![]() Citing "theft and organized retail crime," the retail giant has said it will close its East Harlem location next month along with eight other stores across the country. Products sit behind plexiglass at a Target store in the Harlem neighborhood in Manhattan on Septemin New York City. ![]() It’s happening as retailers large and small sound the alarm on what they say is an escalation in petty shoplifting to organized robbery sprees that clear entire shelves of products. “But when retailers have to resort to these sort of measures, it’s bad for customers and for employees, too.”Ĭonsumers are increasingly seeing stores locking up a variety of merchandise ranging from toothpaste, deodorant, shampoos to vitamins, cosmetics and even underwear in cabinets. Skertic said fragrances in general, and especially the high-end perfumes that Sephora sells are highly targeted items for theft because there is market demand for them and they can be resold quickly. “I wouldn’t have guessed that Sephora was the next retail chain locking away products because of theft, but I’m not surprised this is happening,” said Mark Skertic, a retail crime expert and managing director in the investigations and disputes practice at K2 Integrity, a Chicago-based global risk, compliance, investigations and monitoring firm. But testers, too, have been targeted for theft, according to the retailer. With that, out of an abundance of caution, Sephora only displays fragrance testers in-stores.”Īfter initially testing the change, the retailer broadly implemented it in July and August across its fleet of US stores. “To minimize the threats of retail theft and to provide our shoppers with the peace of mind during their experience at Sephora, we’ve increased the presence of Sephora loss prevention investigators across all stores. “The safety and security of our employees and customers is our top priority,” the retailer said in a statement to CNN. Residents alarmed as shoplifting incidents trigger store departures: ‘As a community we can’t allow this to continue’ Sephora locked up the fragrances and added more staff specifically tasked with stopping theft. Sephora’s cosmetics empire was built upon its pioneering try-before-you-buy store strategy for beauty products followed by the grab-and-go convenience of paying for them.īut the company says a rise in crime forced it to do away with that strategy – at least for fragrances – that drove so much of its success and built goodwill with customers. ![]() If they want to buy a particular fragrance, they’ll have to request store staff to get it for them. Instead, shoppers will now find only testers on display. Previously, people could go into the fragrance section of a Sephora store, use testers to find a scent from a brand they liked and then reach for an unopened box of the fragrance on the shelf and proceed to checkout. Sephora told CNN that it has removed all fragrances – which it said are among the most targeted items for theft – from stores shelves and displays and replaced them with fragrance tester bottles. Sephora has drastically changed the way people shop for fragrances in its stores, and it’s blaming store thefts for it. ![]()
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