Surprisingly, using ink spraying labels can scare off supermarket thieves
Abstract：Thieves keep moving around one place, looking for a good opportunity to steal——— this scene plays out almost every day in supermarkets. In the United States, in-store theft causes losses to the retail industry exceeding $10 billion annually
Thieves always move around in one place, looking for a good opportunity to steal - such scenes occur almost every day in various supermarkets. In the United States, shoplifting causes losses of over 10 billion dollars to the retail industry every year. In China, due to relatively backward anti-theft measures in supermarkets, they suffer greatly from thieves. As the Spring Festival approaches, more people are shopping in supermarkets, and how to keep thieves out has been a big headache for the operators. However, with the advancement of technology, new anti-theft measures in supermarkets can help the managers.
Electronic anti-theft, no need for constant human supervision
At the beginning of open-store sales, merchants mainly adopted a "human defense" strategy towards customers. Security personnel were constantly on high alert, but still often made mistakes. Sometimes they missed the thieves, and sometimes they wrongly arrested innocent people, which aroused the dissatisfaction of consumers. In the late 1960s, an advanced electronic product anti-theft system (EAS) emerged in the United States. Since the 1990s, the EAS system has begun to enter Asian countries and has also come to the side of Chinese customers.
Currently, the most commonly used EAS systems are radio systems and magnetic sound systems. In the radio system, a circular coil is used as the anti-theft tag and is attached to the goods. Radio waves are used as the signal for transmission and reception. The advantage of this system is its low cost, while the disadvantage is that it is susceptible to interference from some electronic and metallic items, resulting in false alarms.
The sound-magnetic system utilizes the resonance principle. When the sound-magnetic tags fixed on the goods enter the detection area of the system, due to the same oscillation frequency as that of the detection system, resonance occurs. To improve the accuracy rate, the designers set the receiver to emit an alarm sound only after receiving four consecutive resonance signals. Therefore, the possibility of false alarms for this system is relatively low.
Leave a mark on the thief's body
Although the above system is technologically mature, it cannot guarantee that the goods will be completely safe. After engaging in battles with the anti-theft system, thieves have come up with some countermeasures. For instance, they would remove the anti-theft labels from the goods, or replace the price tags on cheaper items with those of more expensive ones, achieving the goal of buying better goods at a lower price. The thieves' actions have prompted the innovation of the anti-theft system and led to the emergence of new anti-theft methods.
Nowadays, when thieves try to remove the anti-theft labels from goods, they will also encounter problems. There is a hard label containing ink. When the thief attempts to remove it, the ink will spray out, leaving stains on the thief's body. At the very least, this will make the thief afraid to continue committing crimes.
Suspicious actions can be detected.
In a secluded corner of the supermarket, the thief, seeing that no one was around, began stuffing things into his bag. At this moment, in the control room, the computer emitted a warning signal, catching the attention of the security guards. How could the computer identify theft actions? The expert explained that this was based on the principle of infrared scanning. The monitoring probe emitted infrared rays that scanned the movement and brightness of the object. The probe fed this information back to the computer, which then drew a picture of the person's actions in the computer. Since theft actions have similarities, some templates of suspicious actions had been stored in the computer in advance. Once the customer made actions such as putting things in their pocket or tucking them into their skirt, which were similar to the templates, a warning signal would be triggered.
Place special emphasis on monitoring family members.
As the saying goes, it is difficult to guard against one's own family members. This is especially true for supermarkets. According to the 2002 annual survey on merchandise loss in supermarkets conducted by the American Retail Security Association, the proportion of losses caused by external thieves was 32%, administrative errors and supplier fraud accounted for 15% and 5% respectively, and employee theft accounted for 48%. Among employee theft, 44% occurred at the checkout counter, forcing managers to conduct special monitoring of the cashiers. The traditional method of dealing with this problem was to install video surveillance systems to monitor the checkout counters around the clock. However, this method required security personnel to devote a lot of energy to keeping an eye on the screens, which was very labor-intensive and might not even be able to catch the cashier's subtle actions.
Now there is a way to improve this problem. Technicians connect the video surveillance system with the cash register system, bundling the sales data of the cash register system with the synchronized cash register site images and archiving them as a sales record. This record has a strong ability to detect theft. During the supermarket inventory check on the same day, if it is found that the shipment volume of a certain product is greater than the sales volume shown, the sales record of that product on that day can be retrieved, and the sales data can be compared one by one with the video files at that time to verify, thereby significantly increasing the possibility and speed of detecting the problem.
Electronic anti-theft, no need for constant human supervision
At the beginning of open-store sales, merchants mainly adopted a "human defense" strategy towards customers. Security personnel were constantly on high alert, but still often made mistakes. Sometimes they missed the thieves, and sometimes they wrongly arrested innocent people, which aroused the dissatisfaction of consumers. In the late 1960s, an advanced electronic product anti-theft system (EAS) emerged in the United States. Since the 1990s, the EAS system has begun to enter Asian countries and has also come to the side of Chinese customers.
Currently, the most commonly used EAS systems are radio systems and magnetic sound systems. In the radio system, a circular coil is used as the anti-theft tag and is attached to the goods. Radio waves are used as the signal for transmission and reception. The advantage of this system is its low cost, while the disadvantage is that it is susceptible to interference from some electronic and metallic items, resulting in false alarms.
The sound-magnetic system utilizes the resonance principle. When the sound-magnetic tags fixed on the goods enter the detection area of the system, due to the same oscillation frequency as that of the detection system, resonance occurs. To improve the accuracy rate, the designers set the receiver to emit an alarm sound only after receiving four consecutive resonance signals. Therefore, the possibility of false alarms for this system is relatively low.
Leave a mark on the thief's body
Although the above system is technologically mature, it cannot guarantee that the goods will be completely safe. After engaging in battles with the anti-theft system, thieves have come up with some countermeasures. For instance, they would remove the anti-theft labels from the goods, or replace the price tags on cheaper items with those of more expensive ones, achieving the goal of buying better goods at a lower price. The thieves' actions have prompted the innovation of the anti-theft system and led to the emergence of new anti-theft methods.
Nowadays, when thieves try to remove the anti-theft labels from goods, they will also encounter problems. There is a hard label containing ink. When the thief attempts to remove it, the ink will spray out, leaving stains on the thief's body. At the very least, this will make the thief afraid to continue committing crimes.
Suspicious actions can be detected.
In a secluded corner of the supermarket, the thief, seeing that no one was around, began stuffing things into his bag. At this moment, in the control room, the computer emitted a warning signal, catching the attention of the security guards. How could the computer identify theft actions? The expert explained that this was based on the principle of infrared scanning. The monitoring probe emitted infrared rays that scanned the movement and brightness of the object. The probe fed this information back to the computer, which then drew a picture of the person's actions in the computer. Since theft actions have similarities, some templates of suspicious actions had been stored in the computer in advance. Once the customer made actions such as putting things in their pocket or tucking them into their skirt, which were similar to the templates, a warning signal would be triggered.
Place special emphasis on monitoring family members.
As the saying goes, it is difficult to guard against one's own family members. This is especially true for supermarkets. According to the 2002 annual survey on merchandise loss in supermarkets conducted by the American Retail Security Association, the proportion of losses caused by external thieves was 32%, administrative errors and supplier fraud accounted for 15% and 5% respectively, and employee theft accounted for 48%. Among employee theft, 44% occurred at the checkout counter, forcing managers to conduct special monitoring of the cashiers. The traditional method of dealing with this problem was to install video surveillance systems to monitor the checkout counters around the clock. However, this method required security personnel to devote a lot of energy to keeping an eye on the screens, which was very labor-intensive and might not even be able to catch the cashier's subtle actions.
Now there is a way to improve this problem. Technicians connect the video surveillance system with the cash register system, bundling the sales data of the cash register system with the synchronized cash register site images and archiving them as a sales record. This record has a strong ability to detect theft. During the supermarket inventory check on the same day, if it is found that the shipment volume of a certain product is greater than the sales volume shown, the sales record of that product on that day can be retrieved, and the sales data can be compared one by one with the video files at that time to verify, thereby significantly increasing the possibility and speed of detecting the problem.
