Multiple police forces across the UK have advised retailers to "meet and greet" customers as soon as they enter the store premises to deter shoplifting.
In the advice issued by Lancashire Constabulary and Metropolitan Police, retailers are told to deploy staff to make sure each customer entering the store is greeted so that they know that there are people keeping a watch on them.
"Shoplifters can always assess how easy it is to steal from a shop by how soon after they enter they are spoken to by a member of staff. It’s known as ‘the three-to-five second rule’.
"Greeting customers as they enter your premises can put off shoplifters because it sends out a message that you and your staff are paying attention. If a thief thinks they've been spotted they're more likely to leave," Metropolitan Police says.
Meanwhile, Lancashire Constabulary tells retailers to do the same.
As stated on the force's website, "By greeting genuine shoppers, not only does this provide a positive impression of your store, it also deters potential shoplifters. An offender is less likely to shoplift if they sense that they are to be seen and noticed by staff."
Similar guidance, published on the national policing website, also encourages the use of electronic tagging on high-value items, as well as keeping shops tidy and uncluttered with wide aisles, so that theft is difficult.
The police also advised shopkeepers to carry out “crime mapping”, in which they determine the parts of their store that are most often targeted, and at which dates and times.
The advise comes at a time when retailers are being called out by police and authorities for putting up posters in their stores, be it warning to shoplifters or putting up CCTV grab of the offender in the act.
Most recently, Suki Athwal, the co-owner of the Shop Around the Clock convenience store in Tenterden, Kent, told The Times how a community support officer told him to take down a poster that he printed of a thief shoplifting in his store as it could break the law.
Athwal printed a screenshot of a customer pocketing an energy drink and post it on his shop window with the message “I’m a thief and I love Red Bull”.
A North Wales shop keeper was told by the police to take down a sign in his shop window that called shoplifters “scumbags”.
The retailer reportedly remained defiant that he will not change the message despite being advised by police to reword it, stressing that the only people who should be offended by his warning are shoplifters.
Last week, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK’s data watchdog, said that putting up images of thieves in a local area could breach data protection laws.
Data protection laws allow retailers to share images to prevent or detect crime as long as it’s necessary and “appropriate”. Guidance by the ICO said that while sharing the suspect’s details with police, security guards, and other local shops is acceptable, publishing images on an open social media group or in shop windows may be excessive and inappropriate.