How many busts do you LP guys average a day/week?

[Squid]

Do you start getting antsy if you are having a dry spell, and do LP guys get "the axe" if they "don't produce"?


In all my decades of shopping I don't think I've ever noticed a fellow shopper hiding items(not that I've been really watching) nor have I ever seen a LP 'bust'(accept for one guy tackled after trying to run in a mall, but all after the fact).

Are you guys all Jedi Knights that pull off what I'd think would be "confrontational" without anyone noticing and without "spooking the herd"(of shoppers)?

Are the busts done at the door, in the parking lot/sidewalk or on the sales floor?

[capurato]

Depends on the store. When I worked speciality we would get 4-5 a week. Department store averages 20 a week. Most are not confrontational and noone knows.

I just hired a guy who worked LP for a sporting goods store as an agent. He had a quota. He had to apprehend internal or externally 85% of his salary. Each week he said a ranking system was out and you would get called upon for no cases. Sad thing is, if you had a bad stop he said you were instantly fired. In addition no cameras or fitting room cases. Needless to say he said turnover was high. He went to a home improvement store and then to our company.

[wiredharpoon]

As Capurato said, it all depends. If your in a store that does 200k in sales a day you will generally get more apps than a store that does 50k a day. It also depends on management and what they want. Do you really want to stop someone that takes a soda that you will probably never see again? The store I work at could average at least one a day at least if we went after everyone. Now that sales have increased though it should be easy to get two in a day.

As for not noticing shoppers concealing, most people that aren't trained on what to look for wont.

[brentjk1]

Personally if I don't get one every 2-3 days I get antsy but then again I work for a very busy retailer where theft never stops. I believe there is an attempted pushout at least once a day, so balancing who I am watching is the hardest part. Do I watch the lady playing with a three dollar cosmetic, the guy twitching in the video game aisle or the guy eyeing the 46" TV in the aisle?

Reading their eyes and body behaviors is the hardest part about floor walking. I've followed someone for two hours when they concealed $40 of merch in a purse and had them pay for it in the end. Then I saw one jerky motion from someone in a suit and it was a $300 case when stopped at the door eventually. Second hardest part is blending in to preserve job integrity which means there are times where I shop just to shop.

[CuffGroup]

wow, my company works for a very large and popular retailer in UK and we cover most of the stores in the country. We will be lucky for a few a month.

[HotelSecurity]

wow, my company works for a very large and popular retailer in UK and we cover most of the stores in the country. We will be lucky for a few a month.

I've only visited Northern Ireland but my impression of private security there was that it was very hands off, observe & report only.

[PolarDeer]

I do uniformed retail security with varying degrees of "visible monitoring vs camera surveillance" (in bigger locations we might focus on the CCTV systems with occasional rounds for the fitting booths, garages, outdoor areas, etc. while smaller grocery stores might require a focus on visible monitoring or dividing your time between the two) and depending on the location my usual pace is once a day or once every couple of days. Sometimes even two in a single day.

A lot of the usual suspects at my accounts are drug addicts and alcoholics, though. Those are easy busts since people like that can be fairly easy to recognize. Of course, I also get more "regular" types catching my eye through suspicious behavior and whatnot.

[Jaeger]

I would say it greatly depends on the area where the store or shop is located at.

in of my retail sites, the shoplifting "attempts" are high simply because the store is located in an area of high social problems and the like.

Then in comparison a friend of mine does plain-clothed security work in a large store on the other side of the city, and he tells me that despite the site having a pair of guys watching the monitors and cameras and him walking around in civilian attire they still run pretty dry from week to week. The site is pretty quiet in terms of shoplifters, but naturally they've gotten a few this year.

In one of my retail sites it usually helps to just tell the drug addict or alcoholic fellow to PAY HIS GROCERIES AT THE COUNTER, since then they usually figure out that a) you know they've planned to steal something and have hidden it under their jacket and b) if they won't comply I'll just take them into custody after they've passed through the counter.

In this one particular retail site it is extremely easy to identify the shoplifters, since they're always drug addicts, hobos or unstable alcoholics with untidy appearances to begin with.

[PolarDeer]

In one of my retail sites it usually helps to just tell the drug addict or alcoholic fellow to PAY HIS GROCERIES AT THE COUNTER, since then they usually figure out that a) you know they've planned to steal something and have hidden it under their jacket and b) if they won't comply I'll just take them into custody after they've passed through the counter.

I try not to do that if possible since there's the risk about them trying again once they learn that they'll get off light there's a heavier chance that they'll try again in the same location. Usually the only times when I tell them to pay is when the value of the product is so ridiculously low an apprehension just ain't worth it (say, a 30 cent candy) or if I'm alone and the "suspect" has other people accompanying him who might try to intervene and a backup patrol won't probably arrive in time.

[mmejia]

I'm still a newbie, but apparently my store can range from 2 busts a week to more than 20 -- the latter being closer to the holidays. We're in an area with low socioeconomic status and high crime, and the store has more deterrents than most, but of course the majority of thefts seem to happen in pharmacy/cosmetics. There are times where one of us will be assigned to monitor that one department exclusively.

We don't necessarily have a strict quota, but given the established trends, there's always that unspoken expectation in terms of performance.

Our shoplifters do seem to fall into one or two demographics/appearance profiles, but I still debate with myself whether I should profile as heavily as my coworkers here seem to do. The likelyhood of a white 30-something male (the non-hobo, non-druggie type) shoplifting in our store is low, or so I'm told, but to me that just increases said male's likelyhood of getting away with stealing right under our noses.

[capurato]

If you only watch people who wear red shirts, you will only catch people in red shirts.

[Jaeger]

The retail site I do or rather used to do most frequently was a site which usually has a different officer on duty every day for 12 hours. Therefore each officer has a very specific, individual code of conduct during his or her shift when it comes to catching and observing the lifters and the like. The site does not feature a monitoring room or cameras, so it is just you, your eyes and a pair legs.

It is a sad fact in that specific site, though, that when you take a suspect into custody matching the "hobo"-category, then they are most often than not the shoplifters after beer and alcoholic drinks than anybody else. When you look at the daily shift reports, then when an apprehension of a suspect has been made, then the physical description of the fellow is always "a scruffy-looking, bad smelling hobo or drug addict with cases of beer hidden under his clothes".

It is a good point, though, that when you begin to just observe certain sorts of individuals in the store you may miss the regular-looking average joe-type of a shoplifter. However, I would still like to point out that the site in question is located in what is basically called "meth head central", so you'll have your hands full there just observing and throwing out the most obvious cases of violent drug-addicts and beer-stealing hobos more than doing anything else.

Actually from my experience, I think that the said site features so many obvious troublemakers constantly challenging the officer that as I said before, you'll instantly know who to get "involved with".

[capurato]

If you know an element is targeting your site, what are you doing to prevent that? Obviously catching them isn't working. I know you are contract, but I'm saying this for discussion sake. You take inventory and know what items are missing.

Target the merchandise flow from the time it arrives (if it arrives) to the time it leaves. You will then solve your shortage issue.

Funny thing, my guys make a ton of cases. 65% of those 900 cases aren't from the top 25 shortage depts. what does that tell you?

[rpmacmurphy]

LP was my first job in the security field. The site I worked would vary. We'd have a week go by with maybe one or two apprehensions. The next we'd catch an ORC ring, and the subsequent arrests made could count as our "busts" for that week. By the time I'd quit working there we might have 1 a week.

We had a teams of 4 that would work every shift, with 3 on the ground and 1 in the TOC. 1 of the guys on the ground was in plainclothes, while the other two were in full SO gear. I feel that the presence of SOs, as well as the chance of being caught by the undercover SO (word got around we had them), contributed to our store being blackballed by ORC and experienced shoplifters.

[Prodefend]

Do you start getting antsy if you are having a dry spell, and do LP guys get "the axe" if they "don't produce"?

YES and aventually, YES.

In all my decades of shopping I don't think I've ever noticed a fellow shopper hiding items(not that I've been really watching) nor have I ever seen a LP 'bust'(accept for one guy tackled after trying to run in a mall, but all after the fact).

Even the most obvious thieves make SOME effort to not be seen at least by fellow shoppers so thats not too surprising you say that.

Are you guys all Jedi Knights that pull off what I'd think would be "confrontational" without anyone noticing and without "spooking the herd"(of shoppers)?

YES and keep in mind this is actually exactly how LP's are trained, to keep everything non confrontational, calm, and professional, when possible.

Are the busts done at the door, in the parking lot/sidewalk or on the sales floor?

Depends, but usually most stores will do them at the door. One retailer I worked with allowed you to apprehend someone who concealed items before they entered a bathroom or elevator, or exited the store.