As a retail jeweler, you know success requires more than offering exquisite merchandise. There’s also a strong emotional element to serving customers and closing sales.
You need to provide physical and human environments that encourage a luxury purchase within a short window of time. Your store’s interior, including display cases, have to set the right tone, with beauty and functionality. Equally important, your staff has to be able to create a continuous chain of sale – engaging the customer with ongoing eye contact and superior service, without interruptions that might hinder the sale.
Yet, while making it easy for employees to let customers touch and feel merchandise, you need to secure the jewelry in your display cases and cabinets.
The Challenge
Meeting all these needs can be challenging, but it’s possible – and essential. Jewelers today require newer technologies to combat increasing and sophisticated criminal activity. Crimes against U.S. jewelers reported to the Jewelers’ Security Alliance rose by 5.8% and associated dollar losses increased 4.5% from 2015 to 2016. According to the FBI’s Jewelry & Gem Theft program, jewelry stores lose more than $100 million a year in merchandise, and weapons used in burglaries may cause serious injury or death.
Unfortunately, traditional, mechanical locks and keys don’t suffice. Unsightly locks and keyholes in cabinetry detract from an elegant appearance, sales associates fumbling for keys delay transactions and may unnerve customers, and installing locks and managing key access can be costly and slow operations.
What’s more, jewelers cite a common problem of employees forgetting to lock cabinets and display cases. Newer, integrated electronic locking systems address this dilemma by offering auto relocking.
An understanding of jewelers' needs for better cabinet-level access control prompted my company, Accuride® International, a trusted manufacturer of drawer slides, to develop Senseon® Secure Access.
The Solution
Senseon, whose name reflects intelligent sensing ability, is a keyless, hidden, versatile electronic locking system. It’s easy to install with virtually any kind of fixtures; simple to use; and extremely effective at preventing theft.
Building on the vision of our CEO, a team of mechanical and electrical engineers drew on Accuride’s 50-plus years of providing high-quality, commercial-grade movement solutions to design a unified system that fills a critical gap for retail jewelers.
Senseon helps jewelers offer the ultimate luxury shopping experience, complete with a perfect ambience and sales process, while also safeguarding merchandise. It enables owners and managers to enhance aesthetics (with no visible locks or keyholes), improve the customer experience (with unlocking of cases and cabinets), and strengthen security (with tougher locks and an auto-relock feature).
End results include peace of mind, more meaningful customer engagement, better loss prevention, and higher revenue and profitability. In addition, you and your designers and architects gain greater freedom and flexibility.
The Benefits
Senseon provides several innovations:
Simple, elegant, seamless function. A sales associate merely taps an RFID card, wristband, fob or tag in front of a reader to unlock a case or other fixture. Auto-open and touch-release features save time and let employees focus on serving customers, and automatic relocking also enhances protection.
Easy installation and use. Senseon can be installed inside a case or cabinet in minutes, without a third-party integrator – or electrical or wiring expertise. Our technical support team is happy to help. Senseon is so versatile it integrates with new or existing fixtures of nearly any design, shape, size or construction. Your staff can program the system in two or three steps, and can add, change or delete access privileges in seconds even if a card has been lost or stolen.
Reliability and efficiency. Senseon is built on patented, proven technology, combining Accuride’s know-how in mechanical engineering and electronic locking. The system hides locks inside fixtures, deterring most criminals; provides four times the breakforce protection of a traditional lock; is highly validated, meeting industry standards; is warrantied; is highly synchronized, controlling as many as 15 cabinet drawers or doors; and keeps cabinetry locked during a power outage.
Client Example
Designed with jewelers in mind, Senseon is proving itself up to the task.
For example, a high-end jeweler in a major U.S. city adopted Senseon in sliding-door display cases at its flagship store after a burglar distracted a sales associate and then used a magnet to activate a mechanical lock and steal a $20,000 diamond piece in 2016. Quick, easy Senseon installation enabled the jeweler to continue operating without interruption. Theft-free since then, the business has ordered Senseon for its two other locations.
For more details and client example please visit: accuride.com
By Sid Kalantar
Sid Kalantar is Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Accuride® International, the leading global manufacturer of undermount and side-mount ball-bearing drawer slides. His responsibilities include sales and marketing for Senseon® Secure Access, the smart successor to the traditional lock and key for cabinetry and casework, ideally suited for retail jewelry stores. This keyless, hidden, electronic secure access locking system uses patented radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology to provide greater security and efficiency while enhancing the customer experience for increased sales.
