payments - Retail Systems

strategies, says Richard Paterson, business development
manager at Hicom.
But if analysing data drawn from EPoS systems and other
sources allows retailers to gain an understanding of where and
how particular goods are being targeted by thieves, it still helps
if a CCTV system can gather visual evidence, or, better still, give
store staff a chance to prevent a theft.
One consistent trend over the past decade has been the
shift away from analogue to digital CCTV systems. IP-based
digital CCTV systems have advanced impressively in recent
years, becoming particularly effective since the arrival of
High Definition (HD) TV technology. They can be integrated
with business software like ERP platforms or building
management systems and are often accessible remotely.
Image quality is now good enough to be integrated with
facial recognition technology.
The cameras can also be used in a wider variety of locations
in store. Cameras supplied by surveillance specialist Axis
Communications work with StopLift’s Scan-It-All software
to spot suspicious activity at self-scanning EPoS units. The
cameras can also be linked to software that can detect sudden
and mysterious disappearances of goods from shelves: of lots
of luxury goods that people wouldn’t usually buy in bulk, for
example. The cameras can be used to improve in-store service
too: as people counters prompting the retailer to send more
staff to the checkout when necessary: or to trigger in-store
marketing technologies or identify VIP customers.
But in addition to the gains that come from keeping an
eye on customers, perhaps the most important function of
an advanced CCTV solution is the role it can play in stopping
employee theft. For example, it can combat ‘sweethearting’,
whereby staff work with a customer accomplice to dupe the
scanner, with a camera above the till that can spot non-scans
and integrate with EPoS data enabling managers to be made
aware of and then to analyse suspicious transactions.
The cameras produced by Oncam Global also offer a 360
degree view. Oncam has partnered with another technology
company, ClickIt, to build its Grandeye cameras into an
integrated management and security solution now used at
more than 2,000 retail outlets in the US. Its HD images can
be searched quickly and easily, allowing retailers to obtain high
quality images of things that were happening in completely
different parts of the store at the same moment. Oncam sales
director Greg Alcorn says the company is hoping it will soon be
able to talk in public about large scale roll-outs planned by big
names in both US and UK retail.
Alongside cameras, the latest versions of in-store security
hardware, including EAS tools and security wraps and tags
can also now be integrated into solutions with data analysis
capabilities. Checkpoint’s EVOLVE platform is compatible with a
range of loss prevention tools including, for example, its Spider
hardware wraps, which sound an alarm if tampered with, as well
loss prevention supplement
as if carried past EAS gates.
Neil Matthews, vice-president at Checkpoint, says one notable
trend is the drive among some retailers to get tagging attached
to items at source by manufacturers, thus offering additional
protection within the supply chain and ensuring goods can go
straight onto shelves when they arrive in-store.
He also highlights the increased use of RFID tagging. Another
useful solution is the wireless headset solution offered by Quail
Digital. The integration of keypads with the headsets can make
staff communications faster, with positive effects on customer
service as well as security. End users include the Co-op, where
the Quail solution is just one part of a revised strategy for
improving security. The first step is improved staff training, says
Jenny Alleyne, store services manager for Co-operative Food.
The company now uses an online training tool, Citrus, adapted
to suit the requirements of staff at individual stores.
The Co-op also uses risk modelling software to assess the
likely security requirements for a store in a particular location,
so determining which technologies will be deployed; and a
MicroStrategy data mining solution to analyse EPoS data, looking
for anomalies in customer or staff behaviour. “We tend not to
use the word ‘security’ so much, because really everything is
about managing cost,” says Alleyne.
Elsewhere, another notable development in recent years
has been the development of more solutions suitable for use
by smaller retailers. Although it offers solutions to retailers of
any size, one vendor serving this market is PXtech. Its CCTV
surveillance solutions can be integrated with its EPoS software
and PXportal Business Intelligence platform and used by smaller
retailers on a software as a service (SaaS) basis.
One PXtech customer is SubStores, which owns and operates
five Subway stores in and around Derby and Buxton. “Wherever
I am I can look on the laptop or my phone to see who’s clocked
in and what’s happening,” says SubStores operations manager
Dave Beecroft, responsible for all five stores. He says one of
the solution’s most useful features is the way the retailer can
set their own criteria for alerts. Beecroft can then go into
the system and look at the individual transaction in question,
including CCTV footage and the receipt.
“The majority of these are legitimate errors and the CCTV
footage allows you to see it’s an error,” says Beecroft. “But
there are occasions where you log on and see that people are
stealing. About three or four months ago we had someone who
would take the correct money from the customer then back
transactions out and keep the money. He didn’t know that the
portal system was recording all those transactions.”
And perhaps that is the ideal outcome: technology and
processes that enable retailers to nip criminal activity in the
bud with the criminal as unaware of what’s happening as
they suppose the retailer is of their own actions. In times
like these, retailers need to be as cunning and ruthless as
the thieves themselves.
RS
June - July 2012 RS 29