Everything you need to know about anti-theft systems in retail
The installation of an anti-theft system within a commercial activity is essential to avoid theft of shop goods. Unfortunately, there are cases in which the operation of security installations is at risk due to illegal activities aimed at tampering with their proper functioning. In today's article we will deepen the subject, with a general and as complete overview as possible on the measures to be activated in the stores. The inventory procedures regularly carried out in the individual stores suffer the greatest impact which, bringing to light a difference in value, sometimes important, between the accounting goods inventory and the physical one actually present, make it necessary to activate all the practices aimed at counteract possible illegal acts. Let's explore this theme in the next few lines. Once installation has been completed, it is advisable to ask service providers for constant maintenance of the systems, which is essential to ensure that they operate regularly and, in the event that their replacement is necessary, make sure that the new devices are state-of-the-art and last generation. But that's not all, to support the operation of anti-theft devices, it is desirable to follow some precautions and integrate, within a single centralized system, different solutions that aim to safeguard the activities of the individual stores in the chain and avoid thus to record substantial losses in turnover. Before examining in detail how the anti-theft system works and what are the innovations introduced regarding its operation, let's make a brief introduction. To stem the problem, it is first necessary to identify its nature. What is certain is that, unfortunately, shrinkage does not occur solely as a result of thefts by customers or by internal and external staff, such as suppliers or cleaners. These circumstances may also originate from operational and bureaucratic processes carried out superficially by collaborators or third parties; errors that, if not corrected quickly, risk compromising the functionality and efficiency of the store's activities. Anti-theft labels and barriers The magneto-acoustic technology uses a metal alloy bearing the bar code of the product, detectable by the barriers and, due to this characteristic, it is mainly used on small articles. Its flaw derives from the fact that, by using the magnetic field to deactivate itself, it limits the manual operations of the sales staff at the checkout. Radio frequency technology is adopted to prevent the theft of medium or large items. On the one hand, we find the plates, deactivated and removed by the sales staff during the purchase and payment of the goods; on the other hand, on the other hand, innovative tools called RFID tags are increasingly integrated, self-adhesive devices that are affixed to the label of the product or garment and perform a double function. The labels are detected by the anti-theft barriers and thus prevent the theft of the goods, but that's not all, because this technology, recently introduced in the retail world and large-scale distribution, is based on the use of a radio frequency electromagnetic field generated by transponder devices. or tag. How does communication originate through this instrumentation? From the same structure of the device formed by a chip, containing the memory, the antenna that receives and transmits the signal and the external coating that acts as a protective case for the internal mechanism. The tags allow you to digitize the products on which they are applied, allowing their identification and relative tracking. The advantages deriving from the implementation of this technology are manifold. First of all, the data of the individual products are available in real time to carry out all the operations of item registration, stock control, shipment tracking and merchandise inventory. Furthermore, by supporting the sales staff in these operations, the time to devote to purely bureaucratic activities is halved, with the opportunity for retailers to invest resources in supporting, guiding and improving the customer shopping experience. RFID tag instrumentation can be of two types, active or passive. The first is characterized by an internal battery, a wide range of action and a very powerful memory capacity; precisely for this reason, the costs for the purchase and activation of the devices are considerable. Passive technology, on the other hand, is not equipped with a battery, but receives energy from the reading device; it differs from the active tag for its shorter range of action
