Retail Theft Is on the Rise. Are You Prepared?
For retail businesses, theft is no small inconvenience—it’s a multi-billion-dollar problem that affects everything from pricing to profit margins. Studies show that retail crime is increasing nationwide, with employee theft accounting for 29% of shrinkage and organized retail crime (ORC) accounting for another 36%.
Small and mid-sized retailers across the Mountain West face these challenges and more, from ORC rings targeting high-value merchandise to opportunistic break-ins at local businesses without robust alarm systems. Retail store access control systems offer a significant opportunity to upgrade the security of your business.
Modern access control systems help retailers stay ahead of these challenges by securing entry points, restricting employee-only areas, and integrating with surveillance for real-time monitoring. Instead of just reacting to theft, retailers can proactively deter criminal activity and even step in to prevent it.
How Retail Store Access Control Systems Transform Security
1. Control Who Comes Through Your Doors
Successful retail is a juggling act, always balancing the need to make customers feel welcome while keeping unwanted visitors out. Whether your primary concern is shoplifters, employee theft, or after-hour burglars, leaving your entry points unprotected is an open invitation for security risks. Here’s what you can do about it:
- Upgrade from traditional keys, which pose the risk of being lost, copied, and stolen. Rekeying costs can add up quickly. On the other hand, you can deactivate electronic keycards, PIN codes, and mobile credentials if compromised.
- Monitor and manage access remotely with a cloud-based smart lock system. This allows authorized personnel to lock or unlock doors from anywhere, whether it’s for an early-morning shipment or a late-night security concern.
- Implement scheduled access permissions by limiting credentials to the specific hours when employees, vendors, and maintenance staff are meant to be on site. This prevents anyone from trying to sneak in after hours.
- Leverage lockdown capabilities for emergency response. In the event of a violent security threat, store owners can instantly lock all entry points to keep staff, customers, and merchandise safe from harm.
2. Secure Employee-Only Areas to Reduce Internal Theft
As rampant a threat as shoplifting is, internal theft is nearly as persistent, and may even be the leading threat for certain locations. Employee crime is rarely a large-scale incident—it can be as simple as unauthorized discounts, stolen stock, or unapproved after-hours access. Here are a few steps to limit your risk of internal threats:
- Restrict access to stockrooms by leveraging keycards, PIN codes, or even biometric authentication. This ensures only authorized employees can enter high-risk areas where valuable assets are stored.
- Secure cash-handling areas like registers, safes, and back offices where cash or sensitive records are stored. These measures can be further supplemented with video surveillance, promoting accountability for anyone in range of financial assets.
- Track employee access in real time with digital access logs, which record every door entry to reveal who accessed certain areas and when. When employees know their movements are logged and monitored, internal theft is far less tempting. If suspicious activity is noticed, the subsequent investigation will be that much smoother.
- Eliminate shared access credentials. One of the primary drawbacks of keys and PIN codes is that they can be easily copied or shared, making it hard to be sure who has come and gone. For a maximally secure access control system, consider credentials like mobile devices and biometric scanning.
3. Protect Your Inventory with Layered Security
Locked doors aren’t always enough to prevent inventory loss. Many of the best retail security strategies combine access control with surveillance to provide a fuller picture of what’s happening inside the store. This layered approach allows for proactive theft prevention rather than after-the-fact detection. Integrating retail store access control systems with surveillance technology allows you to:
- Sync access logs with security cameras for two-factor identification of entry events. If any questionable entry occurs, store owners can review their surveillance footage to verify who was actually present.
- Set up motion-triggered alerts to keep your emergency responses agile. If someone forces open a stockroom door after hours, the system can alert managers and security personnel to intervene at a moment’s notice.
- Monitor employee activity remotely to see who’s entering inventory areas in real time—whether you’re present in your store or managing several locations at once from a distance.
- Reduce false alarms and security gaps with a more comprehensive strategy. Surveillance alone can’t prevent trespassing, while access control alone lacks visibility. Combining the two keeps every movement accountable.
Next Steps: Find Your Retail Store Access Control System
One of the most promising features of modern access control technology is the sheer variety it offers—everything from cost-effective, tried-and-true methods like keycards and PIN codes to advanced, super-scalable measures like biometrics and mobile credentials. Finding the right technology for you is a matter of personal risk assessment and careful strategy.
PEAK Alarm can help. We set out to build unique access control systems tailored to a business, considering factors like scalability, convenience, and integration with other systems. We bring decades of experience in securing retail businesses across the Mountain West. Through a comprehensive site assessment, we weigh risks and align your strategy to your needs.
Protect what matters most to you. Contact PEAK Alarm today.