INDUSTRY NEWS

Old Navy Promotes Child Safety in Retail Stores

by Robert L. DiLonardo

DiLonardo is a well-known authority on the electronic article surveillance business, the cost justification of security products and services, and retail accounting. He is the principal of Retail Consulting Partners, LLC (www.retailconsultingllc.com), a firm that provides strategic and tactical guidance in retail security equipment procurement. DiLonardo can be reached at 727-709-6961 or by email at rdilonar@tampabay.rr.com.

Old Navy partnered with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) and the Canadian Centre for Child Protection for a child-safety event from September 13 – 16 with the goal of helping families make their children safer in retail stores and at home. More than 600,000 free kids safety kits were distributed to Old Navy families containing child IDs, safety tips for children of all ages, and ideas for how to talk to children about safety. Additionally, the event allowed customers to receive a 10 percent discount by donating $5 or more, which raised more than $380,000 for child safety.

“We were all thrilled to host an event that focused on enhancing child safety in the communities we serve,” said Chris Nelson, vice president of loss prevention at Old Navy. “NCMEC was a perfect partner for Old Navy. We all feel so fortunate to work with NCMEC again and to work for a company that is so invested in those around us. Our founder, Don Fisher, always told us, ‘We should do more than just sell clothes,’ and this gave us a chance to make those words come alive.”

John Walsh, host of America’s Most Wanted and co-founder of NCMEC, was a partner in promoting the event. “I am so grateful to Old Navy for partnering with the National Center for Missing

& Exploited Children to make this event a huge success,” he said. “Child safety is incredibly important to me, and it means so much to find others who are doing their part to help keep kids safe.”

By engaging every store in the Old Navy fleet, the event allowed the organizations to reach families nationwide and in Canada with potentially life-saving information. Customers even had opportunities to learn about safety in their communities from local law enforcement, military, and other local heroes who were invited to attend the event’s in-store safety fair.

“Educating children about what to do when they find themselves in risky situations is a critical part of our efforts to prevent child abduction and exploitation,” said John Ryan, CEO of NCMEC.

Old Navy stores throughout the U.S. and Canada hosted a child-safety event in September where local law enforcement personnel handed out educational information to help prevent child abduction and exploitation.

Best Buy Tests Benefit-Denial Technology

Best Buy is conducting an initial trial of a new anti-theft technology designed to deter shoplifters and dishonest employees by utilizing the concept of “benefit denial.” The test, which has been conducted over the past couple of months, was announced at the Loss Prevention Research Council’s (LPRC) Impact Workshop held in mid-October in Gainesville, Florida.

The initial merchandise target is newly released video games—a high-loss item. A specially designed locking device is affixed to the hub of the game package, locking the optical disc to its case. At the point of sale, the package is placed on a deactivation device that first authenticates the sale, and then decouples the lock from the case by transmitting a wireless signal. Best Buy’s customer simply removes and discards the lock when the case is opened for the first time. The lock is built to withstand tampering, so the disc will likely be damaged or broken in an unauthorized removal, thus denying any benefit to a thief by rendering the video game unusable or unsalable. To date, the new technology has been used on four new videogame titles supplied by multiple video game producers.

The objectives of this single-store evaluation are to ensure that the technology operates properly and suitably in the Best Buy environment, and to assess the consumers’ and the store associates’ experiences with the product. Tim Fisher, Best Buy’s director of asset protection operations, noted that the initial experience was positive, and that inventory shrinkage for the tagged titles had fallen. Best Buy is considering expanding more broadly by adding more new releases to the tagged list, and then by adding more stores. The technology is designed and manufactured by ProTeqt Technologies of Massachusetts.

Larry Nicholason Succumbs to Lengthy Illness

Long-time loss prevention executive Larry Nicholason, CPP passed away November 8th after a long illness.

“It is with deep sorrow we share that our dear friend and co-worker, Larry Nicholason, passed away this morning after a long illness. Larry was a good friend to all who knew him and will truly be missed,” said Fritz Hirchert, vice president, loss prevention/safety for Navy Exchange Service Command (NEXCOM).

Nicholason joined NEXCOM in 1999 as a district LP and safety manager in Pensacola. He transferred to Naples, Italy, in 2005 to manage the European district. In the spring of this year, Nicholason and his wife, Cindy, moved to the Norfolk, Virginia, area where he was the LP and safety manager of the Northeast distribution center.

Nicholason began his professional career as a deputy sheriff with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department with an emphasis on criminal investigations. While working there, he earned his bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from the University of Central Florida. In 1981 he entered the retail loss prevention industry as a regional LP manager for Little General Stores in Tampa. Over his 32 years in the industry, he held executive positions with a number of retailers, including Byron Stores, Enstar Specialty Retail, Silo, Goody’s Family Clothing, and Thorn Americas.

“Those of us who knew Larry recognized him as an outstanding loss prevention professional,” said O. Keith Wanke, vice president of LP, audit, and firearms compliance at Dunham’s Sports. “But I will also remember Larry for his wit, sense of humor, and the joy he took in performing his ‘magic tricks.’ To this day the trick that I do not know was real or not was the magic bean trick where Larry would place a bean into the corner of his eye and produce that darn bean right out of his nose. I guess I will have to wait to see Larry in heaven to find out for sure.”

Larry Nicholason, CPP

The Next Big Security Headache—Mobile Payments

More than a dozen high-profile U.S. retailers, including Sears, Best Buy, Walmart, Darden Restaurants, and 7-Eleven, have joined forces and announced their intention to form a mobile payment network called the Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX). The stated goal listed on the organization’s website is to “offer consumers a customer-focused, versatile, and seamlessly integrated mobile-commerce platform.” It will be available through virtually any smart phone, according to a press release.

MCX will enter an increasingly crowded U.S. market for mobile payments using near-field communications (NFC) and other methods. The two main competitors for MCX are Google Wallet and Isis, which is backed by AT&T Mobility, T-Mobile USA, and Verizon Wireless. Others are expected to enter the space, including Apple, with an NFC “app” that can be used with the new iPhone 5.

According to a recent article in Computerworld by information security expert Kenneth van Wyk, president and principal consultant at KRvW Associates LLC, security issues surrounding the mobile barcode reading and concomitant transmission of a customer’s financial information are crucial to the large-scale success of the payment network. The article suggests that network developers must

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RFID in Retail:

What LP Leaders Need to Know

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Vice President of Loss Prevention, RetaiLPartners

Dr. Bill Hardgrave

Dean, College of Business, Auburn University

Tom Racette

Vice President of RFID Solutions, Checkpoint

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