It just depends. I would never put my safety in jeopardy, even over a pair of, you know, over clothes. It just depends on if I felt threatened or not. If I didn’t I would definitely run after them. But if it’s a 300 pound male, no, that’s stupid. But if I thought I could get it back, then yah I would try.
17:19 It’s hard to tell. Because some people, you greet them but they really don’t want to be helped, they want to look around. And you can’t take that to be they’re shoplifting. I work in a boutique downtown, sometimes its really crazy, sometimes it’s really slow, just make conversation abercrombie and fitch uk. Keep with the customer. Hey what are you doing downtown, what are you doing this weekend, do you have any weddings coming up this summer, anything.
Are you concerned about recovering the merchandise? 15:13
We’ve had a few, we carried BCBG in the very beginning, it’s about the same prices as our Betsey Johnson dresses, ranges from 2-400 dollars. I got so excited that I wanted to put them in the very front of the store so when you first walk in you get to see all the dresses and it wasn’t maybe one or two weeks that we had them up there and I was by myself in the morning like I usually am, and I was helping a customer back here in the dressing room, getting them shoes and stuff like that, and I didn’t even hear, this was before we had the security system and now it chimes every time some one walks into the store, and I didn’t hear it at the time because we didn’t have it, and I go back up there to grab her a different size and I realize that there are three of the hangers there without the garments on there. 3:32 So at that point that was the biggest thing I noticed that has ever happened here at the store and I immediately got sensors for the store, got an alarm system put in, so we can definitely tell if people take anything, the sensors will go off. (3:50) That was one of the biggest things, but it’s really nice because all of the downtown boutiques really work together, they’re like, “hey, we’ve had some shoplifting issues, this is the description of them, please look out. You know, chances are, if they’ve already shoplifted, they probably already left downtown because they’re scared. Maybe they’re stupid enough to go into other stores, but who knows. So that’s really nice but other than that day, there really hasn’t been that much. 4:15 I’d say in total, like 1500 since I’ve opened has been taken out of my pocket, out of the store, which some people would think that’s really nothing, but still that’s 1500 dollars that just walked out of my store.
5:18 Police officer came to talk
It was after the BCBG incident, this guy came in who was kinda out of it, he wasn’t all there abercrombie sale, he had just gotten released from Mid-Mo, like 24 hours ago, sometimes you never know who to help, obviously you want to help everyone that comes in, he kinda seemed like a little bit not all there, but at the same time he might have been having an off day, and he wanted to buy some jewelry, and so I pulled some out for him, and he was falling in love with everything so he said he wanted it all, so I got it all wrapped up for him at the counter and thankfully we had the security system so I had the emergency button to press, but he tried to take one of the gift cards from the desk to pay for the merchandise and I was like sir there’s nothing on there, do you have any other form of payment, and that’s when I knew something was wrong. And he took the bag, and I don’t even know why he did this, but I came around and I asked him for it back and I mean it’s kinda dangerous and that was the first time I had ever felt kinda taken back into the store, so I called a police officer and I wanted the girls to feel comfortable to press the police button under the desk for any reason. When she (police officer) came in, she basically told us what the legal terms for stealing were and that was if they do take something, they literally have to step outside the store for it to be shoplifting. And they said that if anyone runs, not to, I obviously wouldn’t want any of the girls to be in any danger, don’t run after them, it’s really not worth the twenty dollars to put yourself in danger, and that’s what she wanted to reiterate to the girls. And just let them know what the basics were of the law. 7:12 I think it helped, they felt really good after that and felt like they could deal with the situation a little more properly If it ever did occur when they were working.
What other systems do you have in place? 7:26
Yah, you see a lot of police officers downtown because of their station is so close, its nice too, when I have had to press that button they get here in 5 minutes, which it’s obviously working, the security system and stuff.
I have not, knock on wood again. I didn’t catch the people that actually take the things in the very beginning, and then that guy, he never actually escaped, but I did call the police, he apparently wasn’t on his meds that day. He was in jail for 24 hours, and he’s still not able to come within 100 feet of the store. However, It’s ironic, I hadn’t seen him in a year and he walked by the other day.
Do you feel there’s a good police presence downtown? 13:50
What is your shoplifting policy? (12:11)
That’s one of our biggest things is customer service. We’re like on you, helping wise, I was back here with her, so intent, someone came in, and voila abercrombie and fitch! It’s gone!
I don’t look at it, I don’t bump up prices because other people have stolen, I don’t think they should be punished for other people’s wrongdoing. However, that’s 1500 less of what I got to sell that I could have been putting into more inventory for the store. So you can kinda look at it that way. It does hurt, if you don’t get the profit from that merchandise, you don’t get to put it back into the store.
Would you yourself run after a shoplifter? 14:47
Have you had to do that yet? 12:59


9:42 Want some jeans to go with that shirt?
In the very beginning there were two walls back here that I took out because I thought it would be really easy to go behind and stick something in your purse. So we took those out in the beginning, and just having well enough staff to be in the front of the store and the back of the store at all times, but we have our security tags on our garments, we have the security system when you walk up the door, we have one if anyone were to break in after hours, we’ve got it hooked up to all the doors (7:56) including our basement, and that has happened. (8:00) Our back door got kicked in about 6-8 months ago, I don’t even know if it was just drunken kids at 2 in the morning just messing around or someone really trying to get in, but regardless we got called down, nothing was taken, they literally ran once they heard the siren going off. I’m glad we have it, if they were really going to take something.
Independent Store Customer Service 9:20
Do you look for any behaviors to deter shoplifting?

In the very beginning, we had the BCBG, the Betsey Johnson, a lot of the girls would get them for formals, and they’re tagged already when they come here, and we add our own, it’s really easy to have worn that garment and then easily bring it back and return it. You can’t really tell if they’ve worn it or not. 10:58 Of course you want to believe your customer that they didn’t, and getting a 500 dollar return, I mean, a day for a small boutique, that’s a huge hit. 11:06 And you have to make up even that much more. So, it protects us in that sense, just so we don’t get a huge hit, not really shoplifting but making sure that we’re not being taken advantage of. Those are, more expensive things like that are going to be final sale, jewelry is usually a final sale, but our return policy is that (11:38) you have seven days to bring the garment back to get your full refund, if its after 7 days but between 14 days you can get store credit or exchange, and our store credit will never expire.
I never had that happen here in the store but when I worked at the Abercrombie in San Francisco, that’s what they told us to do, not to make it more lighthearted by any means, but to kinda make them embarrassed. Like, hey do you want some jeans with that blouse that you just stuck in your purse? We talked about that too, to say that, that way, you don’t cause some people would say, well, I wasn’t going to steal it, then you’ve got another whole law suit on your hands. They always told us to say that just to go around it in a lighthearted manner, that way you obviously get your merchandise back, you didn’t offend hopefully a customer that quite possibly wouldn’t have done that, but who knows.
2:45 How big of an issue is shoplifting?
We will definitely prosecute. Because, and that’s one of the tips that the police officer gave me, because usually people if you do catch them, they are very cooperative, if you’re like hey I need to take you into the back, we need to call the police, and they feel so embarrassed about what they’ve done that they cooperate. And if they run out, just let them go. 12:35 She said that if you don’t prosecute, then they tell their friends, hey Elly’s Couture is really lenient if you give her a sob story in the back and you cry and you feel really bad, she’ll let you go. She’s like, you have to. You absolutely have to. Because they’ll learn, now the word around the street is that if you shoplift there, you’re going to get in trouble, you’re gonna get arrested. It’s gonna go on your record. So I would absolutely prosecute.
Yah, that’s money out of my pocket. You’re literally going into my pocket, or my purse, and stealing from me. Out of my purse. That’s how I look at it because I own all the merchandise here in the store.
Do you tailor return policy to prevent shoplifting? 10:34
Elly’s Couture Interview
Was the cost of the security system inconvenient to you? 8:32
It’s not cheap at all, they run 5-10 thousand, im sure they run even more expense than that. So you have to look at as an investment, hopefully it will deter people who want to shop lift when they realize the store has a system. It’s just one of those things these days, you have to have it. It’s silly not to.
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