Shownotes
In this interview recorded live from the VusionGroup Podcast Studio, we speak with Joe Coll, VP of Asset Protection at Macy's, live from NRF 2025. Joe shares his insights on retail theft, Macy's safety-first strategies, and the evolution of asset protection technologies like RFID. Discover how Macy's balances theft mitigation with customer experience and what lies ahead for the industry in 2025.
Key Moments:
- 0:12 - Introduction to Joe Coll and his role at Macy's.
- 1:14 - Joe's 27-year journey at Macy's and his current responsibilities.
- 2:40 - Strategies Macy's employs to combat retail theft and ensure safety.
- 6:02 - Exploring loyalty-based theft prevention solutions and their potential.
- 7:28 - The role of RFID technology in theft prevention and law enforcement collaboration.
- 9:18 - Industry perspectives on friction and customer experience in retail security.
- 10:22 - Priorities for Macy's asset protection in 2025.
#nrf2025 #retailtech #retailstrategy
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy
Transcripts
Hello, everyone.
Chris Walton:This is Omnitalk Retail.
Chris Walton:I'm Chris Walton.
Anne Mazinga:And I'm Anne Mazinga.
Chris Walton: Group podcast studio in booth: Chris Walton:And joining us now, Ann is a man that I've been anxious to meet for some time.
Chris Walton:I know you have as well.
Anne Mazinga:Yes.
Chris Walton:And that is Joe Call.
Chris Walton:And I want to get Joe's title right.
Chris Walton:Joe is the vice president of asset protection operations and strategy at Macy's.
Chris Walton:Joe, thank you so much for joining us and making time for us today.
Joe Call:I'm glad to be here with both of you.
Anne Mazinga:Well, yeah, I want to hear a little bit about first of all your background and then your current role at Macy's.
Anne Mazinga:Tell us a little bit about what, what the day, what a day in the life of Joe looks like.
Joe Call:Yeah, for sure.
Joe Call:So my background would take probably about 30 minutes to go through my entire history at Macy's.
Joe Call:I've been with Macy's now for about 27 years.
Chris Walton:Have you really?
Anne Mazinga:Did you do like the training program and stuff?
Joe Call:No, I actually started out selling dress shirts and ties.
Anne Mazinga:Oh, man.
Joe Call:As a part time sales associate.
Anne Mazinga:I wonder.
Anne Mazinga:You look so sharp.
Joe Call:You've got, you've not wearing a tie right now.
Joe Call:But I started doing that when I was about 18 years old and it was my first introduction into retail asset.
Joe Call:But I really didn't even know it existed until I got that job.
Joe Call:Figured I was going to become a police officer.
Joe Call:Figured I'd get into asset production to just understand a little bit of it before I became a cop.
Joe Call:And then one thing led to another.
Joe Call:27 years later, I am still here.
Joe Call:And I have the distinct pleasure right now of leading asset protection for all of Macy's department stores.
Joe Call:Under my responsibility is all of our stores nationwide.
Joe Call:I also have responsibility for our supply chain asset production teams.
Joe Call:So all of those teams that handle the distribution centers, fulfillment centers.
Joe Call:And then the third area is our fraud strategy, our group that handles all of our Macy's private label cardholders, protecting all those customers.
Anne Mazinga:And cybersecurity.
Joe Call:Cybersecurity do a bit.
Joe Call:We've got ciso, chief Information Security Officer that handles that.
Joe Call:But a lot of what we do blends over into the world.
Chris Walton:There's a lot of cross coordination going on for sure.
Chris Walton:Yeah.
Chris Walton:Right.
Chris Walton:So what brings you to nrf?
Chris Walton:I mean, I know you live in, you live in New York, right?
Joe Call:I live in New York.
Chris Walton:Not too far.
Joe Call:My office is just down 34th Street.
Joe Call:So even walking distance to NRF.
Joe Call:So I would imagine most of the people that are here today can't say they can walk from their office to the convention center.
Joe Call:But I have that privilege having an office in Herald Square.
Joe Call:I come every year to the nrf.
Joe Call:What I love about the big show is over the past four or five years you've started to really see a transition at nrf.
Joe Call:You walk into almost every single booth and there's going to be components of video, there's going to be asset protection discussions in every one of those boots.
Joe Call:Five years ago it was hard to find it and it really is.
Joe Call:Seeing that transformation is exciting.
Anne Mazinga:The exit gates or something was probably like it.
Anne Mazinga:The checkpoint security things and that was probably it early on.
Chris Walton:That's true.
Chris Walton:You're the talk of the industry now.
Chris Walton:Your area is really the talk of the industry right now for without a doubt.
Anne Mazinga:Yeah, I mean, talk a little bit more about that.
Anne Mazinga:Like shrink theft.
Anne Mazinga:It's a huge, huge topic on the minds of retailers right now.
Anne Mazinga:How are you at Macy's kind of approaching a strategy to eliminate that or minimize it as much as possible.
Joe Call:It's definitely complicated.
Joe Call:I'll tell you though, I've been doing this 27 years.
Joe Call:Theft was there when I started.
Joe Call:Theft will be there when I leave for sure.
Joe Call:I think over the past few years though, what really has been added to it is the amount of violence that's around theft.
Joe Call:Oh really?
Joe Call:That has really changed it for everybody.
Joe Call:And that focus for us on customers and colleague safety has become so paramount.
Joe Call:We've always said it, but we now live it every single day.
Joe Call:With every decision that we make, every strategy we put in place to help combat the retail theft that we've got, we've got to have an eye on.
Joe Call:If the strategy we're doing is creating more risk for our customers and our colleagues, then it's not the right strategy.
Chris Walton:And what have you done differently at Macy's given that over the last few years?
Chris Walton:And what have you found successful?
Joe Call:Yeah, for sure.
Joe Call:We've.
Joe Call:We've been spending a lot of time training our colleagues, our people, leaders in our stores on things like de escalation or even no escalation.
Joe Call:You got to get to the point of just no escalation for those customers as well as an unfortunate necessary training for us is active threat training, being able to shelter in place inside of stores.
Joe Call:Past few years we've been training everybody on that because it's a reality.
Joe Call:You can't go a week around this country and not hearing about gunshots in a mall.
Joe Call:Or broken glass in a mall that everybody says that's gunshots and everybody's running for the exit.
Joe Call:So being able to train your teams in a moment of crisis to be prepared to shelter those customers and their colleagues inside the store is paramount.
Chris Walton:It's important that they understand what they need to do if the situation arises 100%.
Chris Walton:I want to step away from Macy's for a second.
Chris Walton:I want you to put your industry hat on.
Chris Walton:And this is actually the question.
Chris Walton:Of all the questions that we created for nrf, for all our slate of interviews, this is the one I'm most excited to ask.
Chris Walton:I want you to put the industry hat on.
Chris Walton:There's been a lot of different tactics and ways different retailers have approached, you know, combating shrink or combating theft.
Chris Walton:Like some retailers are even putting products behind glass.
Joe Call:Yeah.
Chris Walton:What is your opinion of what strategies are going to work?
Chris Walton:Which ones aren't?
Chris Walton:As you look at what the industry has been doing over these last few years, give.
Chris Walton:It gives us your take.
Joe Call:Yeah.
Joe Call:So I will.
Joe Call:I will definitely not speak from the vantage point of Macy's, although we do have things under glass.
Chris Walton:Yeah.
Joe Call:We've got fine jewelry, we've got fragrances, we've got things like handbags that are tethered to fixtures.
Joe Call:It's really an interesting question because just on Saturday we had about 50 legislators from around the country inside of our Macy's Herald Square store talking about retail crime and what we're doing on it.
Joe Call:And one of the questions they asked was, hey, I went to go buy a jacket earlier downstairs and it had a cable on it and it was tethered to the fixture.
Joe Call:Why are you doing that?
Joe Call:And it was a moment for us to kind of step back with them and educate them on.
Joe Call:We don't just get a new product into a store and say, we think this is going to get stolen, so let's tether it down so that the customer can't buy it.
Joe Call:We're making that decision based on data, based on risk, based on previous loss events.
Joe Call:So what I shared with them was we're only doing that as a last resort.
Joe Call:And when you see some of these other retailers that are putting things like, you know, common necessary needs that you have detergent.
Chris Walton:Yeah.
Joe Call:You know, when that's behind glass, it's because if it wasn't behind the glass, it wouldn't have been there.
Joe Call:It's actually been stealing.
Joe Call:They're stealing it all off of the shelves, every single item.
Joe Call:So what I've seen.
Joe Call:And I'll tie it kind of Back into NRF is we just were at a vendor, and I won't plug the name on this podcast, but we were just with a vendor about an hour ago talking about how you can engage the customer with a loyalty perspective.
Joe Call:So I think about, you know, if you've got CVS and you're a CVS loyalist, do you have the ability to then be able to get that locked up item?
Joe Call:Because you've proven that you are a good customer to them and you don't need to rely on the colleague for it.
Joe Call:So I think that's going to be where the future is.
Joe Call:I also do believe, though, because of the rise of retail crime, if we can drive greater accountability for the retail crime that's happening, we, with our district attorneys, our attorney generals, our legislators that are putting these laws into place, we'll start to see a blunting of this rise of retail crime and people will relax some of those standards.
Chris Walton:So you think we will see, you think we will see more solutions like that across the industry where, you know, engaging with loyalty or apps or smartphone devices to give the consumer more power to unlock the experience that's in front of them if needed?
Joe Call:Yeah, you're seeing it today in a lot of pharmacy.
Joe Call:Yeah, they're starting to, I mean, it's costly.
Joe Call:So you've got to weigh that option of deploying that.
Joe Call:And then potentially, like I said, if we're able to blunt this, we start to see it kind of come back down to reasonable levels, then that technology isn't necessary.
Joe Call:So we really need to understand if that is viable, that we will see it blunted and be able to say we can relax the standards inside of our stores without having to make that investment.
Anne Mazinga:Hey, Joe, so you, I'm curious because you had like law enforcement and you have, you have direct communications with, with the teams that are trying to prevent this and the attorney, the district attorneys, like you said, how important is something like RFID technology or computer vision technology as you're thinking about, you know, how, how we help provide that law enforcement team with the data that they need to actually prosecute some of these things?
Anne Mazinga:Because I think in a lot of cases we're hearing like we, because of the, the danger to our associates, we're just like, people will leave and then you call law enforcement.
Anne Mazinga:And we had this happen, you know, roughly this number of people, but there's not enough detail for law enforcement to actually go follow up on that.
Anne Mazinga:How important do you think technology is that can give them this number of items were taken at this time?
Anne Mazinga:It was this many people, like, how do you feel like that relevance can help the law enforcement team?
Joe Call:I feel like it's a loaded question because we're very deep into rfid, but I'm going to answer it anyway.
Joe Call:It was a little bit of a softball question, and maybe you didn't know it well.
Joe Call:We have about 95% of our product inside of our stores as RFID on it, and it has significantly changed the game on how we are building investigations for law enforcement.
Joe Call:So past few years, law enforcement has been struggling with getting people to be officers.
Joe Call:So when you bring an investigation into them, if it's not fully baked, they don't have the time to work it because they're dealing with other crimes that are more serious in nature around their communities.
Joe Call:For us, when we take RFID and we can package it up, we basically just give it to them or we give it to a prosecutor and just say, all you need to do now is, is prosecute this.
Joe Call:We've done every other aspect of that investigation.
Joe Call: in the RFID game since about: Joe Call:And that has been the biggest evolution in technology in my career that I saw.
Chris Walton:Wow.
Chris Walton:Wow, that's great to know, Joe.
Chris Walton:I want to put your industry hat on again, too, real quick.
Chris Walton:So one topic, it kind of goes back to the glass question, too.
Chris Walton:And it's, you know, it's all germane to the conversation we were having even around rfid.
Chris Walton:And I've been having a lot of conversations about the Costco or the Sam's Club model where you have to show an ID to enter.
Chris Walton:Like, does that.
Chris Walton:Do you think we'll start to see more of that throughout retail as we go forward, or what are the puts and takes with that model, as you think about it?
Joe Call:Look, they've got low shrink for sure.
Joe Call:And, you know, when I speak to my peers in the industry, it is not a model for everybody, though.
Joe Call:Yeah, you've got to.
Joe Call:You're paying to get into that model, into BJ's and Costco, and it works for them.
Joe Call:We are a proud Costco family at home as well.
Joe Call:So we're visiting there every single week.
Joe Call:And you've come to expect it there.
Joe Call:You know what you're going to have.
Joe Call:I think if you showed up into a Macy's on a Saturday afternoon and you experience that type of friction, that's not what you're accustomed to.
Chris Walton:And I think that'd be difficult for the consumer.
Joe Call:Yeah, I think it'd be really difficult to transition those customers.
Joe Call:I think they're used to it in those environments and I don't think you'll see it.
Joe Call:You're seeing a little bit of it in like Home Depot and Lowe's.
Joe Call:Some of them have a little bit of that gate to manage traffic and where you can go in and where you can go out.
Joe Call:But there's like a balance to the amount of friction you can actually create because you don't want to drive that customer away.
Joe Call:You ultimately just want to drive away the bad customer from that location and make sure that the good customer has very little friction.
Chris Walton:Hence why you're singing about the technology of, you know, unlocking the cabinet with your phone as opposed to maybe requiring them to do something on entry.
Chris Walton:That's interesting.
Chris Walton:Okay.
Joe Call:Yeah.
Anne Mazinga:Well, Joe, let's talk about the year ahead.
Anne Mazinga:What are your priorities and your team's priorities at Macy's as you think about the future of, of asset protection, of reducing or eliminating shrink.
Joe Call: you, when I think about what: Joe Call: we've got to reflect back on: Joe Call:So as we just talked about all that has been happening in retail, all of the violence, I'm incredibly proud of all of my teams and the work that they put forth every single day.
Joe Call:If we don't focus on recognizing them for that, thanking them for that slow slowing down to make sure that that is meaningful.
Joe Call: priorities and strategies for: Joe Call:As I said, law enforcement doesn't want to do law enforcement.
Joe Call:Imagine being an asset protection or loss prevention inside of a retailer right now.
Joe Call:It is a difficult job to do and I'm incredibly appreciative and have a high amount of respect for all of the teams, not only just in Macy's, but around the industry.
Joe Call:From our perspective on strategies, though, it's going to continue to be a focus on customer and colleague safety.
Joe Call:Until we see that change in the industry, that has got to be our number one and we'll continue to build that out through training, technology.
Joe Call:You're seeing things like body worn cameras.
Joe Call:We're working with some of our communication device partners to get real time alerting and the ability to alert a people leader if you're in a risky situation.
Joe Call:So everything we're doing right now is focused on that safety side of it, which also will have a positive impact on theft mitigation.
Joe Call:So keeping an eye on both.
Chris Walton:Love that.
Chris Walton:Love that.
Chris Walton:Safety is still the first priority.
Chris Walton:That's a very key call out there.
Chris Walton:And, yeah, the stores, it's a thankless job, but you can't thank them enough, right, Joe?
Chris Walton:That's the way it goes.
Chris Walton:Well, Joe, thank you so much for joining us.
Chris Walton:Taking time out of your busy schedule.
Chris Walton:You came down from the headquarters here to meet with us and tour the NRF building and all the great technology on display here.
Chris Walton:And thanks to the Fusion Group for supporting our content throughout the show.
Chris Walton:That concludes our coverage for today, right?
Anne Mazinga:Yeah, that wraps us up.
Chris Walton:That wraps us up for day two.
Chris Walton: , we'll be back here in booth: