Sales centers and stores, whether we talk about shops, supermarkets or shopping malls, are exposed to various specific risks, among which are the risk of product theft by employees, customers and suppliers, the one that gives the most attention as it generates significant operating losses, and is the starting point for the implementation of protection measures in stores.
Depending on the size and type of the facility, the fluctuation of people, vehicle and goods, the legal regulations and the wishes of investors, most often an integrated system is created that generates a fire alarm, anti-theft protection, protection of goods, video surveillance and access control.
A fire alarm system that ensures its early detection and a rapid start of fire extinguishing can significantly reduce the overall investment in fire protection measures (especially the construction ones). It is extremely important for the safety of customers and employees, and it is important to integrate it with the evacuation, loudspeakers, smoke extraction, ventilation and access control to allow for a faster evacuation during which there will be no panic and a faster start of fire extinguishing. In subsequent exploitation, the fire alarm system represents a significant savings of the overhead costs through reduced insurance premiums.
Anti-theft/defense system protects from attempts to break in outside of working hours and allows and uses a silent alert in case of armed robbery. It can be expanded with elements for detecting the state of the environment and thus prevent some other causes of loss in stores. In order to ensure rapid intervention, it is necessary to have an alarm that sends signals to the security alert center, and whenever possible, enable the video verification of the alarm so that it does not need to be used unnecessarily for interventions due to false alarms.
Video surveillance is installed for prevention of criminal offenses regardless of whether the perpetrators are buyers or employees, as well as subsequent determination of what happened and the identification of the perpetrator. When integrated with a POS system, it allows for an overview of each transaction, which is useful in customer complaints. A particularly effective way to reduce losses is POS integration that allows you to search video recording according to all data that is part of the account related to the card transaction. The efficiency of an EAS system that alerts staff when attempting to take out goods without paying significantly increases when it is integrated with a video that also allows automatic pickup of an image from the alarm area in the control center and ensures subsequent analysis of the video and the identification of the perpetrator.
The access control system allows access to individual premises only for authorized persons, and the function can be expanded to a record of working hours, which significantly facilitates the calculation of hours employees have worked.
The purpose of integration is achievement of the maximum effective protection and prevention of losses and risks with minimal impact on customers and their positive perception during their buying experience. The bases of each quality system is high reliability, which implies timely detection and alarming in the first place, but also a very low level of false detection and alarm.