The changing retail landscape, more online orders being picked in the store, greater participation rates for self-checkouts and fewer store associates on the shop floor, etc, are challenging the traditional forms of product protection.

For example, keeper cases and locking cabinets (see above) slow down the store associates picking online orders, EAS tags become harder to deactivate for those customers who use self checkout and finally, with fewer associates on the shop floor, the ability to respond to any incident, to use a red route, to support the category with positive customer service, etc has been reduced.   

At the same time, retailers are looking to remove friction from the customer journey, and improve the experience, piling further pressure on the loss prevention team to limit the use of traditional product protection solutions and to actively explore new ways to present the high theft products, shrimps, energy drinks, HBA, spirits, etc, to the shopper [and store pickers] for self selection. 

In response to these challenges for drastic innovation, we will hear from ten plus retailers / brand owners who will each "pitch" their one big new product protection idea that they "bet" has the potential to be scaled across their business, in a way that improves the shopper journey while at the same time, protecting the items from theft.

Expect to hear pitches on, and early results from retailers who are trialling and scaling use cases around video analytics that can detect unusual incidents, bad actors, sweeping, etc, new smart shelf technologies, new ways of using gates and delivering the "store within a store" concept, new anti-sweeping fixtures, different ways of thinking about cabinets and vending, new forms of taggants, such as RFID that can provide data on what actual items leave the store without payment Vs just providing an alert and more.

This meeting represents a unique opportunity for retailers and brand owners to get a unique set of insights on the future of product protection that should help inform internal discussions and support their respective product protection strategies. This meeting is for retailers, CPG's and academics only