Retail loss prevention with the cameras you already have

Loss prevention is everything a store does to stop inventory and cash disappearing. The number most retailers watch is shrink. The National Retail Federation (NRF) describes shrink as a measurement of inventory loss as a percentage of sales during a specific inventory period. It covers theft by employees and non-employees, administrative or operational errors and other identified inventory loss.

Two things follow. Shrink is not only shoplifting. And it is a lagging indicator: NRF calls it useful for describing what happened, but not ideal for finding where losses are building, because it is worked out after a physical inventory, usually once or twice a year. Cameras and alerts help most with the part you can still act on today.

Before you spend on anything, find out which kind of loss you have. Each one needs a different fix. NRF lists these parts of shrink.

• External theft, including shoplifting. People taking goods from the selling area, or getting in after hours.
• Employee theft. Cash or stock taken by someone with legitimate access.
• Vendor fraud and receiving problems. Short deliveries, wrong counts and false invoices.
• Administrative errors. Wrong prices, returns and voids entered badly, damage nobody recorded.
• Damage, expired goods and spoilage.

Want to know when someone is on site after hours? Try it free for 7 days, no card

NRF's guidance for small retailers says that high-quality cameras can deter theft and also provide crucial evidence for investigations. That is a fair summary. Cameras do three useful things.

• They deter, when people can see the cameras and the signs. A visible camera makes some people think twice.
• They give you evidence. When a drawer is short, a delivery is disputed or a door was open overnight, a recording lets you check instead of guess.
• They show you where it happens. Looking back at the incidents you already know about tells you which door, aisle or time of day to fix first.

Be clear about the limits before you rely on them. The research on cameras and crime is encouraging but modest. A review of 80 studies by Piza, Welsh, Farrington and Thomas (2019, Criminology and Public Policy) found that cameras are linked with a modest fall in crime. The strongest results were in car parks, and the effect was bigger where someone actively watched the cameras and where cameras were used alongside other measures. Its authors say cameras should not be used as a stand-alone crime prevention measure. The review set shops aside as outside its scope, so treat it as a general guide, not a promise for one store.

• They do not stop a determined thief. They record, and they may deter.
• They cannot see into a bag or a coat. A recording shows a person, not what they concealed.
• They do not show intent. Someone picking up an item is not stealing it. Judging a recording takes a person who knows your store.
• They cannot fix paperwork losses. Wrong counts, unrecorded damage and short deliveries do not show on a camera pointed at an aisle.
• They are only as good as the picture. A dark, blocked, smeared or badly aimed camera records nothing useful.
• A recorder with nobody looking tells you what you lost after you lost it.

Before you buy anything, spend an hour with the system you have. Most stores do not need new cameras. They need the existing ones checked and pointed at the right places. Our business security cameras guide has a longer checklist for the picture, the recorder and storage.

Walk the store with the live view on your phone or a monitor and ask these questions.

• Entrances and exits. Can you see a face clearly at the door, in daylight and at night?
• Registers and the cash office. Can you see the register, the drawer and the hands, so a dispute about a refund or a short drawer can be settled from the recording?
• The stockroom and the receiving door. Deliveries come in and stock moves through here, and it is quiet after closing.
• The back door and the loading dock. Places to watch after hours.
• High-value cases and shelves. The goods you would hate to lose.
• Recording days. How many days of recordings does the recorder keep? A problem found on Monday should still be checkable a week later. Our hard disk guide explains how to work it out.
• Clean lenses, steady mounts and the right date and time on screen. A wrong clock makes a recording much less useful.

A recorder answers what happened, after the fact. Loss prevention also needs to know when something is happening now. That is the gap alerts fill, and it does not need new cameras.

Our software runs on a Windows PC at your store and works with the cameras and recorders already there: Hikvision and Prama, Dahua, CP Plus, TVT, Uniview, Axis, Hanwha, and any camera or recorder that supports RTSP or ONVIF. It installs in 60 seconds, and your recorder keeps recording as usual.

A second, larger model double-checks every event before you are alerted. The alert is a photo with the camera and the time, on WhatsApp, Telegram or the Foreman app, while it is still happening. Some checks are set up for your store with our team, not switched on for everyone. Tell us what you need to see and we will set it up with you. Standard on every site:

• People after hours in zones you mark, such as the stockroom, the back door or the loading dock. You set the zones and your closed hours once for the site.
• A camera that has been covered, blocked or turned away.
• A camera that has gone offline, so you find the gap today and not on the day you need the recording.
• Smoke and fire. An early warning that sits beside your fire alarm, never in place of it.

• We do not spot shoplifting. We do not watch the selling area for people taking goods.
• We do not identify people by their face.
• We do not provide guards, a monitoring center or police dispatch. The alert comes to you and the people you choose.
• We do not sell cameras, and we cannot fix a picture that is dark, blocked or out of focus.
• Detection runs on site and your recordings stay there. Checking events and sending alerts need an internet connection at your store.
• We never train on your footage.
• Where we watch for smoke and fire, we do not replace certified fire alarms or life-safety systems.

• Week 1: count what you have. Which cameras work, what each one sees and how many days of recordings the recorder keeps.
• Week 2: fix the picture. Clean the lenses, correct the clock and re-aim any camera that misses the door, the register or the back door.
• Week 3: find out what is actually lost. Compare your last inventory count with receiving records and refunds. Decide whether the problem is outside theft, employee theft, receiving or paperwork.
• Week 4: pick the one or two places that matter, mark them as zones, set your closed hours and see what alerts arrive. Count how many were real.

Rules on cameras, signs, audio and watching staff differ by state and by industry. We cannot advise on them, so ask a lawyer about yours.