A reformed shoplifter’s personal guide to loss prevention

My palms were sweaty, my heart was racing, and my conscience was already killing me. But, tantalized by the potential spoils of shoplifting, I was ready to take the plunge.

The Christian retailer seemed an easy mark, and a new collection of Christian rock was sure to impress my youth group, who were unaware of my escapades.

And so, with a few quick casual moves, I relieved a Christian bookstore of a cache of products and slipped out the exit. It’s hard to believe that I wasn’t caught, while stuffing enough merchandise under my jacket to weigh down a small horse.

My shoplifting years are long past, yet Christian retailers still face the challenge of preventing theft while making their stores as inviting as possible. Some prefer tough tactics, but I believe that a fresh customer service philosophy may actually be the most effective way to prevent shoplifting.

These suggestions could help make Christian stores a better place to shop, while sending shoplifters packing—without unpaid-for products in their pockets.

RUN THE STORE, NOT THE DOOR

When a shoplifter reaches the security gate, if there is one, it’s too late. Giving chase is a risky endeavor, even for the clerk who is a track star with biceps the size of a professional wrestler. The result may be a confrontation involving a weapon, or with a gang around the corner.

Other considerations include falls, collisions and accidents. Tackling someone may result in liability concerns.

Tip: If your store utilizes a security sensor, don’t ignore a customer who “beeps” upon entry. Savvy shoplifters use devices to buzz the alarm on the way in. That way, after packing unpaid merchandise, they walk out casually—because when the alarm sounds again, nobody bats an eye.

FIRE THE FLOOR-WALKER

Leave the suspicious behavior to criminals. Having someone pretend to shop while scanning for thieves is a ridiculous undertaking. In the movies, the fugitive criminal can always spot the federal agent. It’s no different for staff members playing the “undercover security” role. Anyone experienced at getting the “five finger discount” can pick them out.

Smaller stores: Scrap the spy games. Surveillance comes naturally during organizational and service-related activities.

WATCH THE RESTROOM

Shoplifters love bathrooms because they provide concealment for removing security devices or packaging. Unpaid merchandise is not allowed inside, but criminals don’t follow the rules.

The answer? Keep eyes and ears in the bathrooms while beautifying them. Service these areas at frequent, random intervals to prevent criminals from making use of the stall to transfer stolen items. If a suspicious shopper visits the bathroom, immediately afterward be sure to check the stall and garbage bin for packaging or security tags.

SERVE WITH SINCERITY

Innocent shoppers may understandably be offended by overly suspicious store clerks, so check your attitude. Forget the stale “Can I help you with anything?” approach. Highly thoughtful queries are more effective. Relate to people in a friendly conversational way, no matter what your suspicions are.

Don’t offer people too much unsolicited assistance. Engage, and then move along. Allow someone else to follow up. Employees should share information about suspicious activity casually, such as while stocking a shelf. If needed, re-group briefly at the front counter or staff room to avoid pointing and whispering.

FIND COMMON GROUND

If someone struts in sporting trendy gear and listening to an iPod, send a young staff member over if possible. When a couple enters with a new baby, the expectant or young mother on staff should greet them. This is called “peer matching,” and it is an excellent approach. Why? Commonality.

The more connected patrons feel, the less likely they are to consider ripping you off. Stores with few staff can still make an effort to connect. Review trade publications or Christian magazines to stay in the know, helping to bridge any gaps between you and your shoppers.

DON’T PROFILE YOUR PATRONS

Not all shoplifters are teens with baggy clothes and a bad attitude. A young mother of twins or a man who just parked his Porsche may be trying to pull a fast one. Even senior citizens have been known to help themselves.

The notion that church people never steal is a myth. Don’t watch for suspicious types. Rather, have an eye out for suspicious behavior.

REMEMBER LOVE

Treating customers as you would like to be treated will foster feelings of friendship and loyalty toward your business. Even a kleptomaniac is less comfortable stealing from a friend. Showing respect and love to people who may be out to take advantage of you is in harmony with Christ’s commandment to “ … do good to those who spitefully use or persecute you” (Luke 6:27).

Aim to provide creative services that will benefit your customers, while simplifying store security. Try approaching shoppers with a special discount coupon when the store is busy. Stores that have a coffee stand or kiosk can open dialogue with folks by offering a certificate for a complimentary treat with purchase. With a parent’s permission, a fun freebie for the kids can go a long way in making their experience in your store more memorable.

Personally, I’m grateful that God helped me to learn the lesson of honesty the easy way. I never got into trouble with the law. However, confessing my crimes to store owners was no easy task.

Today, as a Christian businessperson and family man, I still have “radar” for criminal activity, and I have helped prevent several crimes, without the use of force. Becoming more aware and prepared to deal with this issue may be a way of heeding Christ’s admonition to “be as wise as serpents, and as innocent as doves” (Matt. 10:16).

LOSS PREVENTION

Almost half of retail “shrinkage”—the total of which was nearly $35 billion in 2007—is due to theft.

The University of Florida, in conjunction with various sponsors including the National Retail Federation, reported on retail loss and its prevention in the 2007 National Retail Security Survey. The survey found that the average inventory shrinkage (shortage) rate, 1.44% of total annual sales, was down significantly from the previous year, but the dollar value of the loss, approximately $34.8 billion, continued at record levels. Inventory shrinkage encompasses loss from sources such as employee theft, shoplifting, administrative error and vendor fraud.

Retailers surveyed attributed 44% of their losses to employee theft, making it the single most significant source of shrinkage, followed by shoplifting at 34%.

High staff turnover and heavy reliance on a part-time store workforce can lead to inventory shrinkage, as “the part-time worker is less committed to the overall success of the company and is, therefore, more likely to allow shoplifting to occur and to participate in or ignore incidents of employee theft,” the study said.

Trent Halverson is a business owner and freelance writer in Saskatchewan, Canada.

We need to close the gap between what we sell and how we really live

Something churned inside me recently when I came across this advice to churches considering opening a bookstore: “If the area’s already well-served by a Christian retailer, the church should give prayerful consideration … to the possible impact on the Christian businessperson who owns the local store.”

I felt the stress faced by local store owners and the church leaders as they seek to be on the front line of ministry together while balancing the budget.

A competitive spirit is just one loathsome foe in the menagerie of diabolical imps you and I fight against as we—the members of the Christian retail industry—desperately seek to live the messages we hope will sell.

I know about the competitive spirit. If I’m brutally honest, I have to admit that I’ve gotten caught up in the industry as I watch my fellow best-selling authors for teen girls progress with rapt self- consciousness.

Though I love them dearly, I am in a constant battle with my flesh.

Today I blasted off a flow-of-consciousness e-mail to a list of best-selling co-laborers. “Frankly, girls … you and I teach teens to avoid being mean girls, but in my heart is always a competitive spirit,” I wrote.

“(There, I said it!) Either I am feeling like I’m ‘not enough’ because you are outselling me or I am feeling like I’m ‘all that’ because I’m at an event with teen girls squashing me to get an autograph.”

I spilled my guts.

I was overwhelmed by the outpouring of honesty that flowed into my inbox.

Vicki Courtney, winner of the 2008 Evangelical Christian Publishers Association’s Christian Book Award (Children & Youth) for Teen Virtue: Confidential (B&H Books/B&H Publishing Group), wrote back: “Even as someone who writes and speaks on this topic, I struggle with my own ‘inner mean girl’ rearing her ugly head from time to time.”

I had to ask if she ever struggled with jealousy in the industry. She was candid in her answer: “Ouch! Absolutely! God spoke truth into my heart through a friend of mine.

“She was speaking on Matthew 9:37—The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.’ She made the simple statement that there are ‘many rows to hoe in the harvest.’ And then she said, ‘Hoe your own row and quit worrying about the person in the row next to you!’ ”

I don’t know about you, but it gets hard for me to remember that whole “same team” thing when I’m worrying about making payroll for my staff. I can’t tell if I’m the valiant warrior of God who serves beside my sisters, or if I’m the fearful, territorial wimp worried about the bottom line.

I end up sometimes crying out in my spirit: “Will the real Dannah Gresh please stand up?”

Best-selling author Susie Shellenberger, former editor of Brio magazine, who is currently launching a new teen girls magazine called SUSIE Mag, admitted to the same struggle to live what she teaches.

“My greatest area of being un-Christlike is my impatience,” she told me. “I’ve called my accountability partner on the way to a speaking engagement and said: ‘I’m really angry right now, and I’m on my way to speak to teens about holiness. I need to confess this and pray through it before I get behind the microphone.’ ”

I cannot tell you how it made me feel OK to have Susie speak with such transparency. Apparently the real Dannah Gresh is the one who wants to serve God beside her sister, but often needs to call her accountability partner.

Can you identify?

Shaunti Feldhahn can. She’s sold more than 1 million copies of her books and speaks to our shared audience of teen girls through For Young Women Only (Multnomah Books).

She candidly piped in: “I don’t have to be told that ‘the human heart is deceitfully wicked’—I recognize it every day in myself in this industry! I recognize it when I find myself getting a bit jealous over the fact that someone else got that speaking engagement I would have loved, or see that someone else’s ‘competing’ book has sold a zillion more copies.

“I have to instantly and sincerely pray for blessing and favor for anyone I might have those feelings about, since I know that God will use that in their life and my heart!”

Oh, the juicy stuff that transpired in our little best-selling “inner mean girls” e-mail forum. We took time to cleanse our hearts and got things right in this little corner of the Christian retail industry.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that this whole Christian retail thing just works better if we live it better than we sell it.

For example:

As we share Dave Ramsey’s books on biblical finances, can we say with certainty that we are living above the weight of debt in our ministry finances?

When we encourage a weepy wife with a copy of The Love Dare, can we say that we’ve been protecting our own marriages?

Romans 2:21-24 admonishes us with no amount of tenderness: “You, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? …

“You who brag about the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? As it is written: ‘God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.’ ”

We have to be willing to examine our lives to see if there is any potential for hypocrisy. If there is a disconnect between what we are selling and how we are living, our best contribution to the body of Christ is sitting on the sidelines for some rest or restoration.

Leslie Ludy, who penned When God Writes Your Love Story (Multnomah Books) with her husband, Eric, weighed in on this.

When I asked if they ever struggled with living out what they write about, she replied: “A few years ago, Eric and I decided to pull away from full-time touring and speaking.

“We knew that so much speaking was causing our marriage and relationship with Christ to get a second-place focus, and we were beginning to feel the results of burnout.

“It was hard to walk away, but it established a very important principle—if the Truth is not first real in our own lives, we have no business teaching it to someone else.”

If you ask me, that’s living out the message.

Now that you’ve read these confessions of best-selling inner mean girls gone mild, let me ask you something with an extra dose of tenderness:

What does your corner of the industry look like?

Recently the Internet has been abuzz reacting to a column by influential blogger, Michael Spencer, known as the "Internet Monk," who says that we are within ten years of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. Spencer speaks to the foibles, flaws and failures of evangelicalism as a sympathetic insider but with uncomfortable frankness.

And while I would challenge some of his conclusions, I also realize that we in the Christian retail industry have to be willing to hold a mirror up to ourselves to evaluate how we are doing in building God’s kingdom in the culture in which we live.