Holiday ORC Prevention Strategies for Retailers
Holiday Shopping Season Creates New Challenges for ORC Prevention

By the D&D Daily staff

As retailers prepare for the busiest shopping period of the year, organized retail crime (ORC) remains a significant concern for loss prevention and asset protection teams. Increased customer traffic, seasonal staffing and higher merchandise volumes can create additional opportunities for coordinated theft activity, making early preparation particularly important.

Unlike isolated shoplifting incidents, organized retail theft typically involves individuals or groups stealing merchandise for resale or other financial gain. These operations can target multiple stores, move across jurisdictions and exploit weaknesses in inventory controls, employee awareness and communication between locations.

The holiday season presents several potential vulnerabilities. Crowded sales floors can make suspicious behavior more difficult to identify, while temporary employees may have limited experience recognizing theft patterns. High-demand merchandise, including electronics, fragrances, apparel and other easily resold products, can also attract attention from organized theft groups.

For asset protection professionals, prevention begins with identifying patterns rather than treating every incident as an isolated event. Reviewing historical theft data, monitoring unusual inventory losses and sharing information between nearby stores can help retailers recognize repeat activity and emerging trends.

Employee training is another important component. Seasonal associates should understand how to report suspicious behavior, preserve relevant information and follow established safety procedures. Clear communication between store leadership, security personnel and frontline employees can strengthen awareness without disrupting the customer experience.

Retailers can also evaluate merchandise placement, surveillance coverage and staffing during peak shopping periods. Strategic adjustments around entrances, exits and high-risk product categories may help reduce opportunities for theft while maintaining an accessible shopping environment.

Collaboration with law enforcement and other retailers remains valuable, particularly when incidents involve multiple locations or jurisdictions. Sharing actionable intelligence through established partnerships can support investigations and help identify broader criminal networks.

Ultimately, effective holiday ORC prevention requires balancing merchandise protection with employee and customer safety. By combining data analysis, targeted training and coordinated communication, retailers can strengthen their defenses during the holiday rush without relying solely on reactive enforcement.


Retailers Rethink Video Beyond Theft
How are retailers getting more from video?

Organized retail crime is prompting retailers to rethink how video is used across their operations writes Grant Cowan, VP of Sales, Central Region at Salient Systems.

With the continued increase in Organized Retail Crime (ORC), retailers are beginning to rethink how video can be utilized across their operations.

The same systems designed to detect and investigate theft can also deliver valuable insights into customer traffic, employee training and store layout.

ORC stopped being petty theft a long time ago. Small groups now cross state lines, hit several stores in a day and resell high-demand goods like baby formula, cosmetics and electronics through online marketplaces and black-market channels.

The losses run into the billions annually.

The cost isn’t only merchandise. Incidents now regularly involve threats, weapons and assaults. Employees are traumatized, attrition climbs and stores close, which leaves whole neighborhoods underserved.

It doesn’t stop at the sales floor either. Cargo hijacking and warehouse infiltration put theft at every point of the supply chain.

Meanwhile, the teams responding to it are smaller than they used to be. Loss prevention, IT and operations are all being asked to do more with less; at the same moment incidents stopped respecting store boundaries.

A system that only produces evidence after a loss asks an already stretched team for more of its time. A system that can also provide information about how a store is running gives some of that time back.

The retailers making real progress against ORC are designed to address both. securityjournalamericas.com


Retailers Rethink Security Amid Pokémon Theft Surge
Pokémon Card Thefts Push Canadian Retailers to Rethink Store Security
Retailers are responding with measures that include moving cards into bank safety-deposit boxes, removing inventory overnight, displaying empty product boxes, adding gates and cameras, and arranging some transactions away from their stores. For independent operators, the rising value of collectible cards is creating security, insurance and real estate considerations that were not traditionally associated with hobby retail.

Pokémon cards are part of a large collecting and resale market encompassing specialty stores, online marketplaces, card shows, private dealers, livestream sellers and grading companies. Individual cards can sell for hundreds or thousands of dollars, while sealed boxes and discontinued products can also command substantial prices.

For retailers, the category can concentrate substantial inventory value into a small amount of physical space. Tens of thousands of dollars in cards can fit inside a bag, while sealed Pokémon products are recognizable and supported by an active resale market.

Some Canadian card retailers have already changed how they operate. In Richmond, B.C., Team Collectors added security gates and expanded its surveillance system to 10 cameras. Particularly expensive cards could be handled by appointment, with transactions potentially taking place at a bank or police station. House of Cards had already moved its most expensive merchandise into bank safety-deposit boxes.

Cloud Games in York Region has taken a different approach. Manager Randy Ngo told CityNews that most of the company’s sales are conducted online, while its small retail office operates without exterior signage. An order for a sign was cancelled amid concerns about card-store robberies, while display shelves contain empty boxes and products are stored off-site before being transported to the location for arranged pickups.

These measures run against some conventional retail practices, where signage, product displays and readily available inventory are used to attract customers and encourage browsing. For some card retailers, limiting the amount of merchandise visible or stored on-site has become part of loss prevention. retail-insider.com


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Shifting Holiday Shopping Behavior
Holiday Shopping Traditions: What's Sacred, What's Shifting

By Tony D'Onofrio - President, Sensormatic

October in retail means one thing above all: the holiday planning season is already well underway, even though actual shopping is still six weeks out. Every year around this time, I get some version of the same question. What is actually different this time?

The honest answer is that the calendar traditions have barely moved. Black Friday is still Black Friday. Cyber Monday still anchors the first week of December shopping. Thanksgiving is still when the industry pauses to take stock before the sprint begins. What has changed, and changed meaningfully, is what shoppers are doing inside that calendar. That gap, between the fixed tradition and the shifting behavior inside it, is the real story heading into the 2026 season.

The Calendar Hasn't Moved. The Shopper Has.

Retailers still plan around the same fixed dates they always have. Shoppers no longer wait for them. According to Narvar and eTail's joint research on the 2026 holiday season, 58% of shoppers plan to start their holiday shopping earlier than they did last year. Yet 77% of retailers have no plans to incentivize that earlier behavior with early promotions or deals.

That gap, more than half of shoppers moving early and more than three-quarters of retailers standing still, is in my view the single biggest planning risk of the season. The tradition of waiting for Black Friday to open the wallet is fading. The retailers who notice first will capture demand the rest of the industry assumes is still six weeks away.

Stores Are Still the Tradition, Even With AI in the Room

Despite more than a decade of predictions that the physical store would fade into irrelevance, Salesforce's 2026 holiday outlook puts in-store shopping at 77% channel preference, still the largest share of any single channel heading into the season. AI-driven chat agents are projected to drive 20% of holiday ecommerce traffic this year, which is real, growing, and worth watching closely. linkedin.com


The New Retail Post-Apocalypse:
Across the Bay Area, former Walmart, Fry’s and other big box store sites are finding new life
Just a few years after experts insisted an Amazon-spawned “retail apocalypse” would doom several of the Bay Area’s big-box store sites, a growing number of the large commercial properties that once were home to Walmart, Kohl’s, Fry’s and other chain stores are finding new life.

While some have pushed for the expansive land hosting these stores to be turned into housing, a fresh crop of merchants is busy scouting for existing locations that could help them tap into a Bay Area economy awash in wealth created by the AI boom.

“Retailers want to be here,” said David Taxin, a partner with Meacham Oppenheimer, a commercial real estate firm. “This area has so much disposable income.”

As of March, the San Jose metro area had the nation’s highest median household income at $175,500, according to a report from market-focused digital publisher Visual Capitalist. The San Francisco-San Mateo metro area was second at $141,300.

Former shopping malls set to be repurposed include Vallco, a dead and mostly demolished retail center in Cupertino that is slated to be replaced by a mixed-use neighborhood of homes, shops, restaurants and offices. eastbaytimes.com


Hackers Trigger Fires in Supermarkets
Hackers heat French supermarket fridges, sparking fires and spoiling food

Les Mousquetaires says attack hit about 150 Intermarche stores

Hackers raised the temperature of refrigerators and freezers ​at hundreds of French supermarkets to as high as 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) overnight, causing fires and spoiling food.

The Paris prosecutor's office said on Monday ‌that a "large-scale" attack was "affecting connected refrigerators in several major food retailers across France", leading to food losses and fires.

Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has instructed France's National Cybersecurity Agency (ANSSI) to investigate, a person in his office said. France was coordinating with European counterparts because other countries could also be affected, the person said, adding that authorities were assessing whether other French companies were at risk.

Felix Aime, a senior cyber threat intelligence analyst ​at Sekoia Threat Detection and Research, said Spain, Portugal, Poland, Germany and Belgium had also been affected. reuters.com


New Work Trend?
Employees are 'loud working' in an effort to secure their jobs

Out: quiet quitting. In: loud working. Workers are loudly professing just how much they're doing.

After the era of quiet quitting — workers showing up, doing their jobs, and not much beyond that — the job market's pendulum has shifted. Job-hopping is harder; layoffs feel like a constant threat even as mass job cuts haven't yet hit the bulk of the economy.

And for the employees who now feel more stuck in place, some are now "loud working" — trying to ensure their work is visible and gets noticed. They hope that showing off to their bosses and colleagues will help them get promotions and avoid layoffs.

Other people are "loud working" by focusing on building their personal brands online — showcasing their work rather than letting it speak for itself. Some hope that in an uncertain economy, visibility will improve their career prospects — and help them dominate LinkedIn or other platforms' algorithms. businessinsider.com


Retailers Balance Physical Experience & AI
Gen Z, Gen Alpha and the AI-ificiation of retail this holiday season

AI is “rewiring” the brains of today’s youth, at the same time that they’re craving physical experiences. Can retailers strike the right balance?

The youngest Gen Zs and oldest Gen Alphas, both in their teens, are price-sensitive, digitally savvy and enamored by physical retail experiences. They wield significant influence on household purchases, despite having little money of their own, and perhaps most distinctly — they were exposed to AI early.

As embedded as digital tools are in young shoppers’ lives, there is also a growing fascination with all things Y2K. And there’s almost nothing more 2000s than the mall.

Like Gen Z before them, Gen Alpha has a penchant for in-store shopping. Look no further than the Sephora kids phenomenon — which drew attention both negative and positive — to see the enduring interest in physical retail for young shoppers. retaildive.com


3,000 Job Cuts
Kroger Slated To Axe Approximately 3,000 Corporate Jobs Over the Next 3 Years
Kroger is planning to slash about 3,000 corporate jobs over the course of the next three years, according to CEO Greg Foran. The memo mentioning the job cuts alludes to the reduction of duplicative work and the embrace of new technology, and also that the trimming of corporate staff could lead to price reductions for consumers and a further investment in in-store employees. retailwire.com


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