Brazen and often violent thefts are taking place daily, caused by a sense of entitlement and fed by the desperation of drug addiction and homelessness—a clerk assaulted over a jug of laundry detergent, a thief casually hauling a TV out of the store, people filling suitcases and duffel bags with groceries in plain sight. Events like these are becoming common occurrences in today’s retail environment, forcing many companies to make the unfortunate decision to close store locations.
“It’s not just an issue of theft—it’s an issue of safety,” said a Senior Manager, Asset Protection Solutions. This was after he and other company executives toured stores in some of their most challenging areas.
For one national brand, who spoke with us on condition of anonymity, it was time to develop a new playbook—one that used stronger offensive and deterrent-based strategies. They came up with a plan to not only reclaim their stores, but to make them profitable.
Their answer—extreme stores. These are stores equipped with enhanced protection measures that increase safety, hardens the target, and deters violent, entitled thieves.
They were determined to stay open, knowing that honest customers and employees rely on them. “We put our foot down and said, ‘No more,’” said the senior AP manager.
Creating a New Playbook
Everyone knows a store or shopping center to avoid. It could be downtown, near a homeless encampment, or even down the street. Thieves’ sense of entitlement has grown over the past few years, to the point that they view anything and everything as rightfully theirs and they will fight for it.
This has led to stores closing across the country. Community staples like Target, Walmart, Nike, and REI have even packed up and left areas, many of them citing, “deteriorating public safety conditions and rapid escalation in retail theft.”
Thieves know that standard store policy in retail is to avoid confrontation and are bolder because of it.
But one national chain wasn’t just sitting back and watching. They had already implemented typical asset protection and loss prevention strategies at the stores, including armed guards and cameras. They had used every defensive strategy and the thieves kept coming.
It was time for a new plan based on three things:
- Seeing and understanding what was really happening
- Collecting and analyzing the data
- Acting with a sense of urgency
Seeing is Believing
The first step in their playbook was to understand exactly what was happening at the stores. They could see the numbers easily, but it took walking the premises, talking to customers and employees, and seeing it firsthand for them to really understand the scope of what was happening. “If we didn’t go onsite,” said the Senior Manager, Asset Protection Solutions, “I wouldn’t have believed the challenges our store associates face every day.”
It’s difficult for managers to retain associates who feel threatened and abused by thieves and drug addicts. Mike Lamb, who recently retired from the asset protection industry, commented on the recent uptick in violence and entitlement. He said, “In my 40 years working in retail, I have never seen such a sense of entitlement and threats to the safety of customers and associates.” It was time to put a plan together that would put the offense in the field and keep them there.
Collecting and Analyzing
The goal wasn’t just to put a Band-Aid on the problem. Of course, the AP team needed to stop the thefts to keep the stores open, but they wanted to do more.
“We knew we can’t go at it alone,” said the senior AP manager. So they brought together leaders from legal, customer affairs, finance, division operations, the division presidents, local law enforcement, the mayors’ offices, and more. This team measured the repetition and routine of the thefts and started weekly calls that looked at key performance indicators (KPIs).
Putting the Plan Into Action
After measuring, polling, and planning, the team moved forward with enhanced mitigation measures and adding extreme guards. The idea was to harden the target at the door because if they could control the access point, everything inside would automatically be protected.
“We wanted an impression of control,” said the Senior Manager, Asset Protection Solutions. “That we are going to protect our associates, our customers, and lastly our product.” The plan was announced at a press conference with the mayor’s office and with posted signage around the stores about two weeks before the new policies took effect.
Each guard has a visible firearm, pepper gel, a stun gun, and handcuffs. They also wear body armor and body cameras. Everything about these guards was carefully planned, down to the color of their uniforms.
An extreme guard is posted at every customer entrance/exit from open to close. Most of these stores are more than 150,000 square feet and have three or four main doors. The guards are responsible for controlling what enters and exits the store. And unlike traditional associates who are trained to observe and report, the extreme guards are allowed to use force as a last resort to stop thieves.
Is It Worth It?
Posting two shifts of three or four extreme guards per day isn’t cheap. But according to the company, it is worth it. “We’ve had overwhelmingly positive feedback from associates, managers, and customers,” said the senior AP manager. The most important change is the shift in employee morale and customer perception. Now with the extreme guards in place, it is easier to staff open positions and retain employees, and the customers feel safe shopping.
When they started the program, the amount lost to theft was extremely high, but it dropped almost instantly, and it has stayed low. Bad actors will follow the path of least resistance and the company puts a lot of resistance in play.
“Results are coming in that we’ve never seen. It’s overwhelmingly positive,” said the Senior Manager, Asset Protection Solutions. Some of the KPIs they looked at were shoplifting apprehension, recovery of merchandise by the extreme guards, ability to operate, changes in operation, and calls to the police.
The extreme guards were never meant to be a long-term plan. Lamb likened it to a treatment of the symptoms rather than a cure for the disease. To cure the disease—the sense of entitlement and the culture of theft—it will take a community effort of both public and private sectors, everyone from local law enforcement and government to businesses and prosecutors. “It’s going to take a village,” said Lamb.
But as communities start stepping up, one company has rewritten the playbook and is going to continue to take necessary steps to take back its stores.
