RCC Loss Prevention Conference on Sept. 29 offers wide range of speakers, topics Responding to an Active Shooter Scenario: Post Emergency Resilience You've implemented procedures to keep your customers, employees and visitors safe, but, what about the aftermath following an active shooter event? Join Tom Shebrek for a look at how you can ensure your organization is resilient following an event beyond avoiding, denying and defending. Consideration will be given to post emergency response plans and business continuity.  Navigating Fraud through Big Data Retail is rich with data. With every transaction, order, and movement of an asset, virtual crumbs are left along the path. One of Canada's top payment processing companies will explore the benefits of data analysis, and how one solution was born out of a need discovered along one such journey. Sean McCormick of Moneris will moderate a discussion between two top data scientists dedicating their focus towards Loss Prevention and fraud solutions. Dr. Read Hayes will outline the ongoing research focused on deterrent effects, and Dr. David Speights will speak to the Verify Refund Solution. Stay tuned for more speaker and session announcements to come!   Visit RCCLPConference.ca for full information and to view the conference agenda.

Africans & First Nations Treated Like Potential Thieves in Retail
New campaign takes aim at racial profiling in retail settings
The Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission hopes that education and training will help to reduce instances of consumer racial profiling in the province.

They will be working with the Retail Council of Canada to target their membership in order to deliver materials to raise awareness of this issue.

The campaign stems from a study conducted in 2012 in which they discovered members of visible minorities were often the victims of negative shopping experiences and were more often being unfairly targeted by retail workers.

What they found was members of the African Nova Scotian and First Nations communities have been disproportionately affected by the types of behaviours that we describe as consumer racial profiling,"  said Christine Hanson, Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission CEO.

They found that visible minorities were more likely to be ignored, followed or forced to leave the store or business, among other negative behaviours.

The awareness campaign will include posters, pamphlets and other promotional materials. There will also be a free online training course.

The study found that visible minorities also reported being the targets of offensive language, were treated as if they were physically threatening and were seen as potential thieves in a retail setting.

The education and training tools are set to roll out mid-September. globalnews.ca

Racial Profiling in Nova Scotia
Sobeys boycott to be expanded as grocer drops human rights appeal
One of Canada's largest grocery store chains has withdrawn an appeal of a human rights decision that found an employee discriminated against a black customer, but a group calling for a boycott of Sobeys says that action will continue.

The African United Baptist Association of Nova Scotia says the boycott of Sobeys stores in the province will grow to all of Atlantic Canada unless the company acknowledges the problem of racial profiling.

On Friday, the company announced it was dropping its appeal of a finding by the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission that one of the store's employees racially profiled a black customer.

Peter Doucette, the Sobeys Atlantic general manager, said in a statement that the appeal was withdrawn as part of a settlement reached with the human rights commission. cbc.ca

RCC Retailer Alert: Gift Card Scam
RCC has been made aware of a gift card scam which is affecting some Canadian Consumers. While the victim is the customer, we recognize the major inconvenience this is causing Members.

The Scam: The fraudster calls an unknowing customer at their home with one of several fabricated stories involving back taxes owed, or a jailed nephew. The concerned customer is convinced by the fraudster to buy gift cards as a way of transferring monies to the fraudster to clear their tax bill, or bail their relative out of jail. For the most part this has been with iTunes gift cards (as they are easily converted to cash without requiring the physical card present). Later, the fraudster calls back and obtains the card numbers and pins over the phone from the customer who unsuspectingly purchased a block of cards from a local store. The virtual cards are subsequently redeemed (amounts up to $6000 at one time). When the customer realizes this is a scam, they attempt to refund the physical cards at the retailer from which they were purchased only to find out the balance is zero!

Call to Action: RCC has been in contact with the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre which has provided material that can be used to notify your customers of this scam which in one city alone is netting over $100,000 per month.  ● Scam Alert for Companies  ● Scam Alert for Customers     retailcouncil.org

Trader Joe's standoff: Appeal court hears case of B.C. man reselling groceries
A U.S. court has the authority to hear a trademark lawsuit by grocery chain Trader Joe's against a man who buys the company's products and resells them in Vancouver at Pirate Joe's, a store designed to mimic a real Trader Joe's, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a district court's decision to dismiss California-based Trader Joe's federal trademark claims.

The district court in Washington state said it lacked authority to hear those claims because the defendant's alleged trademark violations occurred in Canada and Trader Joe's had failed to clearly explain how they affected U.S. commerce.

Trader Joe's does not have stores in Canada. The company sued Hallatt in 2013, alleging he drove across the border to a Trader Joe's store in Washington state, bought the company's products and resold them at higher prices at his Vancouver store.

A Trader Joe's store refused to sell to Hallatt, but he put on disguises to avoid detection, shopped at other stores as far away as California and hired others to shop for him, the company said in its lawsuit. It estimated Hallatt had spent more than $350,000 on its products.

Hallatt said his business was lawful. He provided a service to Canadians who wanted Trader Joe's products but didn't want to go through the trouble of travelling to the U.S. to get them.

In court documents responding to the lawsuit, Hallatt said he never represented himself as an authorized reseller of Trader Joe's products or as an affiliate of Trader Joe's. ctvnews.ca

Quebec hearings begin into who knew what regarding sale of Rona to Lowe's
The former chief of staff to a cabinet minister who has just resigned contradicted his ex-boss Thursday at a special legislature hearing into the controversial purchase of hardware firm Rona Inc. by Lowe's.

Pierre Ouellet told committee members that Jacques Daoust was informed about the intention of government agency Investissement Quebec to sell its 11 million Rona shares for $140 million in 2014, two years before Lowe's paid $3.2 billion for the Quebec giant.

Daoust, who was economy minister in 2014, has always maintained he and the government were not consulted about the sale of the Rona shares before it took place.

Ouellet told the committee, however, that Daoust knew of the intention to sell. Daoust was later named transport minister but resigned last week after some of Ouellet's 2014 emails were leaked to the media and which seemed to indicate the then-economy minister knew about the divestment of Rona shares.

Quebec's opposition parties say the government did nothing to prevent a company considered important to the province's pride and identity from being sold to Americans.  ctvnews.ca

Retail Sales in Canada Continue Ticking Upward
Retail sales in Canada were up about 2.9% in Q2 2016 compared with the same period the prior year, according to data from Statistics Canada. The increase came after stronger 4.5% growth in Q1.
 
This year's retail sales-excluding sales from pure-play digital retailers-have repeated the traditional pattern of a post-holiday Q1 slump each year followed by a return to form in Q2. This year, Q2 sales were up nearly 23% over the previous quarter, for example-though they were just 2.3% higher than sales in Q4 2015.

eMarketer estimates that total retail sales in 2016 will reach C$522.62 billion ($408.78 billion) in 2016, up 1.7% over 2015. Retail ecommerce sales will grow much faster, by 14.9%, but still account for just 6.5% of the total. eemarketer.com

Tommy Bahama Ramps Up Canadian Expansion

Quebec City police raid shop, arrest six with selling cannabis

Uniglo 1st Canadian Store Opening at Eaton Square Sept. 30th