Four steps to improve your retail EAS
Electronic article surveillance (EAS) has been a mainstay of retail loss prevention for almost half a century.
But as a mature concept that both retailers and shoplifters widely understand, it begs the question, what does the future hold for this technology, and how can you use it to best effect?
In this article, we examine EAS best practices as a loss prevention strategy and how you can improve it to cater to the future of retail.
The current state of play
EAS has been used in retail since the 1960s, employing security tags, labels, and pedestal antennas to protect items at a product level.
Along the way, it has evolved to become more accurate, more discreet, and more effective. However, in retail loss prevention, EAS is the most effective strategy when honed and improved over time.
So how do you improve your existing EAS?
Key strategies to improve existing EAS
To maximise your existing EAS’s effectiveness, retailers need to understand their current loss, audit their existing system, and know-how both staff and potential thieves view it.
This involves looking at your existing system and retail store from the following perspectives:
1. Know your loss
To best utilise EAS or any loss prevention strategy, retailers should have a detailed understanding of exactly where their loss is occurring and when it’s likely to happen.
This can be determined through tools like inventory/stock counting and analytics that help identify which products go missing in-store and offer clues to when it is occurring.
Once you know your loss and where it’s happening, you can devise an EAS strategy to plug the leaks.
2. Audit your system
To be truly effective, EAS needs to be applied well.
That means ensuring products are properly tagged, false alarms are minimised, and the system is working correctly.
In other words, take a look around your store to ascertain:
- Your tag rate – Are all products tagged or labeled? Is your tagging consistent, or are there some items missing tags?
- Right tag for the right product – Whether you use security tags, keepers, or spider wraps, it’s crucial to ensure the correct tag is selected for the product you are looking to protect.
- Are products tagged or labeled uniformly – Staff should be trained appropriately in using EAS, including where to position tags and labels.
- Is your EAS system regularly checked? – As part of the opening procedure each day, staff should check the EAS antenna to ensure it is powered up and working correctly. They should also check tag detachers and label deactivators to ensure they are working as intended.
- Alarm rate – Every store should have detailed records of when an EAS alarm sounds. They should also have insight into what happens when an alarm occurs. This helps identify false alarms and theft rates.
3. Consider the staff perspective
EAS is designed to assist staff in the fight against retail theft, but they must be trained to use the system properly.
This includes educating staff on:
- where to position tags and labels
- how to detach tags and deactivate labels
- how to avoid system interference
- how to determine whether an alarm is false, whether it’s tag pollution or relates to an actual theft
Meanwhile, there should be policies and training on what to do when an EAS alarm sounds, including how to approach a potential shoplifter.
4. Consider the shoplifter’s perspective
The internet means that shoplifters have ready access to information about how EAS systems and security tags work.
That means the EAS strategy you used five years ago may not be sufficient to cope with today’s thief.
The reality is theft prevention is all about making it hard to steal. Suppose your EAS system is obvious, appropriately implemented, and the latest tags and labels are used. In that case, it becomes more challenging (and therefore far less appealing) for a shoplifter to commit a theft. It’s essential the system you implement is one step ahead of the informed and equipped thief. Advanced security tags with high-security locking mechanisms are now available and resist removal by high-powered magnets and tools commonly used to remove traditional tags.
The current state of play
EAS has been used in retail since the 1960s, employing security tags, labels, and pedestal antennas to protect items at a product level.
Along the way, it has evolved to become more accurate, more discreet, and more effective. However, in retail loss prevention, EAS is the most effective strategy when honed and improved over time.
So how do you improve your existing EAS?