous conviction.

In addition, receiving stolen retail merchandise with the intent to resell it and possessing shoplifting-related devices with the intent to use them to shoplift are violations. Penalties for the new crime range from a gross misdemeanor to a 2-, 7-, or 15-year statutory maximum felony depending on the value of the property stolen and whether the offender violated the crime in the past.

This bill also provides for enhanced penalties for violations that create a reasonably foreseeable risk of bodily harm to others and allows aggregation of the value of retail merchandise stolen in a six-month period for charging purposes. hometownsource.com

Ohio Bill to Combat ORC
Ohio bill to combat organized retail crime approved by General Assembly
Ohio House Bill 272 championed by State Rep. Haraz Ghanbari, R-Perrysburg, passed the General Assembly Wednesday after a 33-0 vote in Senate. The legislation, jointly sponsored by State Rep. Phil Plummer, R-Dayton, requires high-volume, third-party online sellers to disclose certain pieces of identifying information in order to protect consumers.

Specifically, the bill defines a high-volume third-party seller as a participant in an online marketplace that, in any continuous 12-month period in the previous 24 months has entered into at least 200 discreet sales for new or unused consumer goods resulting in at least $5,000 of gross revenue. The required identifying information for sellers on product listings would include details such as name, email address, or business tax I.D. number and would further require the online marketplace to verify such information within ten days of the seller qualifying as high volume.

Ghanbari said that having this information available will allow consumers to be able to contact these sellers if necessary. Additionally, the bill allows the attorney general to adopt rules to enforce the bill’s provisions. Additionally, the bill will help combat organized crime as Ghanbari identified that crime rings find a source of revenue through the online selling of stolen or counterfeit goods. sent-trib.com

In Case You Missed It: Illinois turns attention to epidemic of retail thefts

Retail theft on the rise in Tulsa area

US: 81.8M Cases - 1M Dead - 65.6M Recovered
Worldwide: 491.9M Cases - 6.1M Dead - 426.9M Recovered

Former Senior Loss Prevention Executive
Know of any fallen LP exec? Let's remember & recognize.

Private Industry Security Guard Deaths: 354  
Law Enforcement Officer Deaths: 741
*Red indicates change in total deaths

Spring Break COVID Surge?
Health Experts Say COVID Cases Likely Will Rise When Spring Break Ends
After two pandemic years and travel restrictions, some families and students plan to make up for lost time this Spring Break. But the fear for health experts is they’ll pick up the new, even more contagious Omicron subvariant known as BA. 2.

“Like the evil twin sister of BA. 1, it’s more transmissible by 30 to 50 percent,” said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, infectious disease expert at UCSF.

Dr. Chin-Hong said that, while 10 states outside of California were seeing cases go up, the Bay Area case counts remained low. That is expected to change as health officials believe the local numbers will increase.

“We don’t think it’s going to be a traditional surge like a huge vertical-wall increase and lots of people being hospitalized. They’ll probably be a low- to moderate increase that may cause some disruptions in schools and the workforce,” Dr. Chin-Hong said. sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com

Thousands of EEOC COVID Complaints
Regulatory Update: EEOC Gets Over 6,000 COVID Complaints

To avoid becoming targets, employers need to provide accommodations.

It looks like more employers should have paid attention when the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued its own COVID-19 discrimination guidelines, covering responses to the disease itself as well as vaccination policies. It was recently revealed that between April 2020 and December 2021 more than 6,000 discrimination charges were filed.

The EEOC also received more than 2,700 separate vaccine-related charges after the vaccine became widely available and vaccine mandates were introduced to workplaces across the county.

The majority of the EEOC charges claimed violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), while others cited racial, ethnic and gender discrimination under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act along with other anti-bias laws. Many of the EEOC charges related to vaccine mandates appear to cite violations of the ADA; however, the majority of vaccine-related charges raised other statutes. ehstoday.com

Just 10% of Workers Are Still Remote Due to COVID
COVID isn’t the thing keeping people working from home anymore
As the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic continue to fade, so too do the number of Americans working from home. With the latest Omicron spike largely in the rearview mirror, only about 10% of employed Americans worked remotely in March because of COVID, according to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday. And that’s down by about three percentage points from February.

Keep in mind, however, that this metric represents only the share of Americans who are working remotely due to the virus over the last four weeks. Those who worked remotely pre-pandemic or worked from home for other reasons are excluded. The overall number of people working remotely for any reason is likely much higher, says Daniel Zhao, senior economist and lead data scientist for Glassdoor’s economic research team.

Yet as more workers are recalled in person, 55% of workers are concerned about the extra costs of heading back to in-person work, Workhuman finds. Top-of-mind for most are the higher commuting costs, particularly around rising gas prices. fortune.com

Hong Kong Retail Sales Plunge 14.6% as Covid Measures Bite
Hong Kong’s retail sales contracted 14.6% in February from a year ago, the biggest decline since July 2020 as the government imposed tough restrictions to battle the city’s worst-ever outbreak.

A New Wave of Covid-19 Is Coming. Here’s How to Prepare.

Bad Trend for Workplace Safety
Workforce Drug Test Positivity Climbs to Highest Level in Two Decades

The study showed increased drug positivity rates in the safety-sensitive workforce, including those performing public safety and national security jobs.

The rate of positive drug test results among the U.S. workforce reached its highest rate last year since 2001. This number increased more than 30% in the combined U.S. workforce from an all-time low in 2010-2012, according to a new analysis released on March 30 by Quest Diagnostics.

Overall positivity in the federally mandated, safety-sensitive workforce based on nearly 2.7 million urine drug tests stayed even year over year (2.2% in 2020 and 2021) and was 4.8% higher than 2017 (2.1% in 2017 versus 2.2% in 2021). In the general U.S. workforce, positivity increased 1.8% (5.5% in 2020 versus 5.6% in 2021) and was 12% higher than in 2017 (5.0% in 2017 versus 5.6% in 2021) and up each of the last five years.

"Our Drug Testing Index reveals several notable trends, such as increased drug positivity rates in the safety-sensitive workforce, including those performing public safety and national security jobs, as well as higher rates of positivity in individuals tested after on-the-job accidents," said Barry Sample, Ph.D., Senior Science Consultant for Quest Diagnostics, in a statement.

After five years of steady declines in several drug categories, positivity rates based on urine drug tests for the federally mandated, safety-sensitive workforce increased in 2021. Of note, marijuana increased 8.9% (0.79% in 2020 to 0.86% in 2021), amphetamines increased 7.8% (0.64% in 2020 to 0.69% in 2021) and cocaine increased 5.0% (0.20% in 2020 to 0.21% in 2021). ehstoday.com

The Hayes Report on Loss Prevention
Quarterly - Spring 2022 - Vol. 37 No. 2

Topics: Stemming the Tide of Shoplifting - Robin Hood - Testing for Success - Safety Violations - The Bulletin Board

Mark Doyle Talks ---
A New Year and Unfortunately Theft Continues

Out with the old (2021), in with the new (2022), but retail thefts remain the constant. Some of these thefts are getting crazy (ie. woman carrying pick-axe stealing alcohol; brazen midday smash and grab thefts; Flash Mob thefts initiated on social media, etc.). The one positive of all this is that with retail thefts now being constantly in the news, and the public getting informed and educated about retail theft, maybe our elected officials, the courts and some police departments will take retail theft more seriously and begin taking steps to make things better.

On the subject of shrink/theft, how were your 2021 shrink results? Hopefully you met or Surpassed your shrink goals and 2022 will be another banner year. If not, give us a call and let’s talk about your shrink.

Click here to read the full newsletter

Nearly 50K New Retail Jobs Added in March
Economy added 431,000 jobs in March despite worries over slowing growth
U.S. employers added 431,000 jobs in March on a seasonally adjusted basis, the Labor Department said Friday. The unemployment rate was 3.6 percent, down from 3.8 percent a month earlier and just a touch higher than its levels right before the pandemic.

The economy has recovered more than 90 percent of the 22 million jobs lost at the peak of the pandemic’s lockdowns in the spring of 2020 — a far swifter rebound than forecasters initially expected.

Parts of the labor market that were already strong generally got stronger: Professional and business services added 102,000 jobs in March, and retail trade employment added 49,000 workers to its payrolls. nytimes.com

LPF Announces LPC & LPQ Professionals for March
The Loss Prevention Foundation would like to recognize and congratulate the following individuals who successfully completed all of the requirements set forth by the board of directors to be LPQualified (LPQ) and/or LPCertified (LPC). View Full List Here

Five Below looks to triple store count by 2030
The retailer set a goal of tripling its store count to more than 3,500 locations by 2030, up from 1,190 stores at the end of 2021.
 
Sony Has Reportedly Laid Off 90 Amid Shift Away From Retail

Lawsuit alleges Burger King sandwich sizes in ads mislead customers

Biden will tap oil reserve, hoping to push gasoline prices down

European fast fashion retailers struggle amid inflation and Russia-Ukraine war