How Organization Prevents Retail Crime
Being Organized Keeps your Retail Store Safe
Retail store owners are always looking for ways to keep their stores safe and secure, and with good reason. After all, retail crime costs businesses millions of dollars each year and losses due to crime are one of the major reasons that retail stores go out of business.
Therefore, it’s natural that store owners will want to seek out new ways to protect their properties. However, while various security technologies certainly help, new tools and solutions aren’t the only ways to protect a property. One of the easiest and most straightforward, yet often most overlooked, way to secure your retail property is by being organized.
There are many reasons why.
- Organization lets criminals know you’re paying attention
- If a criminal walks into a retail store and finds that the shelves are disorganized, the store is messy, and the employees are confused, they’ll consider your property a target. They’ll think that they can steal and you won’t notice, or be able to respond appropriately, because you don’t care for your store.
- On the other hand, if your store is well-organized and clean, they will assume that you are watching them, so they won’t be as likely to try anything.
- A well organized store makes it easier to spot crime
- If your store is well organized, and everything is located where it should be, then it is obvious when someone in the store takes something off a shelf and slips it in their bag. This gives you an advantage as you’ll be able to stop the criminal while they are still in your store, rather than only realizing that something was taken a while later, when there isn’t much you can do about it.
- If you’re organized, you can keep order among your employees
- In addition to shoplifting, employee theft is a major issue for retail stores. If you’re an organized person running an organized store, you’ll have much more success keeping an eye on your employees.
- When you’re organized, you can schedule more efficiently. For example, you can ensure that two employees are always together when handling cash, such as when counting the money from the registers at night or when taking deposits to the bank. This not only reduces employee theft, but it reduces the chances of a robbery as criminals are less likely to strike two people than one working alone.
- Organization makes it easier to spot security flaws
- If you’re running an organized retail store, you won’t be distracted by mess, confusion, or any other issues. This makes it easier for you to notice potential security flaws at your property.
- Regularly checking your retail store for security flaws is crucial. Being organized allows you to schedule these regular checks. Just because your security system was effective a year or two ago, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t flaws in it that you didn’t notice. It also doesn’t mean that newer technology doesn’t exist that would provide more comprehensive protection.
- For example, when you looked at physical security tools years ago, you may not have been introduced to rolling or folding security gates. These gates provide incredible protection, but can easily be rolled or folded away while your store is open, so your property always looks great. This is a big advantage over fixed window bars, which can cause a property to look uninviting.
We have some more helpful tips to improving the security of your business. Download our helpful guide to Improving Your Security Mindset.
