Hands Off!

Loss prevention experts say the best solution for retail crime would be to have a police officer stationed at every shelf in every convenience store in every city in every state. The next-best solution? Well, that’s a bit more complicated.

Shoplifting is up around the country—some of the biggest stores and companies are citing retail theft as a massive threat to their profits, and the c-store industry is hardly immune.

It’s time to sound the alarm.

“Over the last 15 years, safety and security had become a secondary issue,” said Rollie Trayte, who spent 14 years as the director of security and loss prevention for Circle K and who now consults on a variety of security-related issues in the industry. “For the most part, convenience stores were relying on one- or two-decade-old technology, information and so forth.”

Despite the growing threats, c-stores can immediately address security and crime concerns in a number of ways. Companies are also investing in national research on preventative and combative measures that could lead to better protection in the coming months and years.

“I just think you have to use the resources that you can afford—or that you’re willing to afford,” Trayte said. “So I guess my attitude these days is, ‘Let’s get back to basics.’”

Easy Steps You Can Take—Now

Making sure your store won’t be targeted by external thieves starts at the forecourt with something often referred to as “crime prevention by environmental design.”

Trayte said stores want to make sure they have organized, well-lit parking lots with few exit points and barriers to prevent easy getaways. Then, stores should have clutter-free windows and low shrubbery so people can see inside, making potential criminals feel that anyone could be watching.

Kelly Harrington, the director of asset protection at RaceTrac, said c-stores aren’t seeing as much of the organized retail crime some big-box stores are seeing, because a lot of c-store merchandise isn’t particularly resellable. While shoplifting in c-stores is occasionally perpetrated by organized individuals, it more commonly happens by opportunists who plan to consume the item.

“Everyday shoplifting is the cost of doing business,” he said. “It’s not something that’s very controllable.”

Harrington added, though, that properly trained c-stores employees can make the opportunity-driven type of thief aware that someone is watching.

“The best thing that you can do to control shoplifting is to make eye contact and let guests know that you see them, that you know what their intentions are,” Harrington said.

That means following the five-foot rule—a three-foot rule at some c-stores—where a store associate acknowledges any customer who is within that distance of the employee.

“The way that I train people on it is to think of every interaction that you have as an interview,” he said. “And obviously you’re doing it with positivity, enthusiasm, and empathy and a smile. … And it is that connection point where you lock eyes and they know that you acknowledge them that they make a psychological decision about whether they’re going to continue with what they came in to do. Now, the professional thief, they don’t care. They’re going to steal by any means necessary, but the opportunists, they might take that and say, ‘Hey, because this person is really paying attention to me, I’m gonna move on and go somewhere else.’”

Somebody’s Watching You

In a similar vein, c-stores are also starting to see success with body cameras.

In a retail crime roundtable at 2023 NACS Show, Byron Coleman, who leads asset protection and security for Wawa, said the company executed a pilot program with body cameras that the company considered “very successful” in reducing crime and increasing safety.

“Most people were glad to see that we were trying something,” he said in October. “I think your customers realize that you’re dealing with a difficult situation, so they were appreciative that we would do something, whether that would be with technology or any of the other techniques that we have.”

These days, body cameras can be either overt or covert—it’s user’s preference. Wawa made sure their cameras were easily identifiable, worn over employees’ yellow shirts. Harrington also thinks noticeable is better.

He added that some employees might not want to wear them, but those employees might not be who you want working in your store, though. Harrington also said you could put a dummy body camera on someone and still reap benefits.

Read Hayes, the director of the Loss Prevention Research Council (LPRC) LPRC and the co-director of the Loss Prevention Research Team at the University of Florida, said having employees wear headsets can help, too.

“If you’ve got a sort of two-way radio, we’ve found through research that offenders will pick up on that, especially if you have a mic in front of your mouth,” Hayes said. “[They’ll think] OK, wait a minute, I’m not just dealing with this person, I’m dealing with everybody.’”

He said a number of CEOs have come to his organization and said, “Retail crime is affecting our business in a way it never has. Our sales are actually flat or up, but we’re losing so much to retail crime that our profit margin is down.”

Both Hayes and Trayte said obvious cameras are—and always will be—key.

A large, high-resolution color camera at the point of entry signals a clear impression of control. That tells someone their face has been recorded—and in high-definition. The cameras don’t necessarily need to be expensive ones. Trayte recently talked to someone at a mom and pop store who got a really nice camera and DVR system at Costco for less than $500. Amazon carries a number of options, too.

The LPRC often asks if potential offenders will “see, get and fear” a store’s security measures that make it clear shoplifting at that particular location won’t be worth it.

Hayes said the cameras should appear to be working, not be looking in different directions. They shouldn’t be covered with cobwebs or be pointed at the ground. Cameras are especially important in those dark nooks and crannies that can’t be seen by a clerk at the register.

Hayes said a “clear perception and impression of control” is crucial. That means that at every phase of a customer’s visit, the store seems competent and aware.

For Harrington, that means simple things such as making sure that there’s a high level of overall store cleanliness and that shelves are kept stocked and organized. He said “appearance and conditions” is a c-store’s second line of defense against shoplifters. If the chip aisle is tidy, with all of its bags facing the front, it might be more clear when one packet is missing.

“Psychologically speaking, shoplifters and criminals tend to do bad activity where they think they can get away with it, as well as where there’s disarray and disorder because it feels like they’re more likely to get away with the crime that they’re going to commit,” he said.

Get Law Enforcement Working With You

Collaborating with local law enforcement is crucial, too, according to all the loss prevention experts quoted in this story.

Harrington said establishing a good relationship with law enforcement—and that might just be asking the sheriff to grab a cup of coffee, even if you don’t do something more formal such as sponsoring local events or donating food, time or other resources—is one of the first things that should happen with a c-store. At RaceTrac, they spend a lot of time fulfilling video evidence requests for cops; the video is often of activity caught in a store’s parking lot that doesn’t benefit the c-store directly, but, Harrington said, “the long-term impact of that was we had all these detectives on speed dial that we could call when something goes haywire.”

He added, “When you have law enforcement or frequenting your store, there’s a lot of good side effects that come along with that.”

At the retail crime roundtable at NACS Show, Britt Davidson, who handles risk for Maverik, said it’s also important to reach out to community organizations who can help with mental health crises and who have resources to help the transient community so that the company can mitigate loss without hurting individuals who need help.

“The one thing that’s very difficult with this is there’s no silver bullet, there’s no one thing that’s going to work in every single place,” Davidson said in the discussion.

Longer-Term Solutions in the Pipeline

Beyond the short-term fixes, there are numerous research projects that are working on longer-term solutions to the complex crime issue.

The LPRC has a high-tech lab inside the University of Florida’s “Innovate Hub” full of sensor platforms. The LPRC uses virtual reality, augmented reality and extended reality technology to simulate different environments, including c-stores.

There are interesting potential applications for artificial intelligence (AI) in this realm. It can analyze video data it has been fed to look for patterns of behavior that point to theft. It can analyze the license plates of people coming into the store and note who has previous shoplifting charges or instances of violent behavior. It can learn to detect suspicious body language and behavior and flag it in real time. 

“What the AI is doing is finding things that we might not,” Hayes said, because watching hours of footage can be “dull, dangerous, disgusting, whatever” for a person.

He acknowledged the myriad privacy concerns that arise with the use of AI, but Hayes said, “It’s not Big Brother, it’s Big Protection.”

Numerous studies show AI can have implicit biases, but Hayes said most of what’s being analyzed is happening in public and represents a “value exchange”—he thinks just about everyone would exchange a small fraction of their privacy for safety.

To protect privacy and avoid the biases that have occurred with facial recognition, technology company Standard AI has its AI turn everyone who walks into the store into a stick figure with a specific color signature that lets the figure be monitored as the person moves through the stores. If the company’s AI spots a problem, it notifies a team member.

Alex Plant, the company’s vice president of marketing, said he expected to hear about privacy concerns but hasn’t.

“[People are] much more amenable to using technology to improve the way that we shop or live or drive or whatever,” Plant said. “We’re willing to kind of give [private data up if] you are not going to sell it or resell it.”

Standard AI has signed contracts with several large c-stores and while its AI currently focuses on the cigarette and alcohol zones, the company will be working to extend its capabilities to cover the whole store.

“I think there’s a tangible benefit of less shrink but also maybe more like a psychological one here where, you know, people will know that there are technologies that are tracking them, that are watching their movements,” Plant said.

Harrington said RaceTrac is looking to embrace more technology such as AI, but he’s not sure whether the technology is there yet to be 100 percent effective because of how “dynamic” a c-store environment is. 

Companies are also experimenting with tiny sensors known as radio frequency identification (RFID) tags that can be attached to items in an undetectable way and that are only deactivated at checkout. Someone trying to walk out the door with an item that hasn’t been paid for will trigger an alarm. 

There are still some kinks to work out. While the RFID chips keep getting smaller and cheaper, you can’t afford to put one on every piece of bubblegum. There have also been issues with putting the chips on metal and having them next to liquid in freezers.

But Hayes said that, as the technology spreads, costs will drop and make the chips more accessible.

Stores are experimenting in other ways, too. Fav Trip goes so far as to post videos of shoplifters to its YouTube page to shame the perpetrator and to ask the community for help identifying them. A number of stores are experimenting with pickup-only locations.

Loss Prevention, Not Sales Prevention

AI and other security measures do have one crucial constraint: They can’t turn the customer off your store.

If your store’s security measures are too extreme, you could be suggesting to a customer that your store isn’t safe. And that might make them not want to shop there.

If a customer has to wait by a locked cabinet for seven minutes for an employee’s help, that isn’t convenient, and that customer might take their business elsewhere.

Cameras everywhere can seem dystopian. And loss prevention and security officers can convey a certain message.

“You never want to be called the sales prevention team, right?” Harrington said. “So with every merchandise protection strategy, there has to be tremendous cost-benefit analysis into: Are you suppressing sales more than you are preventing loss?”

He said it might not be worth it to put a number of items behind locked plexiglass.

“When you think about the price points of convenience store items, there is not much in a convenience store that you want to lock up because it’s going to cause more of a guest experience detriment than it’s going to save you,” Harrington said.

Trayte said customers are becoming more accustomed to security measures in a store. Someone checking receipts has become more normal, as are cameras that say “recording in process.” Stores can help create positive messaging by posting signs that say things such as “We care about keeping you safe,” and, “If you see something, report it,” to make it clear shoppers’ safety is paramount.

Long Road Ahead

Harrington said he thinks the c-store industry is making strides—but still has a ways to go.

“Until you remove the physical accessibility of the product, shoplifting will always happen,” he said. “So it’s a balance of finding the right tech and experience-driven solution process, but I think we’re still a ways out from figuring that out.”

Regardless, Trayte said c-stores need to have and implement a strategy—now.

“Companies have to get back on the safety and security bandwagon,” Trayte said. “Hope is not a strategy.”

A version of this story originally appeared here.