Lowe’s attempts to prevent rampant theft by developing a high-tech system “invisible” to customers

Lowe’s home improvement store is introducing a new retail theft prevention concept based on technology to allow shoppers to touch, not just look, when they want to buy power tools.

Project Unlock is a proof-of-concept system as Lowe looks for ways to stop the theft without locking everything before it’s out the door, Lowe’s director of digital and information technology, Simantini Godbole, told Fox Business.

The process is practically “invisible to the client”. They don’t even have to know that something extra is going on,” Godball said.

Godball said that in addition to stopping theft, “We want our partners to be safe. Organized retail crime takes place in broad daylight, in the presence of accomplices and other clients.”

A 2021 National Retail Federation survey found that stores are estimated to have increased organized retail crime by 26.5% this year, with losses reaching $100 billion.

The standard reaction to blocking products is “destroying the pleasant experience that customers are rightfully supposed to have,” Godball said.

“As you can see, all retailers lock things up and put physical locks on the product. We said, “You know, we wish we had digital locks… we could turn them on and off with technology.”

Josh Shabtai, Senior Ecosystem Director at Lowe’s Innovation Labs, said that in order to combat what he called “brazen theft”, the traditional way of locking up products “makes things harder to sell” and “prevents shoppers from feeling like they’re in a super-maximum prison zone.” , according to the DigitalCommerce360 website.

Lowe’s started a pilot program dedicated to power tools because they are one of the most stolen items in the Lowe’s store.

Lowe’s Companies Inc. has developed and successfully tested a new system aimed at combating organized retail crime in an almost imperceptible manner. The company created a prototype to showcase how Project Unlock works using its own Flex brand. pic.twitter.com/N3CDvEQCa4

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On its Project Unlock website, Lowe’s explains that the project is running long before the valuable item hits the store.

“To make it work: During the manufacturing process, a manufacturer embeds a wireless RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) chip into a powered product. The tag is preloaded with the item’s unique serial number, which is also embedded in the box’s barcode, and the product becomes inoperable.

When the customer scans and pays as usual, “the RFID scanner at the point of sale reads all the tags in the range, finds the tool with the correct serial number, and records the value of a unique secret key that activates the tool for use.”

“Only legally purchased products are activated. If a power tool is stolen, it will not work, making it less valuable to steal,” the website says.

If implemented, the idea is that “the word will spread pretty quickly that it’s not worth stealing these tools this way because it’s never going to work,” Godball said, according to Fox Business.

Gene Zelek, senior counsel at Taft Law, told DigitalCommerce360 he’s a skeptic.

“It’s a good attempt, but burdensome. You end up with frustrated customers who can’t figure out why their tool doesn’t work that they paid for, and they go back to the market or the manufacturer with a warranty claim,” he said.