3 Ways To Better Secure Your Consignment/Resale Store

There are some really handy, neat things you can do with a few inexpensive gadgets — all in the name of better-securing your consignment/resale store!

tl;dr — Blink XT2 Wireless Cameras, a Ring Security System, and an Amazon Echo Dot (Alexa)

Blink XT2 Cameras

I see so many stores camp on this, trying to figure out which camera system to get, but never getting one.  And I’ve seen it happen dozens of times — i.e. they can’t decide on which camera system to get, then something happens and they have no cameras to look back at what happened.

If you’re a new store currently in the build-out process, or if you’re an established store and already have some form of camera system in-place, I still think you should add at least one Blink XT wireless camera to your store.  Since they’re waterproof and can be mounted outdoors, just having a camera that can alert you if “someone is at the backdoor” or “someone is staring in our front window”, is a resource you don’t know you’ve needed, until you see it in action.  Shoot, even just having one in your office, so you know if someone ever goes into your office when you’re not in the store.  😉

The outdoor capability, is an awesome one as well, since you could even mount it in a tree/on a post *facing* your store from the outside.  🙂

For the cost — about $80 — and for the ease of connecting one (they’re wireless and battery powered), it’s such an inexpensive way to have even a backup camera system.

Ring Security System

Hands-down, this is the lowest-cost, most feature-rich security system *with* professional monitoring (optional).

There are myriad security systems available, almost to the point of making it difficult to choose which one to go with.  Especially when it comes to having professional monitoring — i.e. they’ll call you, the police, the fire department, etc. — many require a yearly or multi-year contract.

A Ring Security System starts at about $200 and the optional professional monitoring is $10 per month.  Again, for ease of access @ getting a security system in-place vs. camping on it and going for days/weeks/months without one, a Ring Security System is just way too easy to put in-place vs. having nothing at all.

Amazon Echo Dot (a.k.a. Alexa)

An Echo Dot (or what most stores just call an “Alexa”), has got to be one of the handiest gadgets to come to stores in recent years.  It’s also one of my favorite pieces of tech a consignment/resale store can add.

If you think about what you can do with one, there are so many helpful things an Echo Dot can bring to your store — from in-store music, to reminders, to automatically turning lights on/off.  As it pertains to security, one handy thing you can do with an Echo, is have it play a message when a door has been opened — e.g. “The back entry has been opened!”  Smart sensors for doors and windows — which are compatible with Alexa AND which don’t require a separate ‘smart hub’ — are extremely inexpensive.

To sum it all up, if you don’t have security cameras or if you don’t have a security system, it’s way too easy and inexpensive to bring in a few simple gadgets that’ll greatly enhance your security setup!