David Johnston was named Senior Director of Loss Prevention & Corporate Security for Dunkin' Brands Group Inc.  David was the previous Director, Business Development for LP Innovations, Inc for over eight years before taking on this new role. He was also the Regional Investigator for J. Baker, Inc., and the Internal Investigator for Jordan Marsh Company. David earned his Bachelors of Arts degree in Criminal Justice from University of Massachusetts at Lowell. Congratulations David!

1.2 Million Shoplifters and Dishonest Employees apprehended in 2013
Almost 1.2 million shoplifters and dishonest employees were apprehended in 2013 by just 23 large retailers who recovered over $199 million from these thieves, according to the 26th Annual Retail Theft Survey conducted by Jack L. Hayes International, the leading loss prevention and inventory shrinkage control consulting firm. “In 2013, the number of apprehensions and recovery dollars were up for both shoplifters and dishonest employees. For shoplifting, the apprehensions were up 2.5% and the recovery dollars 4.5%; and for dishonest employees the apprehensions were up 6.5% and 2.5% for recovery dollars", said Mark R. Doyle, President of Jack L. Hayes International. "What is also of importance is these increases follow similar increases reported the previous two years!" Mr. Doyle added, "Retail theft is a serious problem which is stealing retailers' profits, and causing consumers to pay higher prices to help offset these losses." For full survey results visit our website at: www.hayesinternational.com

Watchdog group blasts Google for ads tied to credit card fraud
The Digital Citizens Alliance says it found thousands of search results on YouTube.com providing information on how to obtain stolen credit card account numbers. Google says it has “stringent” ad guidelines and removes “millions” of videos from YouTube every year that violate its policies. Theft of credit card account information is making many consumers reluctant to shop online, according to new research commissioned by Digital Citizens Alliance. At the same time, the Internet watchdog group says online search leader Google Inc. is profiting from ads that offer to sell stolen credit card data. The alliance, a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating the public and government officials on Internet-based threats to payment security and other matters, says it conducted searches earlier this month on YouTube.com that showed thousands of videos in search results “that could lead” to sellers of stolen credit card data. (Source internetretailer.com)

Whoever came up with the phrase "the lazy days of summer" never worked on RILA's Operations Team!  In a letter from Lisa LaBruno, RILA's Sr. VP Retail Operations, she outlined all the exciting upcoming committee meetings and RILA's Summer Asset Protection Webinar Series that the operations team has been working on so diligently. This week RILA's Horizons Committee gathered at Gap Inc.'s headquarters in San Francisco for a two-day event focused on identifying innovative, next-generation technology across retail segments. Yesterday, kicked-off RILA's 2014 Summer Asset Protection Webinar Series, showcasing the top breakout sessions from RILA's 2014 Retail Asset Protection Conference held in Indianapolis. Next up: Returns & Return Fraud Investigations, Thursday, July 17, at 1:00 p.m. EDT. The team has also been working on planning their fall AP Leaders Council meeting to be held September 23 and 24 in Savannah, Georgia. They've also been busy making plans for RILA's Workplace Safety Committee meeting to be held September 9 and 10. Click here to read Lisa's entire letter.

NRF hails Obama’s Supreme Court setback
Executive authority suffered a blow this week when the U.S. Supreme Court sided with Pepsi distributor Noel Canning in a dispute over president Barack Obama’s use of an arcane “recess appointments” clause to load the National Labor Relations Board with pro-union choices. “The Supreme Court decision demonstrates that President Obama seriously erred in his attempt to circumvent Congress when he packed the NLRB with pro-union advocates. The court rightfully defended and protected the constitutional role of the U.S. Senate to provide advice and consent on executive appointments,” NRF SVP of government relations David French said in a statement. “While the decision does not affect the current composition of the NLRB since new board members have been seated with Senate consent, it does invalidate several important board decisions that will now have to be considered again by the new board.” (Source retailingtoday.com)

Dollar General CEO Announces Retirement Plans
Dreiling has served as CEO since January 2008 and was named chairman of the Board in December 2008. Under his leadership, the Company's annual sales have increased more than 80 percent to $17.5 billion in 2013 and store count has increased by 38 percent to more than 11,000 stores in 40 states. (Source businesswire.com)

Survey: Screening uncovers resume lies
More than nine-in-10 (93%) retailers who have conducted background screening of job applicants have discovered lies on resumes. According to the 2014 HireRight Employee Screening Benchmark Report, 71% of retailers said background screening uncovers issues that would not have been otherwise found. Retail survey respondents said better employees are the number one benefit of background screening. In addition, 49% said more consistent safety and security is a key benefit. Thirty-nine percent of retail respondents integrate screening with an applicant tracking system. (Source chainstoreage.com)

CVS's pay structure is questioned
CVS's pay structure is set up to tamp down raises among its higher paid hourly workers regardless of how well they perform, according to a Los Angeles Times report. The same article claims that CEO Larry Merlo makes 422 times that of the median worker at the company, the widest gap in the industry. (Source latimes.com)

Creditor not cutting American Apparel any slack
Lion Capital is demanding full repayment of a $10 million loan to American Apparel following CEO Dov Charney's dismissal for cause last week, Lion, a British investment firm co-founded by Lyndon Lea, is informing American Apparel’s board that it won’t grant a waiver request from the retailer to keep the $10 million loan from going into default, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the decision isn’t public. (Source bloomberg.com)

Michaels raises $473 million in IPO
The arts and crafts retailer was looking to raise $500 million in its initial public offering. (Source cnbc.com)

Bitcoin to Get More Attention From U.S. Consumer Bureau
The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, wrote in a confidential report last month that the bureau, created by the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial regulatory overhaul, needed to become more active in developing U.S. digital-currency policies. In a written response, the agency agreed. (Source bloomberg.com)

Philippines destroys $150M in Counterfeit goods

Stalemate Over Garment Factory Safety in Bangladesh

Russians Shop Less as Ruble Drop Hits Rolex-Selling Airports

Philip Morris Sees $700 Million Boost From iQOS Smoking Device

All the News - One Place - One Source - One Time
The D&D Daily respects your time & doesn't filter retail's reality
 

Despite Target, Retailers Still Weak On Third-Party Security
The Target beach should have taught companies a lesson about the risks of letting business partners run pell-mell around one's network without paying any mind to their own security posture. However, according to new research from TripWire, at least one-quarter of retailers have not yet learned that lesson. On one end of the spectrum, 12% of retailers who responded say they require third-party partners to pony up regular reports on vulnerability scans on their network and Web applications. On the other end of the spectrum, 26% said, "We don't evaluate the security of our business partners." In fact only 70% of respondents said that the Target breach affected the level of attention that their businesses' executives pay to security. This number was even lower (57%) for online-only retailers. (Source darkreading.com)

Why HCE Is Causing A Revolution In Mobile Payment Security
When considering the security of customer payment credentials, host card emulation (HCE) has caused waves in the industry. Before the advent of HCE, storage models came in two versions; either storing credentials in a specialist security chip [secure element (SE)] in the phone, or using card-on-file credentials in the cloud. The first model effectively turns the phone into a mobile wallet, with the SE performing the same function as the chip on an EMV card. The “cloud” option, however, was simply a case of storing basic payment information, such as card number and expiry date or sort code and account number on the Internet. An exact software representation of the card no longer needs to reside on a physical chip since HCE has come along. This eliminates the need for the previously all-important SE and puts an end to the battle for ownership of it, lowering barriers to market entry for new players. (Source bsminfo.com)
 

Top 3 Canadian Grocers for 2014 - By the numbers and by actual store visits by a 'Legendary investor'  Legendary investor Peter Lynch said it best: “Visiting stores and testing products is one of the critical elements of the analyst’s job”. With that in mind, what is the one thing we all do every week? We head over to the nearest grocery store and load our shopping cart with the essentials for the coming days. Day in day out, these stores take in a meaningful percentage of our hard-earned cash, so why not try and get some income from this essential service? 1st Place - Metro, 2nd Place - Sobey's owned by Empire Co., and 3rd place - the biggest retailer in Canada - Loblaw Companies. (Source fool.ca)

Hudson's Bay Corp. may sell some stores real estate to fund remodel's & Saks Fifth Avenue's Canadian Entry  HBC owns several massive Canadian flagships, with a combined worth into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Last January it sold its 850,000 square foot Queen Street Toronto flagship (and adjacent office tower) to Cadillac Fairview for $650 million. Cadillac Fairview, in turn, merged Hudson's Bay with the Toronto Eaton Centre, creating Canada's second-largest mall. Saks Fifth Avenue will occupy 150,000 square feet within the Hudson's Bay building as a result, and similar deals could happen in other Canadian cities. (Source retail-insider.com)

U.S. "invasion" causing more heat for Canadian brands - the pressure is on!
Bob Kirke, executive director, Canadian Apparel Federation, said there has been a plateau of U.S. retailers coming into Canada, except on the luxury side, in part because of Target’s costly failure. “We don’t have a marketplace to support that many more stores. Our market is only so big – it’s California,” said Kirke. The entry of Walmart into the Canadian marketplace in 1994 was a seismic shift, said Kirke. In 2004, the elimination of import quotas opened up what had been a restricted market in Canada. After the financial crisis of 2008, which started in the U.S., American retailers began looking to Canada as a source of growth. Harris said Canadian players don’t have the same deep pockets that global companies like H&M have to invest in stores to make sure they keep up with the times. "I believe there are at least three or four retailers who are hanging on by their fingertips and will go out of business after the New Year,” said Harris. “Most of them will survive, but for how long and how profitable will they be? Will they ever be as profitable as they were 20 years ago? Absolutely not.” (Source thestar.com)

Small formats in future for Walmart Canada? - You are where your leader takes you...  With the number of discount stores suitable for conversion dwindling, Walmart is again poised to follow the pattern of growth unfolding in the U.S. where the emphasis increasingly has shifted to smaller stores operating under the banners of Neighborhood Market, Walmart Express and Walmart To Go. The hiring of former Delhaize CEO Dirk Van den Berghe supports the thesis that Canada soon will see the development of alternative formats. None of the stores he led looked anything like the units Walmart operates in Canada which are massive by comparison. Even the company’s traditional Delhaize supermarkets average only about 20,000-sq.-ft., roughly half the size of a typical Walmart Neighborhood Market which is regarded as a small format in the U.S. (Source retailingtoday.com)

DNA could help solve 5-year-old Toronto pharmacy robbery case  Ryan Straker was found guilty Wednesday afternoon in a Jefferson County courtroom of an armed robbery at the Toronto Apothecary Pharmacy in November 2009. He will be sentenced next Tuesday morning. Earlier in the day, after hearing from two expert witnesses with the Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the defense asked the judge to dismiss the aggravated robbery charge, saying the state hadn’t provided enough evidence. Jefferson County Common Pleas Judge David Henderson overruled, partly because of testimony heard Wednesday morning on how DNA from the hood and cuffs of a sweatshirt hit in a DNA database, matching it to Straker. (Source wtov9.com)

The rise of open-air shopping in Canada

Amazon.ca targets the bottom line

Canadian businesses outdo U.S. counterparts in mobile device investments: poll

Bissell Centre Thrift Shoppe in Edmonton - fire causes $950,000 in damages

Vancouver PD raid East Van medical marijuana dispensary

'Aggressive shoplifter’ goes on violent spree through Osborne Village in Winnipeg

Hawkesbury Canadian Tire employee faces drug, theft charges

Armed robbery at Paulatuk Northern Store was staged: RCMP
 

June 2014 All-Star Member Selections:

Retail Partner Winner: Lance Williams, Big Lots

Lance Williams is the Director of Asset Protection at Big Lots Stores Inc., a leading US broadline retailer, and a valuable LPRC member. We sat down with Lance to gain insight on his experiences:

LPRC: Lance, please describe what your company does in two sentences.

LW: As North America's largest broadline closeout retailer, Big Lots has the power to negotiate the best deals in the business. We sell a broad range of high-quality, brand-name products, including consumables, seasonal items, furniture, housewares, toys, electronics, home decor, tools and gifts.

LPRC: One tip to help other members like you get more out of their LPRC membership?

LW: Get involved. Only through collaboration and sharing of knowledge does the LPRC, solution providers and member retailers flourish. We make it a team priority to stay connected with, and participate in, the various working groups within the LPRC. Our view is that you get out of it what you put in!

LPRC: What’s your ideal lunch partner (historical figure, celebrity, etc.)?

LW: As a student of history I'd love to have lunch with Abraham Lincoln. Just to understand how he persevered through all of the trials in his life to become one of the best presidents in history would be fascinating.

Solution Partner Winner: Robert Bull, Cam Connections

Robert Bull is the President of Cam Connections Inc., a leading LP solution provider, and a valuable LPRC member. We sat down with Robert to gain insight on his experiences:

LPRC: Robert, please describe what your company does in two sentences.

RB: Cam Connections is a full service, high quality Security Systems Integrator in business for more than 15 years. We deliver unmatched security solutions that are expertly tailored to meet the specific needs of each client.

LPRC: One tip to help other members like you get more out of their LPRC membership?

RB: CCI has been working with the LPRC for approximately 5 years and feel very fortunate to be part of the group. The primary reason the LPRC has been beneficial for us is due to our company’s level of involvement. Because of our involvement; the LPRC has given us the engine to design and deploy a variety of products in over 100 locations. Once the research is complete, we are able to give our customers the confidence that the solution they are investing in will have a positive ROI.

LPRC: What’s your ideal lunch partner (historical figure, celebrity, etc.)?

RB: My ideal lunch partner would be my grandfather, Charles Sellards. Unfortunately, he passed when I was very young and I was unable to spend much time with him. I have always heard from my family that I mirror his honesty, integrity, work ethic, and motivation. It would be great to give him a big hug and thank him.
 

Job Opening

Company

Location

Origination
 

National Account Mgr

Confidential

Northeast

Downing & Downing

Dir of Loss Prevention

Confidential

Philadelphia, PA

Downing & Downing

Job Opening

Company

Location

Origination

Why Venting About Work Frustrations Actually Makes You Angrier  The next time you are ready to vent to a colleague or co-worker, think about this first: you are not helping the situation, you're just making your anger worse! Instead of rushing to talk to someone, try these three ideas to help release your anger. (Timeout)

Why You're More Likely to Lie, Cheat and Steal in the Afternoon  Want an honest answer from someone? You better ask them first thing in the morning. A new study suggests that people were more likely to engage in unethical behaviors in the afternoon, when your mental force is weaker. (Fight temptation)