Jamie Barnfield, Senior Sales Director, IDIS Europe

As efforts step-up to cut theft from grocery stores, the latest powerful but affordable video solutions have an important new role to play.

In the UK alone, the cost of shop theft is now estimated by the British Retail Consortium to exceed £2.2bn annually and rising. With reports of over 2000 daily incidents of violence or abuse against staff, tackling retail crime feels like an uphill battle.

But the Crime and Policing Bill is expected to become UK law late this year, with enforcement to begin early next. Measures include a standalone criminal offence for assaulting someone working in a retail setting, and a repeal of the GBP£200 threshold which currently means the police typically deprioritise thefts below that value.

So there are growing efforts to push back against retail crime, and that matters. It’s not just the financial impact on businesses and livelihoods that’s important, but also the safety and wellbeing of shop staff, and the risk that a sense of lawlessness undermines local neighbourhoods and community cohesion.

Making it easier to share incident footage with police

But with the right resources, and more responsive policing, retailers are better placed push back against theft. The new law could help make a difference, and also give more weight to the Retail Crime Action Plan which was launched two years ago. This required a police response to all incidents involving violence or threats, where suspects have been detained, or where evidence needed to be urgently collected. It also encouraged retailers to share incident video footage, including using VMS to upload it directly to police systems.

Security suppliers have a role to play here, making collecting, reviewing, and supplying evidence to the police easier, thanks to a new generation of easy-to-use, AI-enhanced video solutions.

We are also now seeing the big stores increasingly leaning into this.

Using retail video surveillance more effectively

The way different categories of grocery stores are targeted by thieves, and the way they fight back, differs significantly. In smaller, owner-managed businesses, staff are often more likely to intervene directly when incidents occur, thereby preventing theft and detaining suspects.

I’ve written before about how independent convenience store owners utilize their video surveillance systems to great effect, focusing coverage on the most vulnerable locations and specific items often targeted by thieves. They, along with their store teams, often rely on experience and instinct – backed by comprehensive video coverage – to predict and spot theft attempts with a high degree of accuracy. They are motivated to do so.

Better HD image capture to target repeat offenders

They use video recordings to provide HD evidence to the police in some cases, but often when footage is reviewed, it’s because they want to familiarise themselves and their teams with repeat offenders so that they can deter or prevent them from returning.

In these cases, we also see the real value of user-friendly VMS interfaces that are easy and fast to use by staff who don’t have specialist surveillance operations training. In one case, a store owner wanted his elderly parents to be able to use the system, and it was intuitive enough that they could.

And for convenience store owners with more than one outlet, the latest VMS apps that make it easy for them to keep an eye on their businesses remotely on their phones or tablets – including using audio comms functions - are also highly appreciated.

Professional security staff play a vital role - with the right technology

Strategies are obviously different for larger grocers and chains than their small convenience chain stores, not least because they are located in town and city centres and often targeted by different profiles of criminals and antisocial behaviour. And of course they can’t ask staff to intervene directly, to concentrate so closely on spotting theft attempts, or to take any action that puts them at risk of injury.

In these stores, professional security staff, with the latest equipment and technology, fulfil the deterrent function.

Recently, my attention was caught by a ‘former prolific shoplifter’ who was being interviewed on talk radio - and ‘prolific’ is an understatement. He claimed sometimes to have stolen £30k worth of goods in a day. Among his favourite targets were opticians, where high value glasses frames were easy to steal, and certain grocery chains, particularly where alcohol wasn’t displayed behind counters and could be easily stolen

Thieves understand the deterrent value of easily searchable video solutions

He would take alcoholic spirits and reposition the remaining bottles on the shelf to make the theft less obvious. Why? He wanted to delay the moment when store staff might review video footage and retrieve images that could provide forensic evidence and clearly identify him. He was mobile and would travel from town to town.

This shows how much thieves understand the value of video surveillance where recordings can be easily searched, where evidence can be quickly retrieved, and where security staff can be rapidly alerted.

What deterred this particular thief were stores where a ‘burly guard’ stood near the door. He wanted to be in and out without being challenged and without the inconvenience of being detained.

Spot monitors made more effective with analytics visibly highlighting people and faces

So as shop floor staff have been replaced by automated checkouts, security officers have become more important. And so has their use of spot monitors, which are increasingly being made more effective with AI analytics identifying and visibly highlighting people and faces, to let store visitors know that video analytics are in use.

In this way the deterrent effect of video is being amplified by these enhanced spot monitors.

As I have written previously, retailers with larger stores and busy control room operations are also making more use of, readily available and highly accurate video analytics functions - such as line cross, fall detection, left or removed object detection -  to improve consistency and accuracy of monitoring, while strengthening their loss prevention strategies and gaining operational efficiencies.

Affordable but powerful video solutions being used to change behaviours

Ultimately, the point of  enhanced video technology – just like the new laws – is to change behaviours before the crime happens and take a more preventive and proactive approach

So retailers are being urged to support the push-back against store theft – including by using high-definition video to capture footage, by reporting incidents, and by make evidence available to the police, particularly to tackle repeat offending.

The latest, affordable but powerful video solutions can help them to do that.