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From the Asbury Park Press, a reminder of one of the dangers the retail employees do face and need to be cognizant of:

Police arrested a 21-year-old township man on shoplifting charges, and also charged him with pulling a knife on the store employee who confronted him.

Police charged Arthur A. Montague, 21, who has been living at the Holmdel Motor Inn on Route 35, with robbery, shoplifting, possession of a weapon, and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose.

On Saturday, at about 4:58 p.m., township police received a report of a male suspect who had just shoplifted a lap top computer from the Best Buy in the Holmdel Commons on Route 35. The suspect was seen leaving through the rear service bay of the store by a Best Buy employee, police said.

When approached by the employee, the subject took out a chrome knife and started waving it toward the employee, advising him to stay away, police said. The incident was also witnessed by a store manager.

I am happy to hear that everyone is safe and the suspect was caught. More on this story from the Asbury Park Press.

Sometimes retail workers can forget that they are surrounded by hundreds of thousands of dollars of merchandise and large sums of cash. Unfortunately, there are people who will want their hands on this stuff and will do anything to get it. Even a shoplifter with a $15 shirt may turn out to have a weapon on them and will want to use it.

I’ve seen a shoplifter attempt to run over associates with his car after he was stopped with less than $200 worth of merchandise because he had outstanding warrants and didn’t want to get arrested. I know people who have been on the receiving end of armed robberies and smash and grabs.

While the vast majority of people who walk through the doors of a retailer are normal shoppers, there is always going to be that small small small percentage looking for something else. This is why employees need to be aware and remember that it is not worth getting injured, or worse, when trying to apprehend a shoplifter. This is also why most retailers have such strict policies as far as who can make an apprehensive and how it has to be performed.

First off, I know I haven’t been around much the past week and I apologize for that. Some things had come up that have kept me busy and away from the interweb for the past few days. I’ll be able to explain more later, as some are personal and some are professional. But now I am back, or at least I believe I am.

I am a geek at heart and I am a child of technology. I am really fascinated by technology and, since I am heavily involved in the retail industry, I am very interested in how retailers are using technology to improve or change business. Businessweek has an article about uses of technology in the field of loss prevention (see: Attention, Shoplifters). From RFID to emerging video technologies, this article has a good low down on some of the behind the scenes technology that effects every customer, when they walk in, and out, of the doors.

I came across this link because of a posting on Slashdot, and you can read the comments there for some more discussion. Although, as normal with most articles on Slashdot, there is a high amount of garbage being posted, there are some good nuggets of information buried in there.