Store's interior design may be best front against shoplifting, study says

Getting the goods on a thief may not be necessary if a store’s interior is designed to deter shoplifting in the first place, a new University of Florida study finds.

Making stores attractive and alluring to shoppers has long been the aim of retail designers rather than preventing theft, but a store’s interior layout often influences shoplifters in whether to steal there, said Caroline Cardone, who did the research for her master’s thesis in UF’s interior design department.

“Shoplifters enter a store, scan the space and quickly judge whether it’s unprotected, understaffed or offers a quick escape,” she said. “Once they recognize a store’s vulnerability, they’ll take advantage of it again and again.”

Some common patterns emerged in Cardone’s analysis of data collected by the Loss Prevention Research Council, a multidisciplinary team of UF researchers, which included interviews with 20 apprehended shoplifters in Orlando, Dania, Fla., and Chicago.

The criminals often sought stores with chaotic, overpacked aisles or crowded, cramped spaces because they offered good camouflage, she said.

Wide, clear aisles, a clean, well-maintained interior and a logically planned store make it less likely for thieves to escape detection, Cardone said. Aisles should be visible from the checkout lane, and the cashier’s view of the store should not be blocked by high shelves overstuffed with merchandise, she said.

“Such design tactics will help contribute to the perception of the store being orderly and well-monitored, which seems to make shoplifters feel more vulnerable,” said Cardone, who will present her findings Tuesday at a two-day retail design workshop at UF.

Thieves reported seeking “blind spots” hidden from the view of employees and closed-circuit television cameras where they would take products they had picked up in other parts of the store and stuff them into a sock or pocket, Cardone said. Often these were easily concealable items such as batteries, film and tooth-whitening products that could easily be resold on the street, sometimes to support a drug habit, she said.

Some stores place these sought-after goods behind counters or in locked cases, frustrating legitimate customers who must go out of their way to ask for them, which hurts sales, Cardone said. A less threatening approach might be to station employees in the aisles in direct sight of these coveted items, perhaps at a “customer service station” by the cosmetics counter or pharmacy, where they can answer questions from customers while watching for suspicious activity, she said.

“One CVS pharmacy had a regular employee camped out in the aisle with a folding table and her job was to market cosmetics to people,” she said. “It makes a lot of sense to have an employee in cosmetics talk about the benefits of the products. By the same token, you don’t dare steal anything with this person standing 2 feet in front of you.”

Stationing a store “greeter” near the exit and lengthening the amount of space between the cashier and front entrance also increases the odds that shoplifters will be caught, she said.

Alternate exits create stealing opportunities, as many large mass-merchant chains find with attached garden areas that sell plants and garden accessories, Cardone said.

“The offender simply brings the stolen goods to the garden area, tosses them over the fence and leaves the store,” she said. “Either the thief retrieves the merchandise later or an accomplice is waiting on the other side to catch it.”

Electronics store Best Buy’s practice of placing cameras, iPods and other electronic products on counters with flexible cords allows customers to touch and test the products without walking away with them, Cardone said. ‘”The best displays are able to both protect and market the product,” she said.

Few studies examine how a store interior design affects shoplifting despite the crime’s high toll, which in 2004 totaled an estimated $10 billion in losses, Cardone said. “Retailers have tried everything to minimize shoplifting – stringent apprehension policies, high-tech protection devices and increased security measures – but none have solved the problem,” she said.

Joshua Bamfield, director of the Centre for Retail Research in Nottingham, England, praised Cardone’s research. “This kind of thorough research into the ways retailers can cut losses by thinking carefully about their stores’ layout and design is exactly the type of study corporations need to help combat the menace of shop crime,” he said.

Source: University of Florida

Related stories:

Probing Question: What is the history of tattooing?
You might not think the sullen, tattooed teenager skulking around your local record store has anything in common with Winston Churchill, but you would be wrong. Sir Winston, King George V, and the slaves of ancient Greece — to name a few — all have their place in the colorful history of skin decoration.
Fujitsu Develops New Technology that Ensures Authenticity of Digital Video Clips
Fujitsu Laboratories announced today the development of the world's first technology that makes it possible to ensure that digital video data recorded over long time periods and then stored and managed in segments, or clips extracted from the video, are actual parts of the original video and that the segments have not been falsely manipulated, while at the same verifying the time that the video data was recorded.
EU musicians oppose Europe-wide online licensing
(AP) -- The Bee Gees' Robin Gibb and other European music composers warned Thursday that standardizing music royalties across Europe could hurt musicians and the songs they write.
Kroger expands ground beef recall to 20 states
(AP) -- First it was the tomatoes. Now it's the beef. Fourth of July picnic tables are getting a careful look as familiar hamburgers are feared to be among the tainted ingredients in separate food safety scares.
A front-row seat at this summer's physics extravaganza
Nearly 20 years in the making, the largest particle accelerator in the world will start running in Switzerland this summer, offering scientists a glimpse of particles that have never been seen before.
An oblivious transfer protocol for quantum cryptography
“It's hard to beat the noise that you have with quantum information,” Barbara Terhal tells PhysOrg.com. “So our security protocol relies on the fact that storing quantum bits noiselessly is hard to do with current technology.”
Watermelon may have Viagra-effect
A cold slice of watermelon has long been a Fourth of July holiday staple. But according to recent studies, the juicy fruit may be better suited for Valentine's Day.
Germany to start storing carbon dioxide underground
Germany is due to inaugurate Europe's first underground carbon dioxide storage site on Monday, the country's national geoscience institute said.

News discussion:

General Science news