Sheng Siong is rolling out a new security system to fight against rising shoplifting incidents. The supermarket chain will be installing facial recognition CCTV cameras in all of its 83 stores. This new technology is meant to help staff identify and stop people who have been caught stealing before.
The system works by creating a database of people who have been confirmed as shoplifters. When store staff notice that something is missing, they review the CCTV footage to figure out who the suspect is. Once they identify the person, their face is put into the system. If that same person enters any Sheng Siong store again, the staff will get an alert on a corporate app. This lets them keep a close eye on the person and step in if they try to steal again. Sheng Siong’s CEO, Lim Hock Chee, said that because of this technology, the number of shoplifters they catch has doubled. He said that in the past, they would catch an average of four shoplifters per store each year, but now that number has gone up to eight. He also mentioned that this new system is much better than the old way, which involved printing out photos of suspects and having staff manually look for them.
This technology isn’t just for catching thieves. It also helps with another problem: failed payments. Sheng Siong found that they were losing about S$10,000 every month from customers who accidentally left the store before their card payment went through. By using the facial recognition system,they can identify these customers when they come back and ask them to pay for their previous purchase. This has helped them cut their monthly losses from failed transactions down to a much smaller amount, between S$1,200 and S$1,500.
The Singapore Police Force is working with Sheng Siong on this project as part of their Shop Theft Awareness for Retailers (STAR) Programme. This program helps retailers find ways to prevent shoplifting. The police have praised Sheng Siong for taking a step forward with this technology and encourage other big stores like NTUC FairPrice and Cold Storage to do the same. This new system is a big change from the traditional way of fighting crime, and it shows how technology is being used more and more to make the stores safer.
