AI Solutions for Loss Prevention and Security in Convenience Stores

Artificial intelligence is transforming how convenience store operators protect their business, reduce loss, and improve efficiency. In this POV interview, Fatih Klein, Director of Enterprise Accounts for Envysion, a Motorola Solutions company, shares insights with Linda Lisanti, Editor-in-Chief of Convenience Store News, on AI-driven strategies that help retailers identify suspicious transactions, enhance security, and optimize store operations without adding staff or major costs.

Linda Lisanti (Editor-in-Chief – Convenience Store News): Welcome to Convenience Store News’s POV series, where we share perspectives on the current issues and trends that are shaping the convenience store industry. Today, we’re joined by Faith Klein, Director of Enterprise Accounts for Envysion, a Motorola Solutions company, to discuss how convenience retailers can leverage artificial intelligence to transform their loss prevention and security strategy. Enysion is a managed video loss prevention and security solutions provider that helps C-Store operators mitigate risk, prevent loss, and keep their locations safe and secure. Ultimately, increasing their bottom line. Faith, thanks so much for being here. 

Faith Klein (Director of Enterprise Accounts – Envysion): Thanks so much for having me. I’m excited to be here. 

Why AI is a Game-Changer for Loss Prevention

Lisanti: So, artificial intelligence (AI) is getting a lot of attention these days, and we’ve been hearing that one of the areas where AI can be most impactful is in loss prevention and security. So, can you talk a little bit about that and why AI is such a game-changer? 

Reducing Internal Theft

Klein: Sure. I think we all know that we’re being asked to do more with less, right? That’s a theme across the industry. And so as you utilize AI, you really can tap into tools that can help you work smarter and not harder. So, for instance, let’s think about it from a risk standpoint. When an operator is going in to try to find risk, you know, about 30% of that is usually internal theft. And so when they’re looking at their loss and their exception reports, it can be really overwhelming once you get past just a handful of stores, even one store operator, like there’s a lot of transactions that are happening throughout the day. 

Exception Reports and Transaction Monitoring

So how do you find those like needles in a haystack? And that’s really where AI can come in. So instead of having to review, for instance, all of your refunds or all of your lottery sales from the previous day, now we can tie in some um AI that can identify whether or not there was a human on the customer’s side of the counter. So what that does is rather than having to do all of it, you can say, I only want to look at refunds or I only want to look at lottery sales where there was a customer present.
 
When you add that to just a basic exception report, it really reduces the number of transactions that you need to investigate. What the magic is there is that we’re not just looking at a static report, right? Like when I owned my store, I just had a stack of papers. I’m like, what am I going to do with this? But what we’ve done is we tie video to that, and it really makes those transactions come alive. So when you’re looking at refunds, you can see what happened at the register. When you’re looking at lottery sales, you can see what happened at the register with the video side by side. Then you add on that layer of AI that says, “Hey, there was a customer present. There wasn’t a customer present.” Now you have your most suspicious transactions. So it reduces your time of investigation, but it also increases your output of finding something really suspicious. So that, you know, can really help an operator find out exactly what’s happening in their store and be more efficient with their time, which again identifies more loss, prevents the store from their profits walking out the door. 

Lisanti: So it’s kind of a like trickle-down effect?

Klein: Absolutely. 

Lisanti: And it sounds really dynamic and like a a big a big game changer. 

Klein: Yes, absolutely. 

AI Use Cases in Convenience Stores

Lisanti: So I’m curious, what are some of the best AI use cases that you’re personally seeing in the convenience store industry today?

After-Hours Security Monitoring

Klein: Yeah, there are so many, but I want to highlight a few. So, we’ve talked about the loss prevention side of it, but as we think about security, you know, a lot of stores are open all night. But there are a handful of more rural stores where they do close at night. So, seeing AI and using AI after hours can be really important.

We can look at human movement in the store after hours. So, instead of using your traditional alarm system, getting a video verified alarm threat is much more powerful because you know that it wasn’t just a sensor that broke, it was actually someone who was in your store.
 
Now, if you are open 24 hours, this same technology can be used for restricted areas. So, perhaps no one should be in the office or open the safe during certain hours. So you can use the same human detection AI to identify when people are in restricted areas when they shouldn’t be. 

Facial Recognition and License Plate Readers

Additionally, you can do things like facial recognition. So, you can say, “Okay, this verified vendor made a delivery.” You can use license plate readers to build a hot list. This license plate went to this store, and they had a burglary or they had a theft of product. Now, they went to this parking lot, and we identified that same license plate here. 

So building these, like hot lists, can help retailers with multiple stores build these lists and know when people are in different properties. And then just looking at things like, are these really my employees who are coming in? When are they coming in? Or if you’re open 24 hours, did they leave early? Right? So knowing when people are coming in and out of your store. 

So, lots and lots of different ways that people can utilize AI to really enhance their operations to know what’s going on in their stores without having to sit in front of a camera and watch video footage for hours and hours, which no one has the time to do. 

AI for Small Convenience Store Operators

Lisanti: For sure. And wow, so many insights. It sounds like the possibilities are endless. Finally, as you know, the majority of US convenience stores are run by small operators, and they don’t have the big tech budgets that the larger chains do. So can smaller players benefit from AI without having to make a sizable investment? 

Managing Multiple Roles and Responsibilities

Klein: Absolutely. I relate to these folks the most. I was a one-store retail operator, and so I know what it’s like. Not only are their budgets different, but they’re also wearing so many different hats. They’re HR, they’re ops, they’re loss prevention, they’re running the cash register when someone calls in sick, right? 

So, if they think about AI from a different perspective, of how you can almost replicate yourself, right? So, how can you get more time back in your day, then sometimes it helps you find the budget for that? Instead of having to hire another person, you might be able to use an AI tool that can help you manage your day better and take on the responsibilities that somebody else would have to do. 

Flexible Payment and Leasing Options

When you’re thinking about who you should partner with, there are a couple of things that you really want to look at. Do they have a flexible payment model? Which means, like maybe you have more cash investment upfront that you can spend, but you want a reduced monthly rate. So you would rather pay for your hardware up front, and then the monthly recurring cost would be smaller. 

Or on the flip side, maybe you want no investment upfront. So in that case, you could lease your hardware and then be and roll that into your monthly, and that way you might be able to, you know, cash flow a little bit better across the board. 

Tailored and Scalable Solutions

So you really want to find a partner who has those flexible options. Another thing is making sure you have a partner that can tailor your solution so you don’t have to buy everything, right? That you can really pick and choose the pieces that are going to make the most sense for your business, and somebody that you can grow with. So you can start small and then start to add on these different layers as you get more efficient with the tool. 

Lisanti: That’s fantastic advice. Thank you, Faith, for all of those wonderful insights, and thanks again for joining Convenience Store News and offering your POV on this important topic. It was great to have you. 

Klein: Yeah, thanks again for having me.