Apparel
Shoppers can sample music online, but there's no way to virtually try a shoe on. Item tagging in apparel provides valuable inventory information while also securing merchandise. “The adoption of RFID is expected to have a significant impact on various business processes within the apparel industry,” said Frost & Sullivan in its report.
The benefit of RFID is multiplied for efficiency. “If you focus on the security piece, the security is boosted with RFID in place — not just in the store but along the chain,” Coyle said. “You pay for one capability and get many things, possibly including inventory accuracy, loss prevention, an enhanced customer experience, improved marketing and more.”
As apparel stores are designed to be inviting, security equipment should be discreet. “Products such as cameras should get smaller, not only to lower power consumption, but also to match the interior of the retail shops easily,” said Iida Atsushi, Manager of Security Solutions, APAC Professional Solutions, Sony Electronics. “Therefore an industriallooking camera would not match from an aesthetics point of view.”
While cameras are shrinking, HD imaging is booming. A shopping mall in the Philippines replaced SD analog cameras with HD ones and improved identification. “They found the video is clearer and gives them more information for management and security applications,” Ma said. 
High resolution and frame rate strengthen identification. “There are many powerful camera lenses out there that can show you exactly how the target looks, but without a high frame rate capacity of at least 60 fps, it isn't easy to capture the moment the thief puts the item into his bag,” said William Ku, Director of Brand Business for Vivotek. “Without footage of that specific scene, the store would have a hard time proving it in court, not to mention prosecuting the criminal.”
A frequent selling point for HD or megapixel is that a single camera can replace multiple SD ones. While the exact amount differs, wide areas of a store would benefit from higher resolution, such as the checkout zone or stockroom. “Megapixel cameras yield greater ROI than conventional cameras in the long run and in many cases immediately,” said Becky Zhou, APAC Sales Director for Arecont Vision. “There are also operational benefits in a retail owner's ability to view the store remotely to ensure that customers are being served in a timely manner or that employees are being honest.”
However, bandwidth constraints will limit how megapixel video is transmitted. “A 10-megapixel camera may replace five other cameras, but vendors leave out the part that it uses so much of the pipeline that it's not even usable remotely,” Shepherd said. “Retailers cannot afford to invest in the network. Some operate off DSL and there's no way to put a megapixel camera on that.”
Video produces incredible amounts of data , as megapixel increases data three- or fourfold. “For large stores with 30 to 40 cameras, it doesn't make sense to constantly transmit the video to a central location,” Mellos said. “We advise people to leave the video in the store, usually in IT closets and transmit or search for data needed.”
Transmission data that has priority over video include panic or fire signals, as well as business data. “PoS is either sent in real time, or daily or nightly,” Mellos said.
Electronics
Big-box retailers for consumer electronics boast the latest gadgets. While the customer experience is hands-on like apparel, merchandise cannot leave the display. “As demonstrated by numerous consumer studies, open display and availability of merchandise at all times have a positive impact on increasing retail sales,” said Steve Sell, VP of Global Marketing for Checkpoint Systems. “We are working very closely together with consumer packaged goods companies and retailers in developing solutions which can open up displays as much as possible.”
For an electronics retailer, sample products need to be accessible to shoppers. “We are living in a new era now and consumer experience is all that counts,” Sell said. “Imagine if retailers lock expensive high-theft merchandise into cabinets — of course there will be no shrink but sales will be largely reduced.”
A study of big-box retailers Target and Best Buy exemplify differences in their security approaches. Both sell popular Apple devices, but Target locks them away, while Best Buy does not. “Best Buy outsells Target for iPhones and iPads, because the consumer does not want to wait for someone to unlock the display case,” Shepherd said. “It goes back to understanding customers and how to impact shrink without impacting sales.”
Most large chains have a management-based plan for each store. “When a store gets secured by whatever way — be it video surveillance, intrusion or access control — the loss prevention personnel will get a good sense of how the store is doing from a shrinkage perspective,” Mellos said. “They use a significant amount of data monitoring internally to understand where shrinkage comes from and then take the appropriate actions.”
National retailers look at data in terms of value, rather than petty crime statistics. “They don't spend a lot of time on capturing criminals,” Shepherd said. “Retailers are moving from being reactive to proactive.”
QSRs
The QSR segment does not require item-level tagging — value meals do not generate the same margins as luxury handbags. Instead, efficiency is the key metric for casual dining establishments. “By The Rockies had been testing video surveillance in a subset of our locations, and we decided to capitalize on the opportunity to drive profitability improvements by integrating video with our PoS system at all of our locations,” said Mike Davis, Loss Prevention Manager. “We started by carefully investigating a variety of video surveillance offerings, and we narrowed it down to two providers.” It deploys a hosted video solution from Envysion, which was among the two options tested.
Field tests provide retailers with a better understanding of how security can bolster their business. “We work with a retailer's finance team to align on the key metrics that matter to the organization, whether it is reduced loss, improved sales conversions or lower costs of goods sold,” Steinfort said. “Then we track these metrics and measure them against both the store's performance before it implemented Envysion and a control group to filter out economic and seasonal variables that can impact a store's performance.”
This side-by-side comparison gives retailers hard data on security benefits. In customer pilots, ROI averaged 844 percent, with some retailers seeing ROI of up to 2,500 percent, Steinfort said. 
Security reports can gather relevant store data, as QSR chains operate across many locations. “A major part of our requirements was a robust and customizable reporting capability that integrated our PoS data to video,” Davis said. “We also needed an easy-to-use, single system to view video and PoS data. With more than 100 locations, we didn't have time to log into each restaurant's DVR separately to review the footage and then log into a separate system to view the PoS information.”
Effective video-PoS integration prevents and detects employee theft or carelessness. “However, to render such a solution realistic and functional, a highly complex interface is required for communications between the cash register and other technologies,” Ku said. “A system is still needed at every branch for a chain with multiple locations.”
By The Rockies was able to use video-PoS integration to identify and reduce fraudulent transactions, such as fabricated voids, refunds, discounts and comps. “As a result, we're realizing a cash impact of thousands of dollars per month per location,” Davis said. “In some of our restaurants we have also deployed audio recording. This has been tremendously helpful in validating HR claims of sexual harassment and customer complaints.”
Convenience Stores
Large chains such as 7-11 will deploy security for operations, such as alarm monitoring at high-risk stores. “A lot of our customers in the U.K. and South Africa set up security in their retail shops for video surveillance, alarms and panic buttons,” Ma said. “If there's a robbery incident, the people in the store can press a button and trigger the DVR to signal the video response center or monitoring center. Then the operator at the video response center can receive the alarm and see the live situation at the customer's premises.”