When experts say big changes are coming to retail, they’re wrong. Change is already here. The retail we knew pre-pandemic, pre-big data, and pre-organized retail crime (ORC) is gone forever. The old retail model has been broken by customer expectations, criminal savvy, and the rapidly evolving competition.
Organized retail crime is up. In fact, the National Retail Federation reports that both theft and ORC apprehensions were up in 2020 from 2019. Stores everywhere are being forced to run with less and less staff. The internet has threatened every brick-and-mortar retailer with death by showrooming. Now, the pandemic and its impacts on shipping, manufacturing, and shopping have accelerated that change.
Smart retailers will respond to these changes quickly. They can see their competitors adapting swiftly to changes in demand, theft strategies, and safety conditions. This places loss prevention on the front lines of this transformation. LP teams are perfectly positioned to take point on organized crime, the demands placed by COVID, and even those that stem from civil unrest.
With so much at stake, loss prevention executives must adapt. They must look to innovations in secure merchandising that also support data-driven asset protection tools. This allows them to partner with other departments to leverage the information these tools provide. This empowers LP to contribute in a new way. With an expanded seat at the table, LP can help make smart merchandising, purchasing, and staffing decisions. To maximize on those investments, retailers don’t need another product—they need a full solution. Ideally, they need one that is scalable to their size and their needs.
MTI has a decades-long history as a global leader in secure merchandising for smartphones, tablets, and more. We work with our customers to tackle today’s risks and tomorrow’s opportunities. Our products are only part of how we help retailers become safer, smarter, and more profitable. Let’s walk through an example.
Freedom Micro II
The Freedom Micro II is one of MTI’s most popular products. It securely displays nearly any smartphone and provides shoppers with an unparalleled experience. Aside from handing out unsecured devices, the Freedom Micro II is the best way to demo a smartphone.
Versa Key
Our Versa Key™ makes merchandising the Freedom Micro II painless. The display can be armed or disarmed with a simple swipe from these RFID-powered, inexpensive keycards. Unlike competitor keys, the Versa Key requires no charging. Since it’s so affordable, distribution of keys is easy to scale to any size team.
Easy key systems are great—but many stores have dozens of products on display. Setting all of those up can be a time-consuming process that makes merchandising and de-merchandising a chore. Our Versa EX™ eliminates that headache by acting as a hub. Versa Keys can be synced to the Versa EX, and this will automatically extend to every connected device.
That interconnectivity is commonly referred to as the “Internet of things” (IoT). Most of MTI’s products, including Freedom Micro II, the camera-centric Freedom Focus, and MTI Locks are compatible with the Versa IoT Network. This platform makes managing the keys and the displays extremely easy. It also provides stores with records of who opened what display and when. This is critical when investigating internal theft or helping measure product display engagement.
MTI Service
MTI has worked with many of the world’s leading consumer electronics retail brands. Our partners appreciate the value our products add to their stores. Bu they also admire the professionalism and service we provide. MTI can install our products and help set up planograms for new product launches. Our technicians are experts at providing break fix services for displays and preventive maintenance for displays. That means displays have shorter downtimes, and your store will have fewer lost sales. Our Contact Center experts not only support our own people in the field but can help store personnel address issues too. This allows our clients to resolve issues themselves, reduce visits from outside vendors, reduce downtimes on displays, and keep busy getting product off the shelf.
But as with our products, our services are also infused with technology that sets us apart. MTI has developed a suite of software services that allow us to bump up efficiency in a big way. We’re working on software that makes both MTI and its customers more efficient. That means better customer experiences up and down the retail ecosystem. These innovations promise to have a huge impact on the breadth and scope of MTI’s services. Our customers will have more clarity, control, and data than ever. This will make them much more competitive in the new retail environment.
Visit us at mtigs.com to keep up to date with how we are helping retailers stay ahead of the curve. We’re working hard to help retailers navigate this new normal. That’s good news for today’s challenges, but it’s great news for tomorrow’s.
