We’ve Made Stores Less Human

Walk into a retail store today and pay attention to what you feel.

Not what you see. What you feel.

Locked cases.
Security tags on everyday items.
Cameras everywhere.
Announcements about monitoring.
Employees trained to observe, deter, and report.

At what point did protecting the store start making it feel unwelcoming?

The Shift We Don’t Talk About

Loss Prevention has always been about balance. Protecting the assets. Protecting the people. Protecting the brand. But somewhere along the way, the balance shifted. We didn’t just make stores safer.

We made them more controlled. More monitored. More… guarded. And while each decision made sense on its own, collectively they’ve changed something bigger:

The human experience of shopping.

When Protection Becomes Perception

Let’s be clear—shrink is real. Violence is real. Organized retail crime is real. This isn’t about ignoring risk. It’s about understanding perception. Customers don’t walk into a store thinking:
“Wow, great risk mitigation strategy.”

They think:
“Why is everything locked up?”
“Why do I need help to buy toothpaste?”
“Why does it feel like I’m being watched?”

We design for risk. Customers experience friction, and friction changes behavior.

The Invisible Trade-Off

Every LP decision has a trade-off.

We’re very good at measuring the first half. Shrink goes down? Well that’s a Win! But we rarely measure the second half:

Not because they don’t matter, but because they’re harder to quantify.

The Store Used to Be a Place

Retail stores used to feel different. They were places people went—not just to buy, but to browse, discover, and interact. Now in many environments, they feel transactional.

Get in, find what you can access, and get out. We’ve optimized for control, but retail was built on connection, and connection doesn’t thrive in controlled environments.

What Are We Really Protecting?

Here’s where it gets uncomfortable. We say we’re protecting the business, but the business isn’t just inventory.

It’s the customer relationship, the brand experience, and the reason people choose to come into the store at all. If customers feel friction, distrust, or inconvenience every time they shop, then we may be protecting the product while quietly eroding the purpose.

The Associate Experience

And it’s not just customers. Store employees are living in this environment every day.

They’re managing:

All while trying to deliver service.

We’ve asked each of them to be a salesperson, security officer, problem solver and apologist. That’s not simplification.

That’s strain.

There’s a Better Question

Instead of asking: “How do we stop theft here?” Perhaps we should ask: “How do we make this easy to shop and hard to steal?”

Those are not the same question. One leads to barriers while the other leads to design, such as better layouts, smarter product placement, improved staffing models, and clear ownership.

Thoughtful use of technology—not overwhelming use. That’s harder work, but it creates better outcomes.

The Risk of Overcorrecting

Every industry swings. For years, retail leaned too far toward openness. Now, in many cases, we’ve swung hard toward control. The risk isn’t that we’re wrong to respond. It’s that we tend to overcorrect, and in doing so, we create stores customers no longer enjoy visiting.

Remember, once that habit breaks…It’s hard to get back.

The Real Leadership Challenge

This isn’t about removing controls. It’s about owning the full impact of them. Good LP leaders don’t just ask: “Did shrink go down?” They also ask: “What did this decision cost us somewhere else?”

Every control we implement sends a message. But is it the message we want our customers and employees to receive?

 So… Change My Mind

If you believe the increasing layers of security, controls, and friction in stores are not meaningfully impacting customer behavior, employee experience, or long-term brand health—I’d genuinely like to hear that argument.

But maybe the issue isn’t whether these measures reduce theft. Maybe it’s whether they’re slowly changing retail into something customers no longer recognize—or want.

And if that’s the case…what are we really protecting?

So… Change My Mind

David E. George, CFE, CFI, is the Managing Partner of Calibration Group, Inc., and of its subsidiary, TalkLPnews. Previously, David served as Vice President of Asset Protection for Dollar General Stores, a company with more than 20,000 stores in 48 states. While serving Dollar General, David was responsible for the Asset Protection field team, the Asset Protection corporate team, the Shrink Improvement team, and the Shrink Analytics team.

Prior to Dollar General, David held the Vice President of Asset Protection position with Harris Teeter Supermarkets, Inc., a regional chain based in Charlotte, NC. He served Harris Teeter for more than 14 years and has had previous loss prevention leadership roles with Kmart Supercenters.

For more information about Calibration Group, visit www.calibrationgroup.com.