Fundamentals
Feedback from the Dark Side I
by Mike Marquis, CFI Marquis is currently an assistant vice president of loss prevention with the TJX Companies. His more than twenty-four years of LP experience includes senior leadership positions with Limited Brands and Urban Outfitters. Marquis invites your comments at mike_marquis@tjx.com. The opinions and commentary expressed by Marquis do not necessarily represent the TJX Companies or any of its divisions.
promised some feedback from the last couple of columns on “Game Changers.” First out of the box are two from service providers…edited for space reasons. (You know how wordy the dark side can be.)
original request if we dismissed the suit. To settle, he must provide the following: 1. A complete list of all products he is currently selling or has sold in the past three years. 2. A complete list of all Checkpoint Systems products, including, but not limited to, all Alpha S3 HandKeys. 3. A complete list of all customers, including complete addresses and contact information, to whom he has made sales of the Blackjack 360 or any other product designed or intended to circumvent Checkpoint’s products. 4. All sales and financial information relating to the Blackjack 360 and all products marketed, designed, or intended to circumvent Checkpoint’s products. 5. A complete list of all pending sales. 6. A complete list of vendors who supplied the Blackjack 360 products, all products marketed, designed, or intended to circumvent Checkpoint’s products and any Checkpoint products. 7. Confirmation that he will take down each of his websites that offer sale of the disputed merchandise. 8. A copy of his book, Shoplifting, Loss Prevention, and Merchants: The New Generation, autographed. 9. Confirmation that he will ship to us all of the infringing merchandise. ■ O nce we receive the complete list of “customers,” we will be sending cease-and-desist letters to all of them, with a brief summary of what happened with Mr. Radford and the penalties they may face if they persist trying to shoplift. ■ A lpha will continue trying to engage the different industry associations, like NRF, RILA, and FMI, to help us fight this growing issue. However, Alpha as an industry vendor partner has limited influence with them. To have any impact, we need the engagement and support of large retailers to help us take on the fight. Please be assured we take this issue very seriously and will continue taking proactive steps to eliminate its impact as quickly as possible. Carlos E. Perez, Alpha
Mike, I’m sure every vendor of a product category that you did not list in your January-February 2011 article is already emailing you! I know the success of exception-reporting tools. And I have a brother who designs DVR systems, so I hear and see their benefits first hand. However, I have never seen a truly measurable revenue impact and ROI like return authorization. Using predictive analytics to distinguish and deter fraudulent or abusive shoppers from performing returns is an offensive-minded LP strategy. But it also allows a retailer to be more customer friendly at the return counter, while still protecting against fraud and mitigating the risk of such a customer experience strategy. I hope there is a place in future articles for return authorization to make the cut. Tom Rittman, The Retail Equation Tom, here’s the cut. I know whether it be small-box specialty or larger formats, refund percentages and shrink results tend to go hand in hand. Mike, Here’s an update on our progress regarding theshopliftingstore.com and our efforts to limit their claims and sale of shoplifting devices. Although the website notes that all products sold are “novelties,” we find a clear intention to aiding and abetting shoplifting. We first encountered Castleton Enterprises last August 2009 through our efforts trying to limit the sale of Alpha S3 keys on different Internet websites. The emergence of theshopliftingstore. com, with links to theblackjack360.com site, in addition to the common denominator of “Castleton Enterprises, Inc.” as the copyright owner of the website, indicates that the same individual is back. Following are some of the initiatives we took: ■ T he website heavily promotes The Shoplifting Book. Through the book’s registration we were able to determine the author. ■ O n January 27, 2010, we served suit for a number of offenses. On January 28, we were contacted to fully comply with our
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Carlos, please provide updates. I’m happy to provide the forum. It looks like Alpha has set a standard by which all of our partners should engage the bad guys. NRF, RILA, and FMI board members—I’m calling you out to engage in the fight. This focus seems like a no-brainer. |
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