Greg Burghardt has been in the garden-center business for 31 years and was still stunned when thieves stole the pet bunny he was raising to attract customers to Rockaway Garden Center in Rockaway, N.J., last fall. He’s seen his share of pilfered plants and even weathered a burglary in which robbers tried unsuccessfully to make off with a truck full of merchandise. But the bunny-napping confounded him. “Why would someone steal a bunny?” he wondered.

The answer is that shoplifters steal from garden centers for the same reason they steal from any retail store – because they can.
While motivation may vary, shoplifting is a crime of opportunity, and a good security management plan can help thwart potential shoplifters’ plans. Although shoplifting accounts for only about 20 percent of shrinkage (employee theft and administrative error cause more), it is a problem with some tried-and-true solutions that go a long way toward confiscating opportunity from the would-be thief.

How Thieves Operate

You can’t judge the honesty of a shopper by his or her appearance. “Shoplifters come in all shapes, sizes, ages and transcend all stereotypes,” says Tom Courtright, owner of Orchard Nursery in Lafayette, Calif. He’s seen well dressed women pull up in luxury cars and brazenly take expensive pottery right out from under the noses of employees. Some red flags include shoppers lurking in remote areas of the garden center or who park near the exit. They may wear bulky clothing and carry oversized tote bags or purses and focus their attention on the proximity of employees instead of examining plants.

Larry Amling, director of learning and development for California-based Armstrong Garden Centers, says there are a myriad of reasons why people shoplift—thrills, impulse, a drug habit, mental illness or a sense of entitlement. “Ten percent of people are honest, 10 percent are dishonest and 80 percent can go either way depending on the circumstances. The tighter the controls, the less likely that the 80 percent will be tempted to steal,” he says.

The most effective means of reducing shrinkage is by training employees to assist in theft deterrence, arranging the store to thwart thieves and establishing good inventory control to keep track of losses.

Employee Training

Good customer service can double as an effective shoplifting deterrent. Anne Obarski, executive director of retail consultancy, Merchandise Concepts in Columbus, Ohio, advises garden-center owners on their operations and says enlisting employees to help deter theft begins with a training program that emphasizes customer service while teaching them to use anti-shoplifting techniques. “You have to train employees to walk the line between being aware of any customer’s potential to shoplift, but also of offering genuine customer assistance,” she says. Obarski recommends using “mystery shoppers” to monitor the effectiveness of the training.

Making the would-be thief feel exposed is as easy as greeting every customer when they enter the premises and making eye contact with them, says Curtis Baillie, president of Security Consulting Strategies, in West Chester, Pa. Baillie has 26 years of experience in retail loss prevention and believes security strategies begin with the initial contact between customer and employee. “Greeting customers is absolutely the best strategy to prevent shoplifting,” he says. “I have always found that a shoplifter wants to enter your business unnoticed, steal and exit the store unnoticed. Exchanging pleasantries and establishing eye contact puts the thief on notice that they have been spotted.”

The surveillance shouldn’t stop until the merchandise is paid for and the customer exits the premises. In fact, customers should never be allowed to load before paying, something that’s hard to control during busy times such as during festivals or special events. When employees load plants and mulch for the customer, it’s one more step in the process of checking off inventory. Amling says customers will try to conceal smaller, expensive items under heavy bags of mulch, which is why he trains employees to lift every item from the cart. “Ideally, the customer is experiencing good customer service and the employee is checking inventory at the same time,” he says.

Returns are another area where dishonest customers try to get something for nothing. Owners report blatant examples of customers who try to exchange or return plants from other stores. Obarski recommends instructing employees to re-state return policies at check-out and to circle the guarantee policy on the receipt so there is no misunderstanding. “It may seem like overkill but store owners need to teach employees to stand their ground,” she says.

Store Layout

Larry Amling has experienced the sickening feeling of finding empty Felco pruner packages stashed under a shelf after leaving a case unlocked. He teaches managers in their 36 locations how to design the store layout to most effectively deter theft. Garden centers, by their nature, are not optimally arranged for good security. It’s expensive to fence the area, and many owners feel an open, “outdoorsy,” wooded look attracts customers.

Often cash registers are located in areas where the cashier’s view of the nursery is blocked by hanging plants and high shelves. He recommends placing the cash register in an area where customers have to pass by to exit. He also suggests bolting items likely to be stolen to the wall and placing small, expensive gift items near the cash register. Using mirrors and lowering shelves helps eliminate blind spots. Other prevention techniques include the addition of security cameras in theft-prone areas, signs declaring strict shoplifting policies, good lighting around the perimeter, a secure receiving gate, a single entry-exit point and alarm systems on unlocked doors.

Stolen merchandise can be fenced easily, and thieves often are “shopping” for shady contractors or re-selling in flea markets. “You have to make it as difficult as possible to steal from you,” Amling says, because the options for recovery are almost nil.

Inventory Control

Finally, you have to know what you have before you can know what you’ve lost to theft, Obarski says. She recommends taking accurate physical inventories during the year. “Every plant and item needs to have a bar coded tag. This is part of the register scanning system and makes it easier to ring at the register and count during inventory.  If a garden center does not have a POS register, then each item needs some type of ticket with pricing and sku information on it,” she says.

You can’t eliminate all customer theft, but you can reduce shrinkage by making your garden center inhospitable to thieves. Striking a balance between good customer service and vigilant observation is the key to loss prevention.