Securing Your Retail Location With Cameras

One of the most difficult things about designing a system to go in a store or other retail location is that, with a bit of creative thinking and a large enough bag (or deep enough pockets), virtually anyone can steal anything they can hold in their hand. This presents a huge challenge to owners and designers alike: since everything in an average store is potentially at risk, everything must therefore be monitored. At this point it’s easy to imagine a skyrocketing price to defend one’s store, however with a little advanced planning it is possible to cover even a very large location very efficiently and cheaply.

The first (and most important) area to consider for a surveillance system in a retail location is the sales floor. As the area of the store vulnerable to shoplifting and (considering the sales staff must help customers) the most difficult to monitor, it is crucial to cover as much of this area as possible. Depending upon the size of the store this can be a daunting undertaking, however with a bit of thought and planning, even a large area can not only be covered with relatively few cameras. The first step is to identify areas where shoplifting is most likely to take place; any areas that management already knows are being hit should be prioritized, however the best systems will always anticipate others, as well.

Coverage should be emphasized on areas where small items are kept (such as candy, key chains, magnets, or anything else that can be easily slipped into a pocket), especially if those items are kept in difficult areas to keep visual watch over. Giving these areas their own cameras provides a triple-threat in terms of store security: it’s a visual deterrent to would-be thieves, provides coverage for a vulnerable area, and when combined with a line splitter and a nearby ceiling-mounted monitor showing the video taken by the camera, can even let customers know beyond the shadow of a doubt they’re being watched. At the same time, though, it is important not to neglect less-vulnerable areas, however in this case the aim would be for general coverage shots that can take several areas into account at once. For either tight-in or general-overview applications, the KG-602DSP dome camera would be ideal with its high-resolution, color imaging coupled with a versatile 3.6mm lens that can identify a face anywhere from up to 25 feet away.

Even with total coverage over the sales floor, though, it is conceivable that shoplifting would occur in an area that was more than 25 feet away from the nearest camera or in a blind spot, meaning that identifying a face from that footage alone could be very difficult. Especially in larger locations, covering every square inch of the sales floor can be an expensive and inefficient undertaking, but by pairing the standard dome cameras on the sales floor with varifocal dome cameras like the KG-602VF watching entryways the general coverage would be hugely bolstered. Because varifocal lenses can be manually zoomed in on a particular area, placing cameras equipped with them over entryways guarantees a tight, color face shot of every customer who walks in the door ensures that management can identify any given person who came in.

Away from the doors, though, varifocal dome cameras are also useful to monitor the cash registers for employee theft as well. Simply mounting one above each register and focusing each in to watch the cash drawer could do wonders to eliminate register theft, however retail locations (like bars) also face the threat of cashiers giving friends discounts or free items by purposefully neglecting to scan an item before it goes into the bag, or by scanning a less expensive item and giving them something else. Spotting these without keeping a constant vigil over the checkout area can be very difficult, however when pairing register cameras with Point of Sale Capture Boxes (which record each transaction, display the details onscreen, and store the data from each transaction in a database on the DVR) attached to each register, the process is essentially foolproof: if management has suspicions about a transaction, they can simply find a transaction in the database (by time, date, or sale) and review its details against what the cameras show actually happened.

Up to this point we have neglected the exterior of the building, though, but retail locations with outside storefronts would do well with cameras outside, too. For a basic level of coverage, simple black and white bullet cameras (the KG-190SWB would be an excellent example) would not only keep a watch over windows and their displays but also provide low-light security as well. Remember, the inside is covered with color, so outside this becomes a bit less important unless there is a specific reason why color is necessary. Along those same lines, if there is a drive-up area or parking lot to be covered, smart box-style cameras such as the KG-802 , coupled with auto-iris lenses, would not only provide a highly-adaptable camera for monitoring in varying degrees of light and dark, but when placed in a weatherproof housing for outdoor use would also act as a strong visual deterrent to would-be burglars.

All of these cameras, both inside and out, will ultimately run back to a DVR, but it is important to choose the right one for the job; namely one that runs at a high enough framerate to catch suspicious activity with a high level of detail. Though the 1304NET could work for smaller installs (of four cameras or less), most locations would more than likely want to go for the PC-Witness Pro V\RT, which can be run at high resolution and a high enough framerate (up to 15 fps per camera) to allow even quick hands to be caught. As the heart of the system, it is important not to let this wing get cost prohibitive, however it is also important to remember the system is an investment that will keep money inside the store where it belongs. At the end of the day, a well designed, high-functioning system will not onlyprovide security, it can even prevent incidents from happening and, on a long enough timeline, even pay for itself in recouped losses.