Nedap Retail specialises in security for shops, including chemist’s, perfumeries, clothes shops and supermarkets. The main focus in this respect is the shop experience of the customer. The security must not create any hindrances and must fit the shop interior.

On the basis of this idea, Retail developed an elegant Plexiglas design gate for H&M, featuring the very latest patented detection technology. The familiar round antitheft buttons on clothes were also given a makeover. There are now happy-looking flowers for children's clothes, for example, and hearts for lingerie.

Retail is continually adding more value

Retail started in 1974 when Nedap was asked by C&A to think about improved antitheft security. The system this resulted in was so effective that C&A started using it in France, Germany and England.

Retail increasingly became a pioneer of antitheft systems. In order to maintain this advantage, customer counters and metal detectors were incorporated into the gates over the years. Nedap Retail has patents on this technique, which means that no additional gates or other obstacles in the shop are necessary.

The purpose of metal detection is to identify people who are coming into the shop with a prepared bag. The alarm does not go off immediately in such cases, but staff are alerted, so that they can watch the person in question. A customer counter indicates when it is busy, so that staffing levels can be adjusted accordingly. Linked to the sales figures, this provides useful information about when visitors also actually become customers.

Retail is always working on new developments. At the start of this year, Store !D and Cube were introduced. Cube is a new platform in which various shop processes are integrated, such as access control, lighting and security. One of the major advantages of Cube is energy reduction.

Take a clothes shop, for example. During the first hour, there are usually no customers, so you set the lighting at 20%. The staff can do this as well, but they are often busy with other things. So they set the lighting straight to 100%, for the sake of convenience. That doesn't seem important, but in a chain of 400 shops, that can mean a lot of money.

Nedap Retail has subsidiaries in the Netherlands, France, Germany, England, Spain, China and Hong Kong, a franchise partner in Italy and more than 50 business partners around the world, selling and installing the technology.

Visit the international Nedap Retail website or click here for the website of Nedap Retail benelux.