How to Secure Valuables at Your Retail Shop

Retail shops are espe­cial­ly vul­ner­a­ble to theft due to the nature of their busi­ness­es. If a shop sells valu­able items – eas­i­ly con­cealed goods, such as jew­ellery, cloth­ing or med­ical prod­ucts –it nat­u­ral­ly becomes a tar­get for thieves.

But that doesn’t mean the shop is help­less in pre­vent­ing these crimes from hap­pen­ing. There are sev­er­al sim­ple ways stores can secure inven­to­ry, strength­en busi­ness secu­ri­ty and deter thieves.

Here are six ways to do it at your shop.

1) Start with business security cameras.

The mere pres­ence of com­mer­cial secu­ri­ty cam­eras can make a crim­i­nal think twice about steal­ing from your busi­ness. Cam­eras are a pow­er­ful deter­rent, serv­ing as an ini­tial warn­ing sign to poten­tial thieves that they will be caught if they attempt to steal.

If a crime is com­mit­ted any­way, you’ll have the evi­dence to catch the offend­er, pros­e­cute them, poten­tial­ly reclaim your stolen items or file insur­ance claims.

2) Limit direct access to your most valuable goods.

Did you know that some types of Ontario busi­ness­es are required by law to keep valu­able goods away from the reach of cus­tomers? For exam­ple, cannabis stores must keep their prod­ucts in secure dis­play con­tain­ers acces­si­ble only to employ­ees.

If you sell valu­ables at your store, keep­ing these goods in a locked dis­play case is strong­ly rec­om­mend­ed so that would-be thieves can’t quick­ly grab them and run. For added pro­tec­tion, con­sid­er adding spe­cial­ized win­dow film to the point (as well as front dis­play win­dows), which pre­vents the glass from being smashed.

3) Eliminate blind spots.

All areas of the retail floor should be vis­i­ble to your employ­ees. If there are blind spots, it’s only a mat­ter of time before items are stolen from those areas.

Lim­it the height of shelves and dividers so that employ­ees can see all cus­tomers through­out the store. If this is not pos­si­ble, install secu­ri­ty cam­eras to elim­i­nate the blind spots.

4) Consider placing checkout near the entrance.

In retail, keep­ing your most desir­able items at the back of the store is often sug­gest­ed so that cus­tomers will pass more prod­ucts on the way. But it’s still impor­tant to keep the most valu­able items locked and con­sid­er plac­ing your check­out coun­ters near the entrance.

Hav­ing check­outs near the entrance will require all cus­tomers to pass by your employ­ees on the way out of the store, mak­ing it much hard­er to avoid detec­tion if con­ceal­ing goods.

5) Secure delivery areas and stock rooms.

A large per­cent­age of retail theft occurs in stock rooms and receiv­ing areas. Ensure you install secu­ri­ty cam­eras in these areas and con­sid­er using access con­trol and inter­com sys­tems for deliv­ery areas. Hence, you have greater con­trol and vis­i­bil­i­ty into what’s hap­pen­ing in these areas.

6) Install a commercial alarm system.

The tips above pro­tect when your shop is open dur­ing the day. But what about when the store is closed?

A com­mer­cial alarm sys­tem detects attempt­ed break-ins, sounds an alarm and alerts the alarm-cen­tre dis­patch­ers to send police. If no busi­ness secu­ri­ty sys­tem exists, this is an open invi­ta­tion for crim­i­nals to loot your busi­ness dur­ing the night.

Request a free busi­ness secu­ri­ty audit.

Find out if your busi­ness has an increased risk of theft. Request a no-oblig­a­tion audit of your busi­ness secu­ri­ty from PROTECTION PLUS.