Electronics and home appliance retailer Courts Singapore Pte Ltd. (Courts) offers a diverse line of home product brands, aimed at consumers who seek the best value for their dollar.
For Courts, catering to customers’ needs is essential, and this adage has never wavered since the retailer began operations in 1974 in Singapore.
Subsequent years saw Courts expand its business across Singapore – the company now operates 13 stores in Singapore; yet the mantra of putting the customer first has remained deeply ingrained despite alterations to Courts’ retail format that have taken place over the years.
The year 2006 marked a major milestone for the retailer, with the launch of their 116,000 sq ft retail Mega Store.
While the expansion of retail outlets meant Courts could increase its buying power and deliver larger savings to customers, challenges also presented in the form of increased risk of customer theft. This same open merchandising approach, while beneficial to the business, also meant Courts’ merchandise was more susceptible to pilfering hands.
According to the 2011 Global Retail Theft Barometer, a study that examines global retail shrinkage, retailers worldwide lost up to US$119 billion due to shrink last year, with customer theft (including shoplifting and organized crime) representing the largest source of shrink loss for retailers, at 43.2%, or US$51.5 billion. According to the study, an average retailer would have to sell more than three items to make up the profit loss from a single stolen item.
The same study found that in the Asia Pacific region where Courts operates, shoplifting accounted for more than 50 per cent of shrink, followed by employee theft at 23 per cent. Shoplifters pilfer a wide range of merchandise particularly high ticket items such as smartphones and electronic gadgets.
To combat shrink, better meet customer needs, enhance the shopper experience and ultimately improve its bottom line, Courts embarked on a search for an effective retail security solution, and selected ADT for layered security deployments using products from Tyco Retail Solutions to protect its stores in Singapore.
Courts benefited from Sensormatic’s acousto-magnetic EAS due to the solution’s wide exit coverage, which secured high risk areas in its open-concept stores. The acousto-magnetic EAS suited the retailer’s needs as a large proportion of its merchandise contains metal components – inappropriate security solutions would otherwise result in a high rate of false positives due to magnetic interference.
Aesthetics were not comprised despite upping the ante on merchandise security – Tyco Retail Solutions’ secured display product enabled Courts to position merchandise for sale securely while allowing customers obstruction free access to examine potential purchases.
Courts also deployed Tyco Retail Solutions’ Traffic Intelligence product, which enabled the retailer to gain greater visibility into the KPIs of its various branches. With the Traffic Intelligence solution, Courts could identify the number of customers entering a store versus the number of customers that purchased items. Traffic reporting was used to analyze and track shopper conversion rate via Courts’s POS sales and transaction data.
This increased visibility into business performance enabled Courts to measure customer engagement, gain greater insight into marketing campaign effectiveness and identify in-store customer flow management issues.
The KPI measuring helped Courts achieve a double digit jump in shopper conversion rate.