Get Caught on Monday. Shoplift Again on Thursday.

Where is the Justice????

To many a small business entrepreneur working on very limited budget and ever slimmer margins, Shoplifting and Passers of Counterfeit money bills are a daily threat. Read the following notes and IF YOU SEE ANYTHING FAMILIAR, YOU ARE ALREADY LOSING YOUR SHIRT, to wit:

1. One Small business owner of a Grocery told me his Security personnel would catch a shoplifter red-handed bringing out the goods and rather than be repentant, would even challenge Security to bring him to the police station as he will be out on bail immediately. Sure enough, HE WAS CAUGHT AGAIN IN THE SAME STORE AFTER 3 DAYS!!!!

2. Habitual shoplifters do not shoplift at random (i.e. go for the high-value goods). Items that they steal are items that already have been ordered by buyers of stolen goods. IN A SENSE, THESE SHOPLIFTERS ARE SHOPPING!!!!!!

3. Shoplifters "go to a school of SHOPLIFTNG". There, they practice how to carry 2 2kg of Nestle Powdered Milk in between their legs (under their skirt) and still walk normally.

4. Shoplifters would come in wearing a pair of denims but leave the store in a skirt.

5. Shoplifters are very much aware of the Law (without being lawyers) i.e. if no charges are filed by the small business owner, the police has to let them go in a few hours (otherwise, Illegal detention charges can be filed against the police).

6. In the event charges are filed, their handler would immediately post the bail, according to exasperated small business owners. (They know this for a fact as borne by the title of this post -- see above title)

7. Whenever a new grocery opens, all shoplifters would swarm into the store to
a. Test the Security Defenses
b. Being store opening day, Store and Security Personnel will be
overwhelmed by the number of customers and kibitzers.
c. Priority is "Pleasing the Customer". The small business owner
does not want a SCENE AS WHEN 5 BURLY GUARDS ARE
TRYING TO MANHANDLE A KICKING AND SCREAMING FEMALE
SHOPLIFTER, isn't it?
d. A new store will use new, young and probably inexperienced
guards. (Cheap Labor)

8. Most often, shoplifters would enter in a Gang moving in different directions to throw-off uniformed and plainclothes Security. LOOK AT IT AS A NUMBERS GAME.......The poor small business owner can only hire a few guards (3 or 4) watching 3 entrances and only 1 or 2 guard on roving duty versus 6 suspected shoplifters amongst hundreds of in and out legitimate shoppers. Its a NUMBERS GAME AS WELL AS A SHELL GAME. Pretty smart huh?

9. CCTV cameras are of the cheap kind (i.e. lacks high-tech Face Recognition Programming, low-resolution, no adjustment for changing light conditions and images/footages are not interfaced with software that will sound the appropriate alarms/SMS messaging). And to top it all, monitoring of the many CCTV units are left with a poor, lowly and very much bored clerk or staffer. Modern CCTV monitoring is computerized to recognize repeat shoplifters i.e. image of every caught shoplifter is stored in a database and the instant a shoplifter enters the CCTV scan range, the computer searches the database and any match will sound the alarm (without any human intervention 24/7). Price? P3,000 for cheap camera and upwards of P300,000/unit for the face recognition etc version. AND OUR FRIENDLY SHOPLIFTER KNOWS WHICH MODEL THE POOR SMALL BUSINESS OWNER WILL BUY.

IN THE END, THE SMALL BUSINESS OWNER WEIGHS HOW MUCH VALUE IS SECURITY TO HIS BUSINESS. A typical small business grocer is working on a 3 - 5% margin. A lost of a can of expensive milk can only be recovered after maybe selling 100s of the same product.