Use of self-checkouts at retail stores could improve convenience, but it also makes things easy for shoplifters. This, along with retailers seeking more returns on their investments is boosting demand for theft monitoring solutions, says StopLift Checkout Vision Systems, a provider of retail theft monitoring solutions.
Use of self-checkouts at retail stores could improve convenience, but it also makes things easy for shoplifters. This, along with retailers seeking more returns on their investments is boosting demand for theft monitoring solutions, says StopLift Checkout Vision Systems, a provider of retail theft monitoring solutions.
“One of the factors driving demand for StopLift is growing use of self-checkouts,” said Malay Kundu, Founder and CEO of StopLift Checkout Vision Systems. “Although self-checkouts reduce labor costs for stores, they also increase theft. Retailers are keenly aware of this and want to use our technology to detect and deter that significant source of inventory shrinkage.”
“Although self-checkouts reduce labor costs for stores, they also increase theft. Retailers are keenly aware of this and want to use our technology to detect and deter that significant source of inventory shrinkage.”
-Malay Kundu, Founder and CEO, StopLift Checkout Vision Systems
StopLift’s analytics technology determines what occurs during each transaction at both manned and self-checkout to immediately distinguish between legitimate and fraudulent behavior. The company’s technology constantly analyzes 100 percent of the security video and compares it against the POS transaction log. As soon as a scan avoidance incident occurs, the system flags the transaction as suspicious. It quickly reports the incident, complete with video and synchronized transaction log, enabling the store to take action. It works with existing overhead video cameras.
“This includes ‘sweethearting,’ when cashiers pretend to scan merchandise but deliberately bypass the scanner, thus not charging the customer for the merchandise,” Kundu said. “The customer is often a friend, family member or fellow employee working in tandem with the cashier.”
It also includes scan-avoidance at the self-checkout where customers take merchandise for themselves without scanning. The system also detects customers leaving unscanned items in the shopping cart and mistakes by the cashier.
The company has been seeing demand for the solution from both developed and developing markets. In parts of the world with more expensive labor, such as Europe, the solution for self-checkout theft detection is very popular as retailers increasingly rely on self-checkouts to cut costs. In parts of the world with lower labor costs, the solution for detecting scan avoidance at manned checkouts is more popular.
“Demand has been very strong and growing,” Kundu added. “Retailers all around the world have long known they have a serious problem with sweethearting and scan-avoidance, but never realized that it could be solved. As more and more retailers learn that StopLift has been able to solve it with video analytics, they reach out to us to put it into their stores.”