Retail Security: Feeling safe in Shopping Centres

It’s that time of year: shoppers are returning to the malls as they emerge from lockdowns and gear up for the festive season. According to international research, where they decide to shop will be largely dictated by where they feel safe.

With Auckland entering Covid-19 Alert Level 3 Step 2 and retailers across Aotearoa gearing up for Christmas and the Summer retail peak, the county’s shopping malls and high streets are becoming physically distanced hives of activity.

It’s a good time to be thinking about retail security.

In addition to the often-discussed topics of ‘loss prevention’ and ‘profit protection’, a retail security topic that isn’t as frequently discussed is shopper safety and, in particular, shoppers’ perceptions of mall safety.

Of course, the big elephant in this room at the moment is shoppers’ perceptions around their Covid-19 safety. A recent survey from Coresight Research showed that two-thirds of consumers plan to continue avoiding public places after restrictions end, with shopping centres topping the list of places they won’t go.

The question of ‘how do we make our shoppers feel safe and secure’ is therefore perhaps more pressing than ever as mall operators look to coax customers back to their premises.

A blog article we posted recently on the FIRST Security website provides some useful guidance on how security guards can provide a reassuring presence and helpful resource in the context of the post-lockdown return to face-to-face retail.

In this article, we take more of a deep dive into shopper perceptions of safety in relation to criminal and antisocial behaviours, and how those perceptions can inform security improvements that create environments that shoppers want to keep coming back to.

Feeling safe at the mall

Generally speaking, how safe and secure a person feels is just as important as how safe and secure they actually are. The word ‘security’ means “the state of being free from danger or threat”, or “the state of feeling safe, stable, and free from fear or anxiety”. If one feels safe, they’ll get out and about in a comfortable manner; if one doesn’t feel safe, they’ll stay at home.

For mall and shopping venue operators, it’s therefore important to understand how safe shoppers feel while shopping in their premises, and where the key areas of shopper insecurity within their premises are. Failure to understand this means that some shoppers may ultimately feel more comfortable taking their shopping elsewhere.

So, while information from security incident reports, police area crime stats, surveillance system alerts, and security risk and threat assessments are all useful tools for understanding the state of security at a shopping mall, these don’t necessarily provide a picture of how safe shoppers perceive the mall to be.

According to an influential 2018 Swedish study, customer’s feelings of safety and security have a significant influence on their decisions around where they will shop and where they won’t.

The study found that the places that shoppers fear the most are not always the ones where most incidents happen.

In particular, it found that mall entrances are seen as the most unsafe areas (35%), while food courts, toilet areas and carparks accounted for 17%. Nearby or collocated transport hubs, such as bus terminals, were also considered as unsafe (11%) due to these areas being either poorly lit, littered, or where people under the influence of drugs or alcohol may be loitering.

This is broadly consistent with the findings of other research, including an earlier 1998 study that found that shoppers feel most safe inside a store, and least safe in the carpark. In that report, good security ranked third in shoppers’ mall choices behind ease of parking and choice of store tenants – with poor security topping the list of reasons not to shop at a particular mall.

Shoppers’ suggestions for better security

Respondents to the Swedish study suggested having more staff placed in mall bathrooms and concierge staff placed at entrances would improve their feelings of security.

An increased presence of security guards and police during the evenings, and more visible surveillance cameras in public spaces, were also put forward.

Removal of pop-up stores located in the middle of mall corridors, improved lighting, a reduction in physical barriers and hiding spots, wider corridors, mirrored walls in stores, supermarkets and restaurants, better maps to make it easier to orient oneself, and better engagement between mall operators and local community and youth organisations, were also suggested.

Interestingly, a 1995 US study published in the Journal of Shopping Center Research stated that when respondents were asked what single thing malls could do to increase their feelings of safety and security, over 64% suggested an increase in security personnel, followed by 10% calling for improved lighting in carparks.

A key thing the above tells us is that not much has changed in the past couple of decades when it comes to what measures might most improve shoppers’ perceptions of safety.

Listen to your customers

The big takeaway from this research is that it’s important to seek feedback from shoppers in relation to how safe they feel in your premises. There is a tendency to think of security as the sole domain of the police and security professionals, but at the end of the day no crime report will give you a truly adequate picture of how safe your shoppers perceive your premises to me.

In the competitive context of retail, knowing how safe shoppers feel in your premises and where in your premises they feel least safe, can provide you with the data you need to ensure you are maximising the attractiveness of each and every part of your shopping venue. It just makes good business sense.

FIRST Security is a specialist in the provision of retail and mall security services. If you would like to discuss how you can increase customers’ feelings of safety in your premises, feel free to contact us.