How Retail Crime Intelligence works for grocery stores

More than 80,000 asset protection/loss prevention (AP/LP) professionals around the world use Retail Crime Intelligence to prevent crime and loss in their stores.

Amongst them are some of the world’s leading grocery retailers, whose AP/LP teams are using Auror’s Retail Crime Intelligence platform to identify the people causing the most loss, connect the dots between people who offend, and improve collaboration and information sharing.

These retail leaders are seeing their efforts pay off in the form of safer stores and improvements in shrink – results that can be replicated with Retail Crime Intelligence as a core strategy.

Whether you’re new to Retail Crime Intelligence or trying to maximize its value, there are key questions to ask and answer. In this post, we’ll do exactly that and explore how Retail Crime Intelligence works for grocery retailers. Let’s dive in.

What is Retail Crime Intelligence?

Auror’s Retail Crime Intelligence is a software platform that connects people and organizations with timely intel to proactively reduce the impacts of crime in retail stores. Users of the platform include Asset Protection/Loss Prevention teams, security teams, law enforcement, and other trusted partners.

Why Retail Crime Intelligence?

Based on data collected on our platform, we know that over 60% of retail crimes are caused by just 10% of people who offend. According to the National Association of Shoplifting Prevention, “chronic offenders” are arrested only once in every 100 times they steal.

This means the people who are causing the most loss in your stores are returning time and time again. They are calculated and many are stealing from multiple stores and retailers. And the longer they remain anonymous, the more harm they cause to retailers and to surrounding communities.

Therefore, the ability to identify and prevent the people who are causing the most damage can greatly improve safety for your team and customers, help to provide a better customer experience, and lift team morale – on top of helping to decrease retail shrink and profit loss. 

How does Retail Crime Intelligence work?

Auror’s Retail Crime Intelligence platform has several features working together to help retailers reduce crime, harm, and loss in their stores.

Reporting made easy

Many retail AP/LP teams struggle with under-reporting crimes due to the time it can take and the outcomes they get from reporting it. It’s often seen as too much effort for little reward on top of everything else your team is working on.

Auror’s platform makes it quick and easy to report incidents, fill in vital information about the people involved, and add video and photo evidence. A dedicated mobile app and mobile responsive design means you can report incidents from anywhere.

On average, it takes less than five minutes to report a crime on the platform.

Real-time intelligence and alerts

Current approaches to recording in-store theft incidents include documenting information in spreadsheets or writing them down in a notebook. The problem is no other stores in the same organization can access the information, so it becomes a case of reactive record-keeping rather than proactively preventing crimes. They are also time-consuming, contributing to the issue of under-reporting crimes.

Incidents reported on Auror’s platform are available to your store network in real-time, meaning teams across different locations can access the same information as soon as it’s entered. If a person of interest shows up at any other store in your network, their teams will receive an alert. They can then decide how to deal with that person based on the information in the platform.

Retailer win: prevention of repeat offending 

A major Australian retailer saw five of its stores report in the platform a person who was stealing groceries and meat. Their reports helped two other stores in the same network recognize the person of interest and in response, the teams provided excellent customer service to prevent a possible incident from taking place. This happened within just a few days and the person is now “inactive.”

See the bigger picture by connecting the dots

Information about incidents recorded by retail AP/LP teams tends to be collected and stored as isolated events. But we already know that most retail crime is done by the same few people. So treating events in isolation doesn’t paint a full picture of what’s really happening and who is driving the problem.

Auror’s platform helps you do more with the information you report by connecting the dots between people and retail crime events. This makes it easier to see patterns of offending and, combined with real-time alerts, helps retailers prevent potential theft events.

Our data shows retailers that are able to draw these connections and prevent potential crimes are seeing the average time lapse between repeat offenses by the same people increase from eight days to 20 days. Other times, it’s helped retailers bring a complete stop to a person’s in-store offending.

Retailer win: cross-retail collaboration 

Two of Australia’s leading retailers worked together to report a number of repeat people, who were targeting health and beauty goods. Multiple other retailers also contributed reports of these people, further helping to build out the network of people and connecting the dots. This work led to a massive police bust where more than AU$180,000 worth of products were seized. 

Grocery retailer wins: law enforcement collaboration

With real-time intelligence and dot connection comes better collaboration. This applies not just to stores within the same network, but also between retailers and law enforcement.

One leading retailer in New Zealand reports 70% of its events to police, most of which include CCTV footage along with full accounts of suspects’ movements. This helps police save time when investigating cases.

In one particular case, two stores in this retailer’s network reported three detailed events involving a person who had shoplifted. They discovered this person had actually been involved with 90 events (20 with this retailer, the rest with other retailers) and they passed the evidence, including CCTV footage, to police to review. Police were able to arrest this person thanks to the high-quality evidence uploaded to the platform.

Empower your team

Being able to help your frontline teams make a tangible difference in their work is one of the most invaluable benefits of using a Retail Crime Intelligence platform. It’s frustrating for teams to deal with retail crimes every day without ever seeing the people committing the crimes face consequences. If the crimes involve violence and aggression, there is the added element of fear for their own safety, as well as the safety of their customers.

Auror helps some of the world’s leading grocery retailers make their stores safer for all. More and more grocery retailers are realizing they no longer have to put up with repeat and increasingly aggressive crimes. Instead, they are choosing to partner with Auror to take back the power to protect their organizations.

Contact us if you want to join the 80,000+ AP/LP professionals worldwide who are part of the Auror movement.