Magazines Archives - 2008 August

Loss Prevention - Identify causes, manage shrinkage, protect margins
Story 5 - Focus

Philippine retailers have a hard time distinguishing modern-day shoplifters from legitimate shoppers while keeping problem employees from larceny in-store. With high production costs eating into their margins and a weakening consumer-spending power, they have no choice but to manage the problem. How successful are they? Tina Arceo-Dumlao reports.

Retail companies in the Philippines are lamenting that shoplifters no longer look the part. Gone are the scruffy clothes, shifty eyes and unkempt appearance that used to mark them out as likely
suspects in any retail store.

These days, many who come to steal can be easily mistaken for typical cleanshaven young urban professionals, with their slickly-combed hair and clean, neatly-pressed clothes, making it harder for retailers, already struggling under the weight of soaring production costs and customers’ dwindling purchasing power, to instantly spot them.

This increases the thieves’ chances of escaping with valuable goods without notice. But major retailers aware of the development have put in place various security systems to minimise pilferage, which, if left unchecked, will further erode their hard-earned margins.

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