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More Shoppers: More Shoplifters
With crowds of holiday shoppers filling the stores, more people are out who will try to take home the goods without bothering to pay.
The ratio of customers to shoplifters remains about the same during the holiday months, said Jon Palmer, store manager at the Wal-Mart at 207 S. Memorial Drive.
But many, many more customers are out during the holidays, he said, so the number of shoplifters rises accordingly.
Shoplifters cause problems for businesses big and small, forcing price increases to make up for thefts.
"The more they steal, the more it affects prices for next year," Palmer said.
Perhaps because of the crowds, more shoplifters may get away with their crimes during the holiday season, Tulsa police records indicate.
In 2005, April had the highest number of shoplifting calls, with 242. June was next, with 282, while December had the third highest, with 217, Officer Jason Willingham said.
The average for the remaining nine months of last year was 197.
Although the number of shoplifting calls to police last December was not the highest of the year, it doesn't mean fewer thieves were out, Willingham said.
"There's so much more volume of traffic in stores; they (employees) have less time to pay attention to someone who may be shoplifting," he said.
But store personnel do try. In fact, many stores beef up their security efforts during the Christmas season.
Wal-Mart's methods include hiring off-duty police officers, third-party security officers and the store's own security personnel, depending on an individual store's needs, said Wal-Mart corporate spokeswoman Jami Arms.
When it comes to preventing shoplifting before it occurs, Willingham said, the best defense is an adequate staff to handle customer flow and old-fashioned good customer service.
"If you've got several people walking the floors helping shoppers, you're going to do two things -- make shoppers happy by helping them and discourage shoplifters," Willingham said.
"For small businesses, the best thing is to get out from behind the register and talk to people. If they know you're in the area and watching what's going on, they're less apt to steal from you."
Dana and Ken McNeil, owners of Et Cetera House at Utica Square, believe that good customer service equals fewer shoplifters and happy customers.
"We greet everyone who comes into the store and reapproach them every five minutes and bone up on help on Saturdays," Dana McNeil said. "We have people walking the floor, too."
The McNeils said they see an increase in shoplifters during the holiday season.
"They try to take advantage of lunch-swarm time," Ken said. "There's a lot more (shoplifters) because there's a lot more traffic."
Источник:Tulsa World (Oklahoma), December 18, 2006
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