Case Studies

Tag for sports stores

by Mark Rowe

A tag has now been introduced into more JD Sports stores across the UK and now France. It’s to take over from other EAS (electronic article surveillance) systems that simply do not work as well in stopping shoplifters, according to the product company.

The Agon Concept Tag has been selected to go into five flagship stores across the UK – in London’s Oxford Street, Newcastle and Glasgow, Manchester’s Trafford Centre and Birmingham’s Bull Ring. Trials are also set to start in France where a store will receive the tag treatment to deal with shoplifting and other crime. The store owners, J D Sports Fashion Plc, have worked with Agon Systems to produce an EAS solution.

Tim Edwards, Group Loss Control Director at J D Sports Fashion Plc said: “If I were to explain the difference between the Agon Concept Tag and old EAS systems I would say it was this. The Agon Concept Tag actually works!”

The Swiss makers say that the tag is the product of six years of R&D to solve the problem of EAS tag removal by criminals, who it is widely recognised can acquire the detachers online and then use them for illicit tag removal and theft. Also, shoplifters have found various ways to remove current tags even without a detacher.

In April, Tony Sales former criminal mastermind, told an audience of loss prevention (LP) people at the Retail Fraud conference in London that, after weeks of trying, he was unable to find a practical way to illicitly remove an Agon Tag from clothing without rendering the garment worthless. He went on to say that “criminals will quickly realise that it was pointless trying to steal from store with the Agon Tag, because even if you get the clothing out of the building, you can’t remove it without destroying the garment. So it is easier to simply hit stores not using the system.”

Sales’ comments are echoed by Edwards’ experience in-store. Edwards said: “In initial trials we found that use of the tag displaced crime to a JD store that did not have it. So we are able to see how very effective the Agon Concept Tag is at deterring shoplifters, which is why we are using it in our high profile stores.”

Sean Welch, MD at Agon Systems said: “We are delighted that our tag is being used to supersede other, previously popular EAS systems as it becomes increasingly widely recognised that the old style EAS simply does not work anymore.” Welch adds that there is still much to do in educating the LP market. “I do still get frustrated when people say that they don’t want the tag because it does not fit their current detachers. After all that is the whole point! However, as crime migrates from stores using the Agon Tag to stores using old EAS I think people will finally get the point!”

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