The past couple of years words like “evolved” and “pivoted” have been used to describe how the retail and loss prevention industry has changed to meet not only the new challenges of the pandemic but also the rapidly changing demands of consumers. This magazine and the publishing industry have had our own challenges to meet the changing reading habits of our subscribers, which brings us to another word—“reimagined.”
For the past twenty years, we have published six issues per year on a bimonthly cadence. Coming into 2022, we reimagined how we could change to better serve our readers. To that end, we decided to move to four quarterly general interest editions plus two special single-focused special editions. Still six magazines a year but reimagined.
General Interest Editions
This Winter edition is the first of our quarterly issues with a wide variety of topics, including interviews with a big box asset protection executive and a grocery association industry relations executive. Plus, we have feature articles on cargo theft, loss prevention research, and LP challenges in 2022. We’ve maintained our columns on interviewing, certification, the supply chain, cybersecurity, and one of our most read sections showing people on the move. We’ve added two new departments related to our digital channels, featuring our growing podcast platform and samples of some of the original articles published on our website.
Another addition you will notice throughout the magazine is the use of QR codes—one of the beneficiaries of the past two years of the pandemic. First popular a decade ago, QR codes are much more powerful today due to the proliferation of smartphones as well as their adoption by businesses to download menus or find online information on in-store merchandise. In our case, QR codes allow our print and our digital magazine readers to go directly to our website to listen to podcasts, read full articles, or register for webinars.
Part of our move to the quarterly editions was continuing the design upgrades to the magazine begun in 2021. We’ve increased the page size slightly as well as chosen a higher grade paper, both to improve the look and feel of the publication.
As we move forward throughout the year, we will expand our quarterly editions as we respond to readers’ comments and our editorial and vendor advisory boards’ suggestions for enhancing the magazines.
Special Editions
We are really excited about our new special issues that will focus on specific topics. Our first one will be devoted to organized retail crime (ORC), one of today’s biggest concerns impacting retailers. This spring we will publish an edition with multiple articles all addressing various aspects of ORC, from how to interview ORC suspects to the industry’s push for federal and state legislation; from interviews with law enforcement and retail investigators to ORC’s funding of terrorism and human trafficking.
Another special edition is planned for the second half of the year. The topic is yet to be determined—what topic would you be interested in our doing a deep dive into? Contact us at editor@lpportal.com with your suggestions. Put “Special Editions” in the subject line.
Much more is in the works for 2022 to improve the magazine brand and offer our readers and our advertisers the highest quality communication vehicle to educate and inform the loss prevention and asset protection industry. Thanks to all our ongoing supporters who read our print and digital channels. Your faith in us and support make the magazine what it has been for twenty years and what it will be in the next twenty.