“More and more products will be locked up as retail theft rises.”
– Rachel Michelin, President, California Retailers Association
Turn on the news any day of the week these days and you’re bound to see a story about shoplifting. According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), retail shrinkage has jumped 53% since 2019. It’s a challenge all retailers must consider, but how do you protect your inventory while keeping shoppers incentivized to browse? The answer is security lighting for retail stores.
Preventing Retail Shrink While Making Shoppers Feel Welcome
We all want our retail stores to be inviting and appealing to shoppers. Ideally, they’ll feel comfortable enough to spend both time and money there. But pharmacies and other high-traffic retail outlets must also control shrinkage through ongoing strategies. Loss prevention lighting is an effective tool for helping secure your inventory while highlighting assortments and making shoppers feel welcome to browse and discover.
Retail security cameras help discourage theft and provide evidence of it when necessary. While they serve as an effective deterrent, customers don’t always appreciate ‘too much’ surveillance. Install too many cameras and your store might seem like it’s not safe. Security cameras should be part of your LP strategy, when practical and cost-effective, but they are far from the only tool at your disposal.
Strengthening Your Loss Prevention Strategy
Other retail loss prevention measures include RFID tags, cable locks, security mirrors, and the growing use of locked display cases and security cages. Each has its own set of pros and cons and an associated cost, of course. Most retailers find that a combination of measures affords them the best protection. The right formula for your store will depend on several factors.
Consider your floor plan, what you sell, the type of shoppers you typically see, and how busy your store gets. Even the climate can play a part in your LP strategy. For example, if it gets cold where you are, shoppers may bundle up in big coats in the winter. That could determine where you decide to position security mirrors or cameras.
It’s helpful to think of your loss prevention strategy as a system made up of parts. Remember to think about how those parts work together. Whenever one can increase the effectiveness of another, use that to your advantage. Layering or combining loss prevention tactics is a great way to strengthen your defenses against shrink.
Some popular loss prevention strategies include:
- Retail security cameras
- Anti-theft signage
- RFID tags and readers
- Convex security mirrors
- Locked glass or plexi display cases
Security Lighting for Retail Stores Can Help Increase Sales of More Profitable Items
There are ways to discourage shoplifting that both bring attention to your products and which don’t feel invasive the way more retail security cameras might. One of the best examples of this type of “win-win” shrink prevention solution is loss prevention lighting.
Keeping all of your most valuable merchandise hidden away in a shadowy locked case is counterproductive. You can’t expect people to buy what they cannot see. You also lose any opportunity to entice a browsing shopper and capture an impulse buy. That’s where illuminated locked display cases come in.
Locked glass or plexiglass display cases for smaller and more valuable merchandise are unquestionably effective at stopping shoplifting. When you add modern LED shelf lighting to your display case, you turn a loss prevention measure into a more effective way to highlight and ‘showcase’ your merchandise.
Some of our most effective loss prevention lighting solutions include:
- LED panel lighting for shelves and cases
- Overhead lighting to brighten up aisles and dark corners
- C-Channel down lighting for any display type
Security Lighting for Retail That Raise Profits and Lower Shrink
At Lighting for Impact, we develop innovative retail lighting solutions that solve problems and boost profitability. Utilizing modern lighting solutions is one of the best and most affordable ways to help reduce theft. Our loss prevention lighting solutions are a balanced, cost-effective shoplifting deterrent.
Even better, they draw attention to more profitable items while simultaneously making them more secure. That’s why we call our loss prevention lighting a “win-win” theft prevention measure.
If you have questions about loss prevention lighting or any of our retail lighting solutions, please contact us online or call us at (844) 218-4112.
