Panasonic's comprehensive security to protect the Home Park Inter Chalet retail center

This center specialized in home and garden has installed Panasonic recorders and network cameras to monitor the entire establishment, reduce theft and have business information from your customers.

On the occasion of his forty years of experience in the retail sector, Home Park Inter Chalet, a large shopping mall of household items and well-known garden in Holland, with eight own establishments and seven partner stores. The 30.000 m2 of the main center and the large quantity and variety of products they sell have become a real challenge when it comes to protecting against theft.

That's what Hans Janssen explains, CFO of Home Park Inter Chalet: "we are a retail company and we had a major problem with theft, both by our customers and our employees. For years we investigated security possibilities that could help us reduce this problem".

In this process, those responsible for the establishment contacted the technology specialist in the retail sector Checkpoint Meto Systems, "whose team provided us with the security cameras. After meeting a few times, we became convinced of the quality of the products of Panasonic, and we have regretted our decision", Janssen says.

Home Park Inter Chalet uses Panasonic's full range of video surveillance systems, with the installation of 360o network cameras, to get a better view of the store and avoid blind spots, as well as outdoors in the car park.

A camera system combined with a screen has been installed at the entrance of the property to monitor people entering the store, as well as several systems distributed inside the enclosure that help prevent theft. All surveillance devices have 4K or Full HD resolution, ensuring excellent image quality.

"With these CCTV systems we have reduced our theft percentages by 50%", Janssen points out. In addition, cameras have been integrated into the terminals of the points of sale, linking the information of the latter with the images that capture the video surveillance devices, "which helps us avoid in-store cheating and check video footage related to the purchase receipt, if there is a suspicion that any transaction may be fraudulent".

According to data provided by Home Park Inter Chalet, since the manufacturer's video surveillance cameras were installed, the percentages of thefts in the store have been significantly reduced, "going from about 7% just the 3%. This has been possible not only because we've caught the thieves, but also because we've let people know that we've installed an advanced security system", explains Hans Janssen.

In addition to the main goal of reducing shop-wide theft, installed cameras, in particular those with point-of-sale integration, are used daily to help speed up the troubleshooting process.

" All boxes have their own camera located above, allowing us to solve problems faster. formerly, sometimes there were discussions because the customer claimed that he had paid with a ticket of 50 euros and the employee said it was one of 10, which meant customers had to wait at the end of the day to solve the problem and now it's resolved instantly".

Thanks to 4K and Full-HD cameras, the property's security team can connect to a facial recognition server, that detects the customer's profile, such as age or sex. This information is used to identify people on a blacklist, although counting people doesn't just have a security goal, but also commercial, data is collected about the number of visitors in specific areas of the store, and thus know what is most demanded by customers to offer them a better service.

As Janssen points out, "this is something that really excited us a lot. Facial counting and recognition are very reliable, so we can use this information to let partner stores know how many customers visit them. As CFO I am very interested in data analysis, such as people counting and line crossing detection. Thanks to the cameras I can combine the figures with our sales and benefits to better manage the store".

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