The economic impact of a retail store on a community is significant: retail stores provide numerous jobs and employment opportunities. Public services like schools, emergency services and utility infrastructure are funded by local and state tax revenues generated by retailers. Successful retail shops can increase property values, boost economic activity and create more vibrant communities. They attract customers, promoting nearby businesses such as restaurants and service providers, creating a multiplier effect within the local economy.

However, in recent years as retail crime — a phrase previously synonymous with petty shoplifting or stealing — has surged and become more violent through organized crime gangs and increasingly common instances of workplace violence, those economic benefits diminish, and in some cases, completely vanish. Retailers are facing increased costs due to organized theft, which can lead to higher prices for customers, reduced profitability, and in severe cases, store closures. These closures result in job losses and bruise the local economy.

Even household names are not immune. Some of the nation’s largest retailers have shuttered stores in the last year, citing retail theft and deteriorating conditions. That’s why Axon has introduced a suite of integrated technology to help retailers deter incidents, de-escalate violent situations and keep associates and shoppers safe. In January, Axon launched Axon Body Workforce, a new body-worn camera designed to protect frontline workers by deterring and de-escalating incidents, lending support in real-time and promoting transparency and ease of sharing data with law enforcement to expedite the path from incident to adjudication. Axon acquired Fusus in February 2024 to significantly bolster its real-time operations solution, combining Fusus's real-time situational awareness expertise with Axon's innovative public safety technology for enhanced safety in any environment. And in April, Axon announced a partnership with retail crime intelligence pioneer Auror to bridge the gap between retail and law enforcement information sharing.

But today, retail crime isn’t limited to the square footage inside stores. According to FBI data for 2022, retail parking lots were the second most-common location for property crimes and the third most-common location for violent crimes.

Criminals often target parking lots because of high-value items, like personal property, store purchases stowed inside a vehicle or even the vehicle itself. Plus, these lots and garages provide ample opportunities. Big box retail parking spots, for example, can number in the hundreds. With outlying locations, common hiding spots, poor lighting and weak security and surveillance efforts, parking lots can provide easy hunting ground for criminals. As customers and staff come and go, thieves have low-risk, high-reward opportunities to commit crime without being detected.

Recent surveys show 54% of customers worry about being approached in a parking lot, 51% worry about being followed to their vehicle and 36% are concerned about damage to their vehicles while unattended. To ease fears, many retailers are implementing proactive efforts to deter would-be criminals with increased lighting, additional security staff, traffic control measures and parking security cameras.

LiveView Technologies (LVT) is a leading provider of mobile security units and security solutions. Their versatile, efficient, solar-powered mobile security unit can monitor and detect individuals, vehicles and general parking lot activities in real-time. A recent independent study performed by the Loss Prevention Research Council showed that LVT mobile units placed in a major retail shopping area in a high crime location contributed to as much as a 40% decrease in shoplifting and a 20% decrease in overall property crime.

Inside the stores, security personnel are working to curb loss-prevention and increase customer and staff safety. The National Retail Federation’s (NRF) National Retail Security Survey found that shrink — the loss of inventory due to shoplifting, employee theft, fraud and other means — accounted for $112 billion in annual losses for US retailers in 2023. Organized retail crime contributes to these losses as well as increased safety risks for both customers and employees. In fact, 81% of retailers report organized retail criminals have become more violent.

Axon and LVT have formed a product partnership to power real-time situational awareness and improve public safety. The American-headquartered companies — Axon in Arizona, LVT in Utah — hope to help retailers combat one of the fastest-growing types of crime plaguing American communities.

The Fusus by Axon platform is one of the most widely used and trusted real-time crime center platforms in public safety. Its open ecosystem integrates and enhances business, public safety and investigation assets. It can integrate with any data source, pull in public and community video feeds, enable video sources with artificial intelligence, integrate automated license plate reader cameras, drone and aircraft feeds — all through utilizing and unifying existing devices and sensors.

With this collaboration, the Fusus by Axon real-time monitoring and support platform — as well as Axon Respond — can directly integrate insights from LVT mobile security units to provide greater security intelligence and coverage in one place. These assets can also now be securely stored and accessible to law enforcement with the digital evidence management solution, Axon Evidence.

“Providers across the security ecosystem are building siloed technologies, which hinders countless teams’ ability to gain adequate situational awareness and best protect their communities,” says Steve Lindsey, LVT CTO and CIO. “Integrating Axon's suite of real-time capabilities with LVT allows enterprises and law enforcement to collaborate and rapidly respond in real-time to serious incidents with complete situational awareness. In a situation where every second matters, public/private integrations like these will have an impact on making communities safer.”

Mike Lamb is a retail industry security expert with more than four decades of experience in asset protection, loss prevention and retail safety. The recipient of the 2024 NRF Ring of Excellence Award, Lamb has led security efforts for some of the biggest names in retail, including Kroger, Walmart and Home Depot. Lamb believes this combined effort will reap benefits for retailers. “I know first-hand how every second matters for solving real-world problems,” he says. “I find it exciting and personally fulfilling to see Axon and LVT — which I consider to be two leaders in the security ecosystem — come together to help communities stop crime at its source.”

Combined, Axon’s suite of real-time operations technology and LVT mobile security units are designed to augment security coverage, identify potential incidents more quickly, enact deterrence strategies and aid law enforcement with evidence collection needs in retail crimes. With the Fusus by Axon real-time crime center platform, LVT Units can integrate into a retailer’s existing security operations center to achieve one unified platform to view all security cameras, both inside and outside store locations. This comprehensive real-time view is empowering law enforcement agencies to more acutely respond to critical incidents.

The partnership with LVT demonstrates the importance of teamwork and forging connected solutions to deliver key assets and intelligence into a centralized location to enable retailers, security teams and law enforcement to act quickly with critical information. As retail crime continues to evolve, this collaboration and innovation can be essential to creating safer cities by addressing emerging threats and protecting retailers and communities.