LPRC - CrimeScience – COVID-19 Series: Episode 5 with Dr. Read Hayes, Tony D’onofrio, Tom Meehan ft. Jeff Roster (Apptricity)

Episode Date: May 7, 2020

On this week’s LPRC CrimeScience COVID-19 Series episode, we are joined by featured guest Jeff Roster, Chairman of the Retail Advisory Board of Apptricity Corporation and former Gartner and IHL Group Retail Industry Analyst. Tune in to learn about LPRC initiatives from Dr. Read Hayes, this week’s global economy updates according to the data from Jeff Roster and Tony D’onofrio, and false information & online scams from Tom Meehan of CONTROLTEK USA. The post CrimeScience – COVID-19 Series: Episode 5 with Dr. Read Hayes, Tony D’onofrio, Tom Meehan ft. Jeff Roster (Apptricity) appeared first on Loss Prevention Research Council.

Hi everyone, welcome to Crime Science. In this podcast, we aim to explore the science of crime and the practical application of the science for loss prevention and asset protection practitioners, as well as other professionals. Co-host Dr. Reid Hayes of the Loss Prevention Research Council and Tom Meehan of ControlTech discuss a wide range of topics with industry experts, thought leaders, solution providers, and many more. We would like to thank Bosch for making this episode possible. Be a leader in loss prevention by implementing integrated solutions that enhance safety, reduce shrink, and help to improve merchandising, operations, and customer service. Bosch integrated security and communication solutions span zones one through four in the LPRC's zones of influence, while enriching the customer experience and delivering valuable data to help increase retail profitability. Learn more by visiting Bosch online at BoschSecurity.com. Welcome everybody to another episode of Crime Science, the podcast. This is our special COVID-19 series that we put out every week with my co-stars here, Tony D'Onofrio and Tom Meehan. And today we're joined by our special guest, Jeff Roster, a longtime superstar in the retail

analyst area, trying to understand how retailing works, who's where, where are they going, and then who is helping them get there. And I don't want to go any deeper than that. That's why we've got him on today. So I'm going to start out as per normal and go through a few things. Again, my main role is to talk mostly about the LPRC just for a couple of minutes here. What we're doing is support. I think we start off first with research. And we, as you all know, that listen to us regularly, we have two main areas. We have innovation research and development, R&D, and of course, we have problem-solving research,

which has been the mainstay for the last 20 years of the LPRC. In the case of Innovate, LPRC Innovate, where we're looking at leveraging different methods and technologies to help the retailers get better at selling more and losing or experiencing less, dealing with the green and red. Shopper, we're working, I've mentioned before, on artificial intelligence, deep learning. The University of Florida is partnering with NVIDIA in an incredible, profound way. The most powerful AI computing technology is being installed as we speak here in Gainesville to augment HyperGator, which is the most powerful computing system in the Southeast U.S. As a partnership, one of the co-founders of NVIDIA is a University of Florida engineering graduate. And both he and the managing co-founder, the CEO, were on a big program that we had last week with 650 of us faculty on talking about how every single major, every course even, will include an AI component at the University of Florida, as well as every student and faculty and grad student will have access to HyperGator and its new incredibly powered NVIDIA augmentations there with GPUs.

So we're working on two different projects, myself and faculty from human-centered computing, engineering, as well as user experience design computing. And then now it looks like ISD, which is industrial systems design engineering. And so more to come on what we're doing with AI around audits, training simulation, crime and context, and mapping. But mostly what we're working on is perceptual systems. And that just means how do we leverage cameras and other sensors so that we have a better idea about what's going on out in zone five, beyond the parking lot, in Zone 4, the parking lot, and of course in Zone 3, which is the interior space that we need to know about to better serve customers and better deter and disrupt the bad guy. We're also continuing as fast as we can with the virtual reality

component here, where Digital Worlds at UF, a faculty there, Dr. Kong and her students are working away on completing the design of the virtual, in this case, a Home Depot store. But it's going to be readily adaptable, the platform itself, to any brand and size. It's just the high resolution components will vary. and size. It's just the high resolution components will vary. So we've got that well underway as well as with another student out of human center computing where we're looking for designing a Walmart parking lot that again will be readily adaptable and adjustable and getting ready to do testing as soon as we can. Have human participants or subjects involved through our IRB2. So those are pretty exciting what's going on there. We're finally, we're not finally, we're doing a whole bunch, but another big call out is our three-dimensional, our 3D imagery. We were fortunate before COVID hit and

everything went into quarantine to get some nice 3D full store scans in the can. And so we've been working with one major retailer right now where now everybody can get into that store and look around as it was then. It's not a live feed, but they can move through and then we can project different options. So it's really exciting what can be done even when you're in almost complete lockdown.

So the next thing to go through is a cluster calls two, where we're going through, again, with five breakouts of six to 10 retail chains each. We had our first yesterday with fuel, convenience, drug, and food. A lot of great dialogue about what they're doing, what they're seeing, how they're adjusting, how they're repurposing existing technologies and people tasking to enable them to, again, sell more and protect and keep everybody safe. And then what checklist and plans they have as they move through the cloud and come on out. So incredible there.

We've got another one today, and then we'll continue to, we've got those. The report from the first round of cluster calls has just gone out to all retailer members at LPRC, and then we'll be going out to all solution partners. And again, we had a fantastic call with all the solution partners. We had two calls to allow everybody to get in. Both given their heavy schedules, took down what they had and what they were working on. We're very grateful to the RELA team that provided us their feedback that they got on their calls as well

to feed into the research that needs to be done as all of us cooperate together. And we have a very long tradition and history of working very closely with RELA and NRF and FMI and others to support them through evidence-based practice. The Crime Science Podcast, again, we're churning out three to four per week. Our producer, Kevin Tran, is not on this call. He's making sure it's recorded because he is putting out more episodes as we speak today. Our learning modules, they today, are learning modules.

They're completing those learning modules for the first round, and that's going to allow, and we're working in conjunction with the LP Foundation, as well as with the WZ team and others so that we'll have the certifications that everybody's looking for, ASIS, coming and using the learning modules. We're content generators, not necessarily trainers, but it's going to allow people to engage and become more learned via evidence-based practice.

So our landing page, every day it's updated. It's at lpresearch.org. And so finally, we're getting ready to record this week an episode with the just retired, but still very active Dr. Fred Southwick, who was the chair of infectious disease at the University of Florida, Columbia Med School, graduate and Mass General Infectious Disease trained doctor, and also still an engaged member of the Emerging Pathogens Institute here. And we're going to go through and talk about the origin, the dynamics, and the mechanisms of the virus, infectious dose, the viral load, how the innate and adaptive immune responses occur and what that looks like like and understand a little more depth and breadth about what's going on here, the symptoms and the reasons for the symptoms and the progression of the disease and things like that. And then work, then apply that to back to work pathways and what that can look like

with testing and new DARPA testing that's hopefully going to be approved and come out that allow that detects the virus within 24 hours before they're actually a human. Can't even shed the virus because it detects that initial innate immune response, as well as their digit program, the gene editing program. And then we'll be looking at therapeutics and what's going on with FDA's CTAP program and how things are being fast-tracked to help do things the right way as far as help and harm, and the over 72 active trials, 211 development programs, and so on that are going on with therapeutic agents.

And we'll discuss a little bit about that. And then, of course, with vaccines and given even mutations, what that looks like, particularly with NIH's active program where they brought together 12 drug companies, as well as every component of research at the federal level and working on the different viral vaccine types, inactivated, vector, and subunit, and so on. And then we'll go through very quickly, but what it looks like, all we're trying to do is, of course, reduce human exposure. We're trying to reduce like, all we're trying to do is, of course, reduce human exposure. We're trying to reduce airborne exposure. We're trying to reduce surface exposure. And what's that look like in a practical way? And how do we leverage the logic model of the disease?

So with no further ado, I'm going to go over to our partner, Tom Meehan. Tom's going to talk about some of the risks that we're being exposed to, non-viral, and then what we should be doing and thinking about. So, Tom? Thanks, Reid. So, I think some of this will be a little repetitive with a little bit different of a spin of examples. But I think there's a continued plethora of information on the Internet around cures and personal protection equipment that is fake. So, you know, this is just a reminder to be vigilant about who you buy from. There are a ton of sites that I'll talk a little bit later about that come up. But right now, the biggest thing

that we're seeing an increase of is these antibody tests that are not real. So you go on $30, you order this test, and you really need to do a little bit of research that runs through. It's very quick for someone to pop a website up. In some cases, you receive nothing. In other cases, you make a payment and they say the test is delayed. So it's something that everybody needs to be aware of. To talk about specific cybercrime, one of the things that is starting to come up is a little bit more extortion. So there was a really good article that came out that kind of gave an overview of some of the extortion and cyber scammers that came up. A little bit more direct, somewhat some threats of actually, we'll make sure your family's infected if you don't pay us. So really a direct threat extortion. While it's not getting much traction, it is out there. Another thing that seems to come up a lot during times of video conferencing is extortion claims against high-level executives that they have damaging

information, something they did on the internet, whether it visit an inappropriate site or say something on a call. Luckily, the news that's being reported back through the Cybersecurity Institute is that a lot of these are not making their way through, but they are still impacting folks. And more importantly, they're tying up resources to investigate them. When you think of all of the internet scams that are out there, what I would say is social engineers and scammers are really just taking a spin and attacking the COVID-19 piece. There are a whole host of blackmail scams that run through. One important reminder related to social engineering scams is in a time like this, you're probably getting an influx of LinkedIn requests. If you're using Facebook or Twitter, you're probably seeing more requests than you have in the past.

And there are a plethora of blackmail scams through LinkedIn where someone reaches out to you, starts a conversation, and then will turn around and try to blackmail you by saying they have information against you. It's a good rule of thumb. I'm a huge social media person. I accept invites from anybody that comes through. But when someone sends me a message and I don't know that person, I'm pretty quick to say I don't know them. So I actually received three last week where someone started a conversation

with three totally different starting lines, but all of them were really to see if they could gather information. And one of them actually did send a note to me saying that they had some photos of me. And I said, you should share them. I love myself. So I kind of took the fun tack

knowing that it was a scam. But when I looked at that person, I realized that they had 123 mutual contacts with me. And I immediately thought to myself, I wonder how many of them received that same exact note. So it's just a reminder to really be diligent about that. And in today's day and age, I think social media and LinkedIn is more important than ever to stay connected, to stay, get a good pulse, but just really paying attention to that. Some really interesting findings from Palo Alto Networks. In the last 10 days, there were several hundred thousand websites

that were created directly related to the coronavirus. And they're not all bad, but with 116,000 sites that were looked at, 2,200 of them were deemed malicious, meaning that they were actually tied to direct malware. And then an additional 40. So when you think of that, a little bit less than 40% of these websites were either malicious or considered high risk. And high risk sites have to do with potentially selling fake goods, potentially giving false information. So there are a lot of people out here researching this, but if you think of in a 10 day period, a hundred thousand new websites created and 40% of them are nonsense or nefarious in some case, it's just a reminder that the internet is great because it allows you to do things very quickly, but just take that extra step to run through. There has been almost 600% growth in

registration in sites related to COVID-19. A lot of this is in the PPE space, and that is not all nefarious, but it just reminds us to do the due diligence, to look at it, to be wary of, is what we're buying real? Is there information out there that is beneficial? Sure, but just keep an eye on it. If it's not a credible source, you don't have to just blatantly disregard it. You just may want to take a second look. The National Cybersecurity Center has really done a great job of revitalizing its rules around remote work. And some of these are just quick tips that I think we all probably are aware of. But it's a good reminder that they put out is to make sure you have two-factor enabled on any accounts that have it. Almost every service offers it today.

Please, please, please, if you don't use two-factor, put it on. please, please, please, if you don't use two-factor, put it on. It's probably the simplest, easiest thing to do, and it deters a cyber criminal to come after you. It certainly isn't a foolproof method, but it's kind of the old theory of if you lock your door, someone will move to the next neighbor. So make sure you have two-factor on. If you need any help with that, there's a ton of resources out there. Don't reuse passwords. We talk about that all the time. I would say that the two factors are obviously more important to that. And then if you have multiple accounts, use an email account for your financial-type records and don't mix them with other things.

That's something they went through. Common updates, making sure all your software is updated and that you have the latest and greatest patches on everything. I know that can be a pain and a lot of, depending on what platform you use, it's pretty much automated at this point, but making sure you're doing it. Using good password hygiene in general, using a password vault came up. And then, you know, making sure that you have your data backed up. I know that those are all things that we've talked about before. And the National Cyber Security Center has said it before, but related specifically to COVID, it reminds us. I don't often talk about this, and I'll go through it quickly because I feel like it's an important fact out there.

There is a lot of false news about retail and crime in general. So I would say that definitely, definitely, and Reid, I know, speaks about it regularly. And if you're part of the LPRC, you can join either the Violent Crime Group or the Organized Retail Crime Group or any of, if you listen to the cluster calls and you're here, it is that a lot of the news is misinformed or specific to a municipality. So, you know, right now, domestic violence is definitely up according to the FBI study, vehicle theft is, but most of, you know, financial crimes are seeing an increase in reporting, but it isn't necessarily up. They're not really running through. One of the things that is up,

and I read an interesting article this morning, is assault on medical staff and security and police officers by spitting and sneezing. So the bad guys figured out that that would be something that would affect people. So normally I stay in the cyber side, but the reason I thought it was important is because in the last few weeks, I've gotten quite a lot of reach out on news articles of, hey, do you think this is real? Do you think this is accurate? So I think it's important to just do a little bit more fact checking than you would normally do, although I would say that all the time. And then I'll leave it with this, and this is definitely a physical risk that I know Reid is looking at, is in Oklahoma, they instituted, as they were opening up, masks. And by the next day, they changed that mandate

to recommend because there were an increase in threats to retailers when they opened with people with masks on. And then I'm sure a lot of listeners heard the horrific news about the shooting of the guard in Michigan who asked someone to wear a mask and tried to ask them to leave the store. I think it's important as retail professionals or criminologists to just really look at our policies and help our folks understand what's the best practice and methodology in those situations and to try to do the best you can to cater to everybody's response out. I was out at a store and I did have a mask on. There was one guy who didn't have a mask and everybody else did and someone made a comment. And there was a really heated exchange back and forth. And all I thought to myself was, if the store associate's comment was a little bit different, you don't know that person's situation. And as the person gelling, he said, I would love to have a mask. I can't get one. I'm here to buy groceries. I don't, I don't, you know, I barely have money to pay groceries. So keeping that kind

of surface back into the importance of trying to come up with standardized policies. I know that Reed has a benchmarking group that's working on that. I know Rila is, I know the NRF is, but I think it's important to remind that there isn't a one size fits all, but there are definitely some best practices. And sometimes it's as simple as how you present it. So a lot of interesting stuff. Sorry, there was a lot more doom and gloom than usual. There's not a lot of great cybersecurity risk stories that are positive, but I think it's important to stay vigilant. I'm really excited to turn it over to Jeff Roster, who is a well-known retail analyst and kind of extraordinary of information. So, Jeff, over to you. interesting evolutions here in retail. I thought we'd start by just giving a quick overcap of what the retail industry is happening right now. And for that, I'm going to use the uscensus.gov estimate of monthly retail and food service sales by kind of business. And this will be for January

through March. So keep in mind, depending on when you start, when you place the start of the U.S. response to the pandemic, for me, I go to March 11th. That was the shutdown for the NBA and the Tom Hanks announcement. That just seems to me to be the logical place to pick up. That means we're really, the numbers I'm going to be talking about really only represent 18 days of the post-pandemic response. And when you take the U.S. census numbers, you can break them down clearly between the essentials and the non-essentials. So starting with the essentials, taking the first quarter 2020 versus change in

2019, clothing down 17.8%, sporting goods down 6.4%, electronics down 4.6%, furniture down 4.3%, gasoline down 1.2%. When we go over to the essentials category, not surprisingly, a completely different response. Food and beverage stores up 12.2%. Miscellaneous store retailers, 8% up. Building materials, 6.9% up. General merch, 5.2% up. Health and personal care stores, percent up. General merch, 5.2 percent up. Health and personal care stores, up 3.2 percent. So we can get a glimpse of what second quarter is going to be looking like by going to a different data source. That's what Womply provides, which is a roll-up of credit card transactions. So no picture on what's happening with cash, but I think it gives a really interesting analysis of what we can expect Q2 to look like.

And so when we look at credit card transactions, travel and tourism, not surprisingly, down 56% as of March 30th. Restaurants down 40% as of March 30th, sorry, April 30th, which is considerably better than March 22nd, which was off 68%. So as much as we talk about takeout, and probably a lot of us are buying a lot more takeout than we probably should, still very, very significant impacts to restaurants. Retail and services as of April 30th, actually up 35%, and grocery stores up 30%. Now, you can also take that credit card data and determine who's still taking credit, which gives us an indication of who's dark and who's not. And when we look at those numbers, rarely in my career have I looked at numbers and just literally had my breath taken

away. And these are going to be some. So hang on for this. Resale and wholesale, 31% of retailers and wholesalers are actually dark, have not taken a credit card transaction in the last three days. Restaurants, 35%. Bars and lounges are 64% are dark. And health and beauty business, 86% are dark. And there's just no way to spend these numbers. They're just, we're in a very, very serious situation. these numbers. We're in a very, very serious situation. A couple of Wall Street analyst comments, I think, really illustrate the situation. This is from a piece published by MarketWatch

on April 18th. Nordstrom Inc. can withstand a year of store closings, according to Cohen analysts. Macy's, about four months. Kohl's has six months, and JCPay about seven months. The new normal could be a fall holiday season that's 30% lower and third quarter expectations of down 50%, wrote analysts led by Oliver Chen. We believe it's more prudent for retail teams to plan inventory buys for bear cases and hope for better performance. And probably the most concerning thing I've read really since this whole mess has started was what Tyson published recently. Tyson warns the food supply chain is breaking. Chairman of the board, John Tyson, published a full-page open letter to consumers on Sunday in the New York Times, which he noted, we're being forced

to shutter our doors. It means one thing, the food supply chain is vulnerable. Now, winners, when it comes to all this mess, interesting data coming out of Bricks and Clicks, Symphony AI online grocery shopping survey. And this is for online grocery delivery and pickup. Sales are up 37% over March. Spend is up 3% from an average order of $82 to $85 in April. Orders are up 33%. Customers are up about 1%. So 39 million customers in March were using online delivery and pickup solutions, now up to 40 million. online delivery and pickup solutions now up to 40 million in frequency 1.2 to 1.6 so up 32 percent so probably the biggest winner out of all this uh mess is online pickup and delivery the big question a lot of us analysts have is will retailers actually make money on this or is this going to become another potential problem um from a tech trends perspective the massive big takeaways are for for bopus uh buy online, pick up in the store, click and collect, touchless payments, self-checkout. Just cited how massive the move online has been. Systems to monitor store traffic.

That'll become a very, very important issue for public safety as well as how to manage the stores. Employee scheduling, if it wasn't a red hot, it's super red hot at this point. Employee scheduling, if it wasn't a red hot, it's super red hot at this point. Automation robotics, we're really actually finally starting to see, I believe, the real killer app for robotics in stores and even actually delivery devices and home delivery, including robotics. So in short, we've spent the last 10 years making the store more touchable. And I believe we're now going to spend the next five years making far less so. So we're literally going to try to take the human experience out of the retail business as a direct response to consumer's fears about engaging with their fellow human. And what worries me the most about all this, outside of all the store closings,

is just the fact that we have 30 million unemployed. That's just a massive, massive number that needs to be part of this conversation about how we go moving forward. There are winners clearly in all this mess. The number one, you could argue this, and I have, but I think probably the largest winner is Amazon. They're on a massive high risk spree. They're seen unprecedented volumes. They're considered the first responder in a lot of scenarios. I though too the second big winner and i'm actually very happy about this is the local supply chain along with amazon success we've seen its weaknesses delivery times have stretched out to weeks as it wrestles with the demand spikes along with you know what we're now beginning to see some labor unrest as well as impacts of COVID on distribution centers.

I believe we come out of COVID with a far greater appreciation for the role of the neighborhood grocer and the supply chain that supports it. I don't think we've killed just in time, but I think it's taken some very serious body blows. And I hope we all value the idea of many, many independent, healthy, strong working supply chains operating to bring all of us what we need to survive on a daily basis. Three, the role of retail is the glue for society. Those of us in this industry know how important retail is. That value is now being displayed on a worldwide basis. In short, I believe America doesn't recover until retail recovers. And so that's how important what we're talking about is and how important going forward. And then for grocers, I've always thought of groceries as somewhat of a sleepy subvertical,

not all that interesting in a lot of ways. It's now in the limelight. We will see massive investments in the supply chain and in-store technology to evolve how we bring food to the consumer. And losers, clearly, the enclosed mall, I just can't see a scenario where people in the short term or maybe even the medium term are going to want to gather in large crowds and enclosed spaces. Now, I'm not happy to say that, but there's clearly an effort to take the human contact out of the shopping process. How we evolve retail is in our hands. I just ask all of us to make smart decisions,

over-communicate to our customers, protect our workers, and together, I believe, we'll bring this country back. Tony, over to you. Thank you very much, Jeff. So I'm going to wrap up and actually add to a lot of the things that Jeff said by, again, going around the world with some of the latest statistics that I've picked up in the last week. So I'm going to start at the macro level with an updated optimistic forecast from Forrester where GDP is going to end up for the year in just three regions. So North America, Forrester project will be down 3.3% in 2020, but it will be a dramatic

up 7.2% in 2021. Europe will be down 3.5% in 2020 and will be up 6.6% in 2021. Asia will actually do the best out of all this. They will only be down 0.7%, and they'll have an even stronger recovery at 8.7% in 2021. I must also briefly, while we're in Asia, talk about China. It is, according to the Wall Street Journal, the largest retail market in the world with $5.8 trillion in sales. According to JLL, which is a retail real estate services firm, retail sales right now, after they come out of COVID, they're about at 50% to 70% recovered in

April. McKinsey said in a consumer survey that 40% are still being cautious and only 13% are planning to spend more. The good news is quick service restaurants are coming back. 90% are open. And in places like Shanghai, they already have lines at peak times of people to buy quick service food restaurants. So in some parts of the world, like China, retail is coming back at different paces. Also interesting this week was some thoughts from JLL in terms of what we will take to for retail to come back and actually building on exactly what Jeff just said and what Reid said. Technologies want to be one of the key driver and you see a lot of that already in China.

You see also a lot of that being discussed here in the United States in terms of contact tracing apps and all these other different technologies that will get deployed. What would also bring retail back is new processes in the short term. So social distancing and reconfiguring in stores. And you're seeing that in a lot of different places, including Germany, where they're actually reconfiguring large stores into small stores with their own entrances and accesses to accommodate traffic. And then finally, time. It's going to take time. It's not going to be an overnight change, and here we are, the new world, and everything is back to normal. Speaking of technology and processes, Rely, as Reid mentioned earlier in the call, I thought it would be interesting to share their list of short-term technology needs that they're hearing directly from retailers. And Rela, again, is the

Retail Industry Leaders Association. So their list includes right now social distancing, simple solutions with alert capabilities, max occupancy technologies with alerts, efficient safe temperature taking capabilities, efficient recording of health screening questionnaires, contact tracing, returned product process management, contactless POS, technology to attack crime, identify what's behind the mask, and increase deterrence, and then what to do with cash. So, exactly some of the things that were actually mentioned here. And I would urge all retailers and solution providers listening to this podcast, engage with LPRC to figure out the best science-based approaches for these new solutions and get to much more stronger optimized results in the deployment.

Also interesting to me, adding to what Jeff just said in terms of what's happening to online, the world seems to think everything will move online. And then Forrester actually updated their forecast this past week. And they actually see that for 2020, it's going to be up 2% to 21% of total sales. And for 2024, it's going to go up really 1% to be 25% of sales. And they cite three reasons for that, why it's not such a dramatic number and increased change from previous forecasts. And the reason is, number one, most of a lot of the digital experiences today are still mediocre. And I can attest to that because we've tried a lot of those, especially buying groceries online.

Number two, there is no such thing as a single channel shopper. Shoppers do like experiences still. And I think retail will spend time figuring that out. And number three, as was mentioned by multiple folks, it's actually expensive to do online, especially for grocery retailers in terms of the model, and they already have 10 margins. It's actually expensive to drive that. And I'm going to close on a couple other minor things in terms of what's on the mind, actually major, in terms of what's on the mind things in terms of what's on the mind, actually major, in terms of what's on the mind of consumers in terms of the crisis right now, because they're directly rates where retail has to take care of.

This is from the Big Red Rooster, which is a research arm of JLL. So the things that are on top of mind of consumers are protecting personal space, contact avoidance, localization consumption, going to exactly what Jeff said about the local supply chain, globally influenced decision making. That goes to the fact that we're experiencing the same thing at a global scale right now. So we're actually learning from each other at a global scale in terms of this, staying virtual, discretionary spending, and confidence-based loyalty. Big Rooster also threw in a fact that it takes about two months to create a habit. And we've been creating a habit now because we've been locked down roughly about that long, it seems, and longer it feels like right now.

That long, it seems, and longer it feels like right now. And let me close with one final example to show how COVID-19 is really changing everything. And for that, I'm going to go to smart speakers. So 24% of Americans now own a smart speaker, which is about 60 million people. That's up from 21% of 53 million people in 2019. Smart speaker owners with children were asked, do you agree or disagree with the following? You want to buy another smart speaker to entertain children in more rooms of the house. In 2019, only 47% that were going to buy more speakers just to entertain the children this spring when it was just as this just came out the percentage is 71 percent so it gives you

idea how technology really is expanding to the fact that we're using even things like smart speaker just for entertainment so the world is changing and really appreciate all the different input today. So with that, I'm going to stop and turn it over to Reid to conclude us. Well, thank you very much, Tony. And thank you, Jeff, so much. Incredible insights from you too. Tom, same thing with you. I really appreciate it. And the interesting part was both Tony and Tom mentioned masks. And I did want to very quickly say that Ken and our team is conducting a research project on masks with Organized Retail Crime Working Group, the Violent Crime Working Group, looking at how other ways that we might detect a would-be offender as they approach into zone four, as they're in the store and as they leave other than their full face for

obvious reasons is one part of that mask research. Another one that I'm putting together with Corey on our team, our brand new research team member is we're working on mask and intimidation and things like that. So the point is we're working on mask and intimidation and things like that. So the point is we want to, our role in the problem solving research is how do we again, deter and disrupt that? How do we also comfort and inspire the employee and the,

and the shopper given the new normal. So with that, I want to thank everybody for getting involved and listening. And again, thank our team here today, Kevin Tran, our producer. Everybody stay safe. We're always looking forward to hearing from you. And signing off from Gainesville, Florida, this is Crime Science Podcast. Thank you.

Thanks for listening to the Crime Science Podcast presented by the Loss Prevention Research Council and sponsored by Bosch Security. Thanks for listening to the Crime Science Podcast presented by the Laws Prevention Research Council and sponsored by Bosch Security. If you enjoyed today's episode, you can find more crime science episodes and valuable information at lpresearch.org. The content provided in the Crime Science Podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for legal, financial, or other advice. Views expressed by guests of the Crime Science Podcast are those of the authors and do not reflect the opinions or positions of the Laws Prevention Research Council.