Leverage Line Crossing, Loitering, and Intrusion Detection Analytics

OpenEye Web Services (OWS), OpenEye's powerful cloud video platform, now features line crossing, intrusion, and loitering analytics, providing you with more actionable intelligence without costly camera upgrades. With the latest additions OpenEye's server-side analytics, you can now take advantage of line crossing, loitering, and intrusion events to better protect your business, regardless of your cameras' analytic capabilities.

Receive real-time notifications to email and mobile or quickly search for these events on the OWS timeline bar to easily locate the video you need. The additional analytics are accompanied by new tools, including the ability to classify the object type, whether person or vehicle, as well as set the period of time the object appears in the scene to classify as loitering.

Other improvements include the introduction of alert regions to ensure you can leverage analytics in even the more complicated scenes. The alert regions tool allows for the customization of alert settings to accommodate onboard analytics, providing the ability to configure as many as three unique regions for each analytic type on a per-camera basis. By doing so, you can enhance the monitoring of complex scenes, ensuring precise and tailored alert responsiveness for your security needs.

For busy retail settings, these analytics can uncover valuable insights into crowded, difficult-to-monitor spaces and help strengthen the overall security of your business. This powerful feature is part of the larger set of OpenEye’s server-side video analytics, including smart motion and person and vehicle detection, which can be deployed for your video security system without having to worry about installing analytics-enabled cameras.

To see how these analytics work and the ways they can benefit your business, learn more here.
 

Shoplifting Surges 5% in NYC
NYC shoplifting soars with over 21K complaints lodged so far this year — causing CVS, Walgreens to close up shops
New York City is losing drugstores as retail theft continues to surge. Gotham has logged 21,578 shoplifting complaints this year through May 12, up 5% from the 20,552 thefts during the same period last year. Manhattan has seen 8,896 incidents of retail theft alone.

Crime is so rampant, national chains like Target, CVS and Walgreens are closing locations and tempering expansion plans. Target announced at the end of last year the closure of nine stores across four states, including one in Harlem, due to theft.

“We cannot continue operating these stores because theft and organized retail crime are threatening the safety of our team and guests, and contributing to unsustainable business performance,” the company said.

Joseph Giacalone, a retired NYPD sergeant and an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said part of the problem was that politicians shrugged off retail theft instead of targeting it.

Retail theft, which the NYPD only recently added to its crime-tracking CompStat reports, has nearly doubled in the city in the last six years. The number of incidents in Gotham steadily climbed from 32,254 complaints in 2017 to 37,922 incidents in 2019, before falling during the height of COVID-19 in 2020. From 2021 to 2023 citywide complaints increased again from 43,892 to 59,137, the data indicate.

The climate has made it tough for big drugstores already in the midst of downsizing. In the Big Apple, locations are shuttering, with drug store companies forgoing some leases upon their expiration and putting other spaces up for sublease.

In Manhattan, five former CVS outposts are on the market, according to broker Joanne Podell, who is handling the leasing of the spaces. Walgreens has 17 former stores on the market in Manhattan, per a list from real estate firms JLL and SRS.  nypost.com
 

Anti-Crime or Pro-Union?
OPINION: The Real Reason for Self-Checkout Bans

It isn't about stopping crime—it's about protecting a favored constituency's jobs.

One group of progressive California lawmakers have proposed banning self-checkout machines from stores in the name of fighting crime. In reality, this "anti-crime" bill is nothing more than naked protectionism for union jobs.

The proposed legislation would prohibit groceries and other retail stores from using self-checkout machines unless a host of conditions are met. These include having at least one staffed employee for every two self-checkout machines (and the employee must be exempt from any other duties), only permitting the machines to be used by shoppers with 10 items or fewer, and ensuring at least one regular cashier lane is also available at all times.

To underscore her point, Smallwood-Cuevas cites a study suggesting that retail theft is up to 16 times more likely to occur at self-checkout machines than at traditional registers, leading to an estimated $10 billion in annual losses for retailers.

A closer look at the fine print of the bill, however, reveals the true intent behind it. The legislation mandates that any store seeking to install self-checkout machines must first produce a study analyzing, among other things, the number of employees "whose duties would be affected by the workplace technology," as well as the "total amount of salaries and benefits that would be eliminated as a result of the workplace technology." The study must then be provided to employees potentially impacted by the technology (or their collective bargaining representatives) and posted "in a location accessible to employees and customers."

Were this a game of poker, this mandated study would be the tell: Smallwood-Cuevas and her fellow progressives are trying to tuck a pro–union jobs bill inside the Trojan horse of crime prevention.

Efforts to limit self-checkout in other blue states provide corroborating evidence, such as a proposed anti-self-checkout ballot initiative in Oregon that labor interests tried to get on the 2020 ballot, explicitly positioned as a pro–union jobs measure.  reason.com

RELATED: Stop pretending self-checkout ban is about retail theft


Deterring Shoppers Instead of Criminals?
Shoppers deterred as retailers lock away more items to prevent shoplifting

Suburban shoppers say they have encountered more items behind locked glass cases.

There’s debate among experts about whether the theft prevention tactics are warranted at a time when it’s hard to parse whether retail theft is actually on the rise. There’s little transparency from companies about how they determine which items are locked. CVS and Walgreens spokespeople told The Inquirer that they use data to drive these decisions but declined to provide numbers.

Among consumers, however, The Philadelphia Inquirer found consensus: The contraptions are an inconvenience, one that is often just another reason to buy those products online. “You just don’t want the shopping trip to have that kind of friction,” one shopper said.

In-person retailers are “already facing these online pressures,” he added. By locking up so many items, companies are “making it harder for themselves” to keep customers loyal.

Retailers say locked cases are ‘a measure of last resort’

Retailers say it’s a deterrence strategy necessary to combat theft, some perpetrated by organized rings that then sell the stolen goods online. Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner earlier this year launched a task force to go after repeat offenders and organizations, noting a 27% rise in reported retail theft in the city between 2022 and 2023.

Retailers risk driving more consumers to Amazon, other online stores

From a business perspective, it’s unclear whether the locking-up of merchandise has been effective since large retailers do not publicly share data specifically on theft. More than 70% of shoppers said in a national Harris Poll survey that theft deterrents, including locked cases, made them less likely to shop at stores in person, Fast Company reported in November. dallasnews.com

RELATED: Product lockups driving customers away?


Cargo Theft Surges Over Memorial Day Weekends
Memorial Day Weekend Theft Trends Infographic and Security Tips
JERSEY CITY, N.J., May 16, 2024 — Supply chain professionals should be on high alert this upcoming Memorial Day weekend because cargo thieves will seek to leverage extended business closures. CargoNet, a Verisk business, reviewed theft data from 2019 to 2023 for the Thursday prior to Memorial Day to the Wednesday after to help supply chain professionals mitigate theft. There were 146 events reported with an average of 29 events per year. The stolen cargo in each event was worth an average of $264,016 - due in part to 3 thefts that exceeded $1 million in property stolen.

The data from the past five years shows a significant rising trend in theft events, with 16 events in 2022, increasing to 40 events in 2023. Seventeen percent of recorded thefts occurred on Friday and a significant number of thefts also occurred on Wednesday (15%) and Tuesday (15%). Food and beverage items were the most stolen (24 incidents) and cargo thieves targeted a wide range of products in this category. Household items were the second most targeted commodity with 23 incidents and Electronics had 18 reported incidents.

CargoNet has been tracking a sharp rise in highly technical shipment misdirection fraud schemes across the United States. Fictitious pickup and fraud complaints have reached record-breaking numbers. Geographically, California (43 incidents) remains the most at-risk state and has nearly double the reported incidents from the second most reported state (Texas at 22 incidents). Most of the misdirection fraud has taken place in California, but some shipments have shipped from other states and have been misdirected to California.

Given these trends, it is crucial for supply chain stakeholders to enhance security measures, particularly in the identified high-risk states and locations, and for the most targeted commodity categories. Industry professionals should be on high alert for unauthorized attempts to misdirect shipments from the intended receiver. cargonet.com

Drone Crime-Fighters?
NYPD to start using drones as ‘first responders’ on 911 calls, shooting investigations

Drones will soon be accompanying cops on shooting investigations and other 911 calls throughout the city, NYPD officials said.

A new Drone as First Responder pilot program will be in effect in coming months, beginning with five NYPD police precincts, NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry announced at a hearing before the House Committee on Homeland Security.

“The plan, to be rolled out in the coming months, is to deploy these drones in response to certain 911 calls for service,” Daughtry told the committee on Thursday.

Three of the precincts participating in the program are in Brooklyn, Daughtry said. A fourth is in the Bronx and the fifth covers Central Park. The precincts were chosen “based on recent crime trends,” he explained.

The drones are expected to be deployed to shootings in their precincts and respond to ShotSpotter alerts from a ring of microphones in the area designed to detect gunfire, the NYPD said.

Drone use by the NYPD jumped more than 400% last year from 2022, but Daughtry said they can’t be used for “warrantless surveillance” as well as “traffic enforcement or immobilizing vehicles of suspects.”

The drones can’t be used on routine patrols either, although it was not clear how the new pilot program will affect that rule. nydailynews.com


Professional shoplifters wreak havoc on Buffalo-area stores

NYC Mayor Adams plans review of NYPD response to Brooklyn pro-Palestinian rally after cops punched protesters
 

Gas Station Bans Spreading in the Bay Area
How one Safeway controversy kicked off the spread of gas station bans around the Bay Area

The moratoriums have been adopted by more than a dozen cities

When Pinole made news last month for being the first East Bay city to ban new gas stations, the small community of 18,000 was tapping into a trend that has been spreading through the Bay Area for the last three years.

It all started when Petaluma became the first city in the country to ban new gas stations in 2021. But the activists who originally launched that first effort had no idea it would turn into a movement — in fact, JoAnn McEachin, a Petaluma resident who helped start the group NoGasHere a decade ago, says she had no intention of becoming an activist at the time, and she wasn’t even opposed to new gas stations in general.

In 2021, Petaluma’s City Council declared a climate emergency and changed its zoning laws to prohibit the creation of new gas stations.

Other Sonoma County communities took notice, starting with the tiny city of Cotati. The movement spread through Sonoma County, with similar restrictions eventually covering Rohnert Park, Sebastopol, Cotati, Novato, Windsor, unincorporated areas and the county’s largest city, Santa Rosa.

Cloverdale, Healdsburg and Sonoma are the last three cities in Sonoma County without similar gas bans in place. Cloverdale leaders considered adopting a ban in 2022 but voted to table the issue.  mercurynews.com


Future of Retail Lies in 'Immersive Experiences'
Is It Time for Phygital Retail To Become Mainstream?
In 2022, BrainTrust members discussed the notion of a phygital retail future. Now, over two years later, we take a look at how far this landscape has evolved in regards to digitizing the physical store.

The integration of digital and physical experiences, known as “phygital,” is becoming increasingly prevalent in the retail and restaurant sectors. Mobile payments, loyalty apps, and mobile ordering are reshaping customer interactions, and they allow for the highest levels of personalized shopping experiences.

With 53% of Americans now preferring digital wallets for mobile payments and branded apps playing a central role in loyalty programs by enabling mobile couponing and ordering, consumer preferences are shifting toward digital platforms.

Examples of Phygital Implementation in the Past Few Years

Happy Moon’s Cafe, a Middle Eastern restaurant chain, leads the charge with its groundbreaking 3D menus, allowing customers to visualize menu items with augmented reality before ordering. Meanwhile, Zara’s innovative Store Mode feature on its app empowers shoppers with real-time inventory tracking and convenient in-store navigation, streamlining the shopping experience.

Ralph Lauren addresses authenticity concerns by embedding QR codes in clothing items, providing customers with instant verification and styling tips. The Hover app utilizes machine learning to transform simple photos into detailed 3D models, helping customers visualize remodeling and DIY projects with precision.

Nordstrom continues to support live video shopping, offering immersive experiences where customers can interact with products and make purchases directly from themed livestreams. Finally, Rose City Goods integrates QR code shopping into its interactive window displays, allowing passersby to seamlessly shop for items showcased in the storefront without setting foot inside the store.

As retailers continue to blur the lines between digital and physical realms, these innovative approaches pave the way for enhanced customer engagement and convenience in the ever-evolving world of retail. retailwire.com

 
Starting Your Store's Self-Checkout Program
How retailers are seeking to improve self-checkout

Executives from Mashgin, Invenco and other firms recently discussed issues they face in using kiosks for self checkout, and how retailers can address them.

“We’ve made all the mistakes already when it comes to driving customer adoption,” Jack Hogan, senior vice president of sales and partnerships for Mashgin, said in a panel discussion during Invenco’s 2024 Retail Technology Conference on May 7.

That friction made Hogan realize that self-checkout kiosks should not be implemented in convenience stores unless they can be used by at least 85% of customers from the very first day.

While some retailers, like Circle K and Chestnut Market, have shown that they’re all-in on self-checkout kiosks, other operators have yet to get started with the technology. Here are steps some retailers suggest for getting a self-checkout program up and running, and ensuring it’s as successful as possible.

• Figure out if it works for the store
• Location is essential
• Add cash capabilities
• Clean the machines
• Involve store associates  paymentsdive.com


Grocery Prices Have Finally Fallen for the First Time in a Year

Target lowering prices on 5,000 frequently bought items

Last week's #1 article --

Is Airport Retail Evolving Into the New Shopping Mall?