PUTTING THE BOOT IN

Councils demand Government action to stem the sale of fake goods at markets and car boot sales

With car boot sales and markets being the single biggest source of fake goods in the UK, council leaders and chief executives have called on the Government to tackle this damaging, and growing, problem.

Over 130 delegates, including 23 council leaders and 12 council chief executives signed an open letter to the Government, at the recent Local Government Association Conference in Harrogate, calling on Ministers to fulfil their undertaking to consult on measures to tighten the regulation of occasional sales and markets - originally promised by the end of 2007.

Urgent action is needed given the evidence of children being exploited to front market stalls in order to protect the counterfeiters, and of violence and intimidation being used in the enforcement of traders' patches. In addition, the link between the trade in counterfeit goods and organised crime such as people smuggling, benefit fraud, money laundering and the drugs trade is well-established, with criminals making billions each year.

Susie Winter, Director-General of the Alliance Against IP Theft said;

"Markets and car boot sales are a great British tradition; however they are frequently infiltrated by criminals. Legitimate businesses lose sales, while consumers, looking for bargains in the economic downturn, are increasingly put at risk through the sale of substandard and sometime dangerous goods".

"There is only so much we in industry can do to support trading standards by encouraging the implementation of good codes of practice, so we are very disappointed by the recent refusal by Business Minister Kevin Brennan MP to give an indication as to when this consultation can be expected. The sheer number of signatures on the petition demonstrates that this is an incredibly important issue, and one the Government can no longer ignore. I hope that it encourages Ministers to fulfil their commitment to review the current measures, and to provide markets and car boot sales with the protection they so desperately need and deserve."

PARTNERS IN CRIME

Fashion Forum gives Town Centre Partnerships a dressing down over performance and value for money

The Retail Loss Prevention Fashion Forum is seeking talks with Town Centre Partnerships across the UK after research raised questions over the performance of some in working together with stores to combat crime.

While many of the sample 22 TCPs scored highly in the questionnaire sent by the Forum, many were seen to fall short on delivering a value for money service overall. A lack of consistency in standards including the cost of radio links from town to town, poor visibility of deliverables and unsatisfactory levels of communication were identified. In addition, many out of town stores were simply not covered by schemes and felt vulnerable.

The Fashion Forum comprising the heads of loss prevention for the High Street's fashion and accessory retailers is now to write to the best performers to congratulate them for their on-going partnership and collaboration and the worst to seek talks on areas of improvement.

"The Forum asked their stores in sample towns a series of questions linked to the perceived and real effectiveness of the partnerships. They then overlayed all of their pooled data of the best and worst performing towns and shopping centres for shrinkage, losses linked to crime. This provided an uneven landscape of consistency when it comes to relationships between store managers and their individual TCPs," said Andrew Wood, managing director of The ORIS Group which collated the data.

"We also allowed for the fact that some towns pay less for radio links than others, but there was no consistent picture that suggested that these were performing badly.

In fact some where they were paying a lot, still had a poor service although this could also be in part down to the levels of engagement between the stores, the police and the town centre teams," adds Wood.

The criteria for the questions was based mainly upon towns and shopping centres where crime is high. The fashion retailers had pooled their results of 'hot towns' before conducting the research. A survey was then sent out asking stores in those towns questions including:

• Do you get regular and useful information from the radio?
• How beneficial is the radio?
• When you have used the radio, have you received support back in the scheme?
• Do you get invited to partnership meetings and have you attended?
• Do you get circulated images of offenders?
• Have you been visited by town centre co-ordinators?
• Do you consider there is a joint approach to shoplifting in your town/shopping centre?
• Do you receive regular bulletins from your partnerships?
• Is there police involvement in the scheme?

Many of the towns and shopping centres where the Forum had issues were found wanting in terms of higher shrink and poor back-up as well as a high cost for radio support.

"From our findings, many of the towns and shopping centres are doing an excellent job and we will tell them that, but there are equally a lot that are performing poorly. We pay a lot of money into these schemes and where we do not see a valuable return on that investment, we want to address this, with those who fall below an acceptable level," said Fashion Forum Chairman, Richard Lawrance, the head of Audit & Loss Prevention for Monsoon and Accessorize.

"This is not a name and shame exercise. We will write to them individually to either congratulate them or invite them for further discussions on areas of improvement. We would want to see an action plan and some key performance indicators that we can all agree upon for the future. There is an issue and TCPs have to understand that retailers are looking for stated service levels to be met," he added.

STANDING UP TO FRAUD

2009 Retail Fraud Show was standing room only - Now the Show is going 'On The Road'

Retailers are standing up to fraud - literally. With the 2009 Retail Fraud Conference having standing room only and the strong take up for Retail Fraud Awareness Day on 30th June, there is a clear appetite that retailers are not taking fraud lying down.

Now the Retail Fraud Conference in going on the road with a conference taking place at the Walker's Stadium, Leicester on October 7. Speakers will include a mixture of leading retailers and academics who herald from outside London including Professor Joshua Bamfield, the author of the Global Retail Theft Barometer, Adrian Beck, Reader in Criminology at the University of Leicester and Martin Gill from the Perpetuity Group. Retailers presenting include Robert Jennings from Boots, Mick Paisley from the Alliance and Leicester and Richard Quinn of the Co-operative Group.

The event is likely to trigger other Retail Fraud Conferences around the UK as part of the On The Road theme ahead of the 7th Retail Fraud Show at its traditional home of the Novotel, Hammersmith in April 2010, delegate and sponsorship bookings for which are already ahead of expectation as a result of the 2009 event.

The 6th annual Retail Fraud Show got underway at the Novotel on Thursday April 30 and there was standing room only in both the technology and online presentation streams as well as strong interest in the Master Class programme as a record number of delegates attended the day.

With over 400 delegates from the industry at the one-day event, standing up to fraud was also a major theme of the conference as Retail Fraud Magazine launched Retail Fraud Awareness Day, a staging post for retailers to raise the profile of this national day of action.

Sponsored by the ORIS Group, Retail Fraud Awareness Day was launched by John Wilson, editor of Retail Fraud, and Laurence King, described by one CEO as Europe's premier loss prevention expert. King, who has more than 40 years experience in the retail sector, set out five points that could make a difference to reducing the fraud and shrink that is costing the UK High Street £4.1 billion per year. People, premises, processes, technology and the supply-chain are all vulnerable links in the fraud chain that retailers must constantly evaluate and invest in, and these are the starting points for measuring and managing the problem in every business, said King.

Hosted by Retail Knowledge Ltd, the conference, sponsored by SPSS, Tripwire, Cybersource,192.com and The 3rd Man, is considered to be the definitive event for all aspects of physical, online and technical fraud prevention within the multi-channel retailing environment.

Over 30 speakers focussed on this year's two main topics - Technology and Online Fraud. Joining the speakers were over 30 exhibitors. There were four Master Class sessions during the day including an independent analysis of data mining technology. Commenting on the day, Diane Gantley, Head of Internal Audit at Ann Summers said: "The Retail Fraud Conference was a really enjoyable day with a good mix of subjects, relevant to the climate. It was a great opportunity to meet people both socially and professionally."

Speakers included The Carphone Warehouse, Jaeger, JD Sports and Republic as well as ScrewFix and BestBuy from the US where head of loss prevention Paul Stone shared with a packed audience how one of the world's biggest retailers has re-invented itself as a master of shrink management in just 10 years during which time it has reduced its losses down to .5 per cent.

Geoffrey Northcott, the head of loss prevention for Borders and founder of The Loss Prevention Company, spoke about the new breed of civil recovery being imported from the US where retailers are now happy to go after a fraudster's assets and are already doing so.

Northcott, who presented longside Greg Saputo of US Civil Recovery Law Firm Palmer Reifler said of the conference: "The event was excellent and I heard some very positive feedback. Well done to the organisers and I look forward to 2010."

For more detailed information or to get involved with the 2010 Retail Fraud Conference of Retail Fraud on the Road, please visit www.retail-knowledge.com. Alternatively, contact Keith Newton on 0116 287 4244.

LIGHTS, CAMERAS, ACTION!

Staff induction and empowerment films provide recession-busting new front line against fraud

Retailers are reducing costs at every level of the business and investment in loss prevention and security is no exception, despite evidence that the economic downturn will cause an increase in so-called 'necessity' theft.

Some retailers have cut their guarding bills - by far the most expensive and visible security measures - by up to 50 per cent.

So how are loss prevention managers coping with the downturn and the trimming back of security investment?

Evidence suggests that they are turning to their most effective loss prevention tools - their employees - by motivating them to take action against both the external thieves and 'the enemy within,' the active minority of dishonest staff who are contributing to the UK's £4 billion shrink bill.

UK retailers including The Co-operative Group, Boots and Peacocks are all advocates of this collaborative approach. Read the new Retail Fraud Magazine to learn more about how they have used this approach www.retail-knowledge.com

Retail Fraud "On The Road"
7 October 2009
Walkers Stadium, Leicester
Website

Retail Fraud Conference
20 April 2010
Novotel London West
Website

To advertise your vacancy please contact:
Paul Bessant on +44 (0) 207 903 5177
paul@retail-knowledge.com

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