Attention loss prevention professionals: do you what your average odds are of catching a shoplifter? According to a recent National Retail Security Survey, the odds of getting caught shoplifting are 1 in 48. And each year, Inventory shrink costs the US retail industry $45.2 billion, according to data from NRF.
Loss prevention is no easy task. It can seem virtually impossible to know who to watch in order to prevent retail crime. As a result, loss prevention professionals often have to rely on their intuition and memory when choosing who to monitor. But all that is on the verge of changing.
Facial Recognition: A Loss Prevention Revolution
A relatively new technology is in the process of revolutionizing retail loss prevention. Some of the world’s most successful retail chains are already using facial recognition to prevent retail crime. So how does facial recognition increase your odds of catching shoplifters? People rarely shoplift only once. In fact, habitual shoplifters steal an average of 1.6 times each week, often from the same stores. With facial recognition, you can ensure that known shoplifters never steal from you again.
Here’s how it works:
Step 1: Build a Watchlist
It all starts with building a watchlist of known persons of interest. FaceFirst even offers a service where we’ll build watchlist of known local and national people of interest to watch. You can also add people to your watchlist any time. Catch someone shoplifting? Enroll them and know the moment they return to one of your stores.
Step 2: Install Face Recognition
As individuals enter your stores, a video camera that’s well positioned for lighting and angle can capture their face at 30 frames a second. Then, that face can be compared against the photos in your watchlist.
Step 3: Alert Your Team
If a match is found, your security team receives an instant alert with actionable directives. If someone is a known dangerous criminal, your team members will know not to approach them but to instead alert authorities. Or for a serial shoplifter, your team might get the directive to simply observe.
Step 4: Analytics
As you get matches, you’ll be able to get an aggregate view of threat patterns across various stores. And if you catch a criminal, you can view historical data and know each and every time they’ve visited one of your stores.
Facial Recognition Results
So what are the results? This technology has been nothing short of a breakthrough for retail loss prevention. Using facial recognition has been shown to reduce external shrink by 20% and in-store violence by 90%. So if you’re looking to become a loss prevention leader, you owe it to yourself to investigate whether face recognition technology can help you radically increase retail ROI and improve store safety.
Interested in seeing our face recognition technology in action? Contact our sales team today and set up your free demo.
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