Mobile and Touchless Checkout Drive Loss Prevention Teams to a New Frontier

As we move deeper into 2018, technology priorities in retail are coming into focus. Retailers are moving quickly toward ridding themselves of checkout lines and cash registers with the proliferation of mobile POS and plans to migrate to touchless checkout. These changes are truly transformational and present new challenges and opportunities to stakeholders across the retail organization, including loss prevention (LP) professionals.

As we prepare for NRF Protect in June, the shift to mobile and touchless checkout is top-of-mind. We look forward to engaging in discussions and hearing insights from LP professionals about how they are preparing for the unchartered territory in physical security and LP that lies ahead for retailers.

LP teams are only beginning to assess how endless data can be used in combination with analytics and/or machine learning to identify fraudulent activity instantly, accurately and automatically. In order to do so, LP professionals are having to do their due diligence on available technologies and build the business case for investment.

Simultaneously, they’re attempting to predict the types of fraudulent activities that will emerge with the adoption and perfection of touchless checkout. By logging onto an app in-store, shoppers will be able to scan a product to see information and pricing and put in into their cart. Geolocation software will be used to understand where the shopper may be hovering to look at product. At that time, the app will deliver coupons or other incentives to drive purchase. Discounts will be applied directly to the virtual cart and shoppers will simply walk out of the store, at which time their payment will be automatically processed.

In some ways, touchless payment will result in reduced shrink due to administrative error: no hand-keyed prices or miskeyed item numbers. On the other hand, thieves will always innovate new ways to steal, forcing LP teams to keep pace.

LP is left to anticipate the kinds of fraudulent activities that will present themselves with a completely new way of purchasing product. The answers are not evident and LP teams are pioneering new territory. It’s a brave new world in LP and we’re excited to engage with this group of intelligent, scrappy professionals to see where the next generation retail experience will drive their innovation and advance their knowledge.

Will you attend NRF Protect? If so, visit us at booth #621 to hear more about how technology can help you advance your loss prevention objectives.