Black Friday is 23 days away. If you manage a retail location in Memphis and you haven’t locked down your holiday security plan, you’re already behind.
I don’t say that to be dramatic. I say it because every security company in the Memphis market is fielding calls right now from retailers who should have called in September. The good guards are spoken for. The experienced firms have their schedules built. What’s left is what nobody else wanted.
The holiday retail season between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day accounts for roughly 20 percent of annual retail sales nationally. In Memphis, that concentration is even higher for some merchants. A clothing store at Wolfchase Galleria might do $200,000 in November and December combined after averaging $60,000 per month the rest of the year. That spike in revenue comes with a proportional spike in theft, crowd incidents, and parking lot crimes.
Here’s what you should be doing right now. Not next week. Now.
Step One: Audit Your Current Security
Before spending a dollar on additional coverage, figure out where your existing setup falls short. Walk your property with fresh eyes.
Start with the parking lot. Are the lights working? All of them? A single burned-out light in a far corner of the lot creates a shadow that car thieves and muggers love. Check every fixture. Replace bulbs now, before they become someone else’s opportunity.
Look at your entrances and exits. Can you see all of them from your security post or camera system? Holiday crowds create blind spots that don’t exist during normal traffic. That back entrance near the loading dock that nobody uses in August becomes a shoplifter’s exit route when the front is packed with customers.
Check your camera system. Are all cameras recording? Is the footage being stored for at least 30 days? Can you actually identify faces on the playback, or are you recording blurry shapes that won’t help MPD investigate anything? I’ve reviewed camera systems at Memphis retailers that cost $15,000 to install and produce footage that’s functionally useless. Resolution matters. Angle matters. Lighting matters.
Document every gap you find. That list becomes your holiday security plan.
Step Two: Staff Up, But Staff Smart
The instinct is to throw more guards at the problem. More isn’t always better. The right guards in the right positions matter more than raw headcount.
For a medium-sized retail location (say, 8,000 to 15,000 square feet), here’s what a solid holiday security posture looks like:
Entrance/exit coverage. One uniformed guard at each active entrance during peak hours. Their job is visible deterrence and bag checks if your store policy allows it. They greet customers, which doubles as a deterrent because shoplifters don’t want to be noticed and remembered.
Floor coverage. One plainclothes loss prevention officer per 5,000 square feet of selling floor during peak hours. They move through the store watching for concealment behavior, tag removal, and coordinated theft teams. They should be in radio contact with the entrance guards.
Parking lot patrol. One mobile patrol covering the lot during business hours. This can be a shared resource if your shopping center coordinates a patrol for the entire property. The presence of a marked patrol vehicle reduces car break-ins and lot crimes measurably.
After-hours presence. If your store closes at 9 PM during the holidays, don’t pull security the moment the doors lock. The two hours after closing, when the lot is emptying and employees are walking to their cars with cash deposits, are high-risk. Keep at least one guard on-site until the last employee leaves.
Step Three: Coordinate With MPD
Memphis Police Department runs additional patrols in commercial areas during the holiday season. Director Rallings has committed to increased visibility at major shopping centers this year. Take advantage of that.
Call the precinct that covers your location. Introduce yourself. Give them your direct contact number. Let them know your peak hours and when you expect the heaviest traffic. Ask about their patrol schedule for your area.
This isn’t just goodwill. When MPD knows your location and your security contact, response times to incidents at your property improve. If a guard calls in a shoplifter and can say “we’ve been in contact with Sergeant Williams at the precinct,” that call gets taken more seriously.
Some shopping centers in Memphis have formalized this relationship. Wolfchase Galleria maintains regular communication with the Appling Farms precinct. That coordination shows in their response times and incident resolution rates.
If your center isn’t doing this, propose it to your property management company. The security companies can help build these relationships too. Phelps Security and Imperial Security both maintain working relationships with MPD precincts across the city.
Step Four: Train Your Staff
Your employees are your first line of defense against shoplifting. Most retail theft is detected, or missed, by store associates long before a security guard gets involved.
Train every employee on these basics before Thanksgiving:
Greeting. Make eye contact and greet every customer who enters. Acknowledge their presence. This single action deters more shoplifting than any camera system.
Awareness. Teach associates to watch for common shoplifting indicators. Customers carrying large bags or wearing oversized coats in warm weather. Groups that split up immediately upon entering. People who avoid eye contact with staff and head straight for high-value merchandise.
Communication. Give associates a simple code phrase to alert management when they suspect theft in progress. “Can I get a price check on aisle three” works fine. The point is discreet communication that doesn’t create a confrontation on the sales floor.
What NOT to do. No associate should ever physically confront a suspected shoplifter. No chasing. No grabbing. No blocking exits. That’s the security team’s job, and even they have limits. A $50 shirt isn’t worth a lawsuit or a physical altercation that puts employees and customers at risk.
Step Five: Plan for Black Friday Specifically
Black Friday in Memphis is controlled chaos on a good year. On a bad year, it’s just chaos.
If your store opens early (5 AM, 6 AM, midnight), you need security on-site at least two hours before doors open. Crowds start forming early. The line management before opening sets the tone for the entire day. If people feel the process is fair and orderly, they’re calmer inside. If the opening feels like a free-for-all, the aggression carries through.
Establish a clear queue line with physical barriers. Rope stanchions work. Cones and caution tape do not. Have a guard at the front of the line and one at the back. Communicate wait times. Let people know what’s happening.
Inside, limit the number of customers on the sales floor at any given time. I know this feels counterintuitive when you’re trying to maximize sales. The reality is that overcrowded stores lead to more theft, more confrontations, and more safety incidents. Fire code occupancy limits exist for a reason. Know yours and enforce it.
Have a plan for fights. They happen every Black Friday somewhere in Memphis. Your security team needs clear instructions: separate the parties, clear the area, call MPD if anyone is injured or weapons are involved. Don’t let the situation escalate while waiting for someone to decide what to do.
Step Six: Don’t Forget Returns Fraud
The holiday season doesn’t just create theft on the front end. Returns fraud spikes in January as shoplifters bring back merchandise they stole, seeking cash refunds or store credit they can resell.
Tighten your return policy before the season starts. Require receipts for cash refunds. Offer store credit only for returns without receipts. Limit the dollar value of no-receipt returns. Track return patterns by customer and flag individuals who make excessive returns across multiple visits.
Some Memphis retailers have implemented ID-scan systems for returns. The technology tracks return frequency by individual and automatically declines returns from people who’ve exceeded reasonable limits. It’s not cheap to implement, but for stores losing significant money to returns fraud, the investment pays back within one season.
The Cost of Getting This Wrong
A retailer on Germantown Parkway told me about last year’s Black Friday. They’d hired one guard through a discount security company. The guard showed up late, spent most of the day on his phone, and left early. During the shift, the store lost an estimated $3,800 in stolen merchandise, more than four times what they paid for the guard.
They’re using a different company this year. They’re spending more. They expect to lose less.
That trade-off is the core calculation every Memphis retailer faces heading into the holidays. Spend wisely on security and reduce your losses. Spend poorly or don’t spend at all and absorb the consequences.
Twenty-three days. The clock is running.