Retail Security Isn't Jolly, But It's Critical This Holiday Season

The Black Friday stampede at a Wal-Mart in Valley Stream, N.Y., was a tragedy that highlights an important issue retailers will confront this holiday season: security.

While Wal-Mart asserted that it had taken precautions to deal with shoppers who were bound to surge into the store for its Black Friday opening, determined to snatch bargains scheduled to run out later that day, it wasn’t enough to save the life of a maintenance worker who was knocked down hear the entrance and trampled to death.

Promotions meant to build crowds outside stores are commonplace today and not just at holidays. Ikea, for example, encourages crowds to line up days before a new store opens, and 99 Cents Only provides a limited number of special deals on products such as iPods, but only for the first handful of customers. The result is a cadre of determined shoppers — grimly determined, in the Wal-Mart case.

Newsday reported that Wal-Mart had advertised such discounts as a Polaroid 42-inch LCD HDTV for $598 and a DVD of “Rush Hour 2″ for $2 valid that would only be available from 5 to 11 on Nov. 28 as part of its Black Friday promotions.

In an economic downturn, floor and loss prevention workers are usually the first to suffer dismissals or cutbacks in seasonal hires, says Dave Malefsky, senior vice president of Cambridge Security Services. Cambridge doesn’t work with Wal-Mart, but Malefsky told me that any crowd-control situation requires a combination of trained store staff, uniformed loss-prevention security personnel, the cooperation of local police and effective barricades to keep crowds in order.

Reports say such precautions were lacking or inadequate at Wal-Mart. With more consumers pushing back holiday purchasing to the last minute, retailers who don’t consider what happened at Wal-Mart may face real trouble when they trot out big promotions in the days immediately before the Christmas holiday.

Retailers recognize that security has become a more critical issue; some, such as Target, have even developed their own crime labs. Such security aims both to maintain customer safety and to deter theft.

Even if forced to cut back on personnel, retailers must train employees to work as a team to secure the store, Malefsky says. Staffers, for instance, should be educated to recognize gang colors or to report when the friends of other workers are hanging around the store too much. These store clerks can work with uniformed and plainclothes security agents — including those keeping an eye on footage from security cameras — to keep everything under control. Failing to do so can lead to unnecessary losses from theft and lawsuits, a critical consideration when most retailers face narrowing or non-existent margins.