Threats to staff, store vandalism and retail theft are a constant risk across all UK town centres, high streets and village shop rows.
If Greggs has to move more food behind the counter, then what hope do high-volume, shelf-heavy stores have?
Even with CCTV cameras, occasional police patrols and anti-crime radio networks uniting concerned shopkeepers across south west London, brazen criminals can march up and down streets, duck in and out of side alleys and commit store thefts in seconds.
Crimes that added up to £2.2billion in value last year across the UK.
While there is a government plan in place to combat retail street crime, that won’t help stores with loss prevention today or even this year.
And with customers less likely to shop in crime-risk areas, retailers need to improve security and improve crime reporting and conviction rates to make the likes of Croydon, Lambeth, Wimbledon and Battersea safer.
Using smart technology to defend stores
Modern technology can improve the capabilities of old-school CCTV, with AI-powered IP camera systems capable of identifying suspicious activity, facial recognition technology (a first for London) to identify repeat offenders and suspicious individuals to alert store staff instantly.
Using an automated analytics system, store owners no longer have to keep one eye on the multi-display screen above the counter.
Instead, the AI analytics system can immediately show any suspicious activity in or outside the store, and the in-store workers are better prepared to monitor the situation, or act accordingly, even if it is only to call the police for another crime number.
Even then, modern systems can provide better visual descriptions of the criminals, with automated incident recording to help identify distinguishing features, their clothing, vehicles used, direction they headed in, while a linked network of cameras can monitor further movement along the local streets.
For higher-threat stores, body-worn cameras can also help protect staff, making them less likely to be confronted, and can deter aggression.
Linked to radios with emergency buttons, they can improve store security and coordination, alerting other locations on the street of crimes in progress.
For stores with high-value goods, the use of smart tracking markers, smartwater or synthetic DNA systems can help police follow criminals and recover the property, while in the longer term helping identify criminal gangs and increase the likelihood of a sentence.
Homebase recorded a 20% reduction in theft using a smartwater system and trackers have recorded high-value goods like smartphones and power tools being sold on in nearby ‘fake’ stores, or as far as foreign markets in Eastern Europe and Africa.
One recent crackdown in south-west London saw £150,000 of goods recovered.
Building up a layered retail defence
Knowledge is power, and sharing knowledge is the best way that retailers can defend their stores against crime.
IP systems use internet and mobile data to store, analyse and report on video footage live, improving the speed of response.
As most shopping centres and retail malls have a collective security system.
So, high streets through the local council or traders’s association can invest in linked CCTV systems and communications to unify their stance on crime prevention.
Among the benefits of a modern system equipped with AI analytics are its use in forecasting high-risk areas, changing crime patterns and peak theft times.
Stores can act accordingly to this higher-level data and be aware of the risks.
These systems also have built-in privacy and security systems to protect data from misuse and reassure legitimate customers that they aren’t being stalked.
As a bonus, they can also work in a health-and-safety capacity, identifying accident risks, hazards and staff or customers behaving in an unsafe manner, creating insurance and injury risks.
Effectively, a modern AI CCTV security system can monitor local high streets in a way that would typically have taken a team of three or four security monitors.
The responses to store workers are faster, better detailed, and help improve awareness of the crime landscape around stores.
From casual theft to organised crime, the power of a modern, connected, IP CCTV system can deliver better security for stores, evidence for the police and courts, and insights for store owners and local authorities to improve safety on the high streets and in stores.
Feature image: Free to use from Unsplash
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