The Challenge
The retailer was looking for a way to combat the growing problem of internal cash theft and consulted Kent-based CCTV specialists Intime Security Ltd.
Tracey Boulton, sales and marketing director at Intime Security said: "This chain of twelve high street shops, one based in Croydon's busy Whitgift Shopping Centre, was losing money through staff theft."
"The staff would keep the till drawer open for long periods of time without ringing up. The managers were able to see gaps in time on the till receipts and became suspicious."
"Shop assistants would also ring goods through incorrectly at the till, charge the customer the correct amount and then place only a fraction of the cash taken in the till. When cashing up, they could make the till takings balance by not ringing through all the goods purchased - and pocketing the difference. Over the course of a busy day, individuals were able to defraud quite considerable sums of money."
The Solution
"We recommended the new Retail Solutions (RS) system from Dedicated Micros, as it is designed specifically to combat till theft and stock shrinkage in retail environments. The digital system is fully networked to allow remote monitoring of all stores from one central point."
The RS system is based on DM's leading CCTV digital video recorders. It works by associating till transaction data with CCTV footage. By positioning one camera over a till, as well as others to view activity in the shop, all recorded video is irrefutably associated with the till transaction data entered by the sales assistant.
Images can be viewed live or easily located for playback, without affecting recording, using an easy-to use menu-driven search facility.
RS products are compatible with around 300 different types of cash register and POS terminals to make installation fast and straightforward.
Tracey Boulton continues: "In this particular environment, a semi-covert operation with off-site monitoring was required. Although employees are fully aware the CCTV system is in place, all monitoring is carried out remotely in a password-protected administration mode."
"Store managers can access images in each individual premise to review exactly what goes through every till - and who is operating it - without needing to leave their office."
The manager of the chain of stores said: "We knew staff were dipping their hands in the till, but we had no idea of the full extent of the problem until we had the new system installed."
"It is not an exaggeration to say that, as a direct result of having this unit installed, our company has benefited from at least a £1,000, or 15 percent, increase in till takings each week just in one of our shops."
"Not only has the new CCTV unit already paid for itself, it has also gone a long way towards covering the premises' rental costs of £50,000 a year."
Intime Security specialises in digital CCTV and access control installations, with expertise in retail, education and general commercial environments. They favour DM products because of their reputation for being easy-to-use, extremely reliable and applications-driven.