LPRC - CrimeScience – The Weekly Review: Episode 24 – Strategies for Retailers to Succeed This Holiday Season – Dr. Read Hayes, Tony D’Onofrio,Tom Meehan and Featured Guest Joseph Skorupa (RIS News)

Episode Date: September 10, 2020

Joe Skorupa, Editorial Director for RIS News, joins us this week to provide insight into what retailers are thinking and doing during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and how the upcoming holiday season could play out in this unprecedented time, including his suggestions on how to succeed. Our co-hosts also touch on COVID-19 infection rates, LPRC initiatives, Salesforce’s global digital and mobile sales data, parcel volume increases, video conferencing platform issues, The Beagle Boys (the North Korean hacker group), charge-back increases, open-source intelligence gathering during the civil unrest and much more. Joe is the Editorial Director and featured blogger for RIS News, an EnsembleIQ media portfolio. Joe is frequently named as one of the top Influencers in retail and technology. He is a frequent speaker at conferences such as the SXSW Interactive, Oracle OpenWorld and the NRF Big Show. His blog was named the top B2B retail blog by Folio Magazine in 2019. The RIS News website www.risnews.com was named the best B2B retail website by Folio Magazine in 2018 and 2019. The post CrimeScience – The Weekly Review: Episode 24 – Strategies for Retailers to Succeed This Holiday Season – Dr. Read Hayes, Tony D’Onofrio,Tom Meehan and Featured Guest Joseph Skorupa (RIS News) 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 this science for loss prevention and asset protection practitioners, as well as other professionals. 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. operations, and customer service. Bosch Integrated Security and Communications Solutions spans 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. All right, welcome everybody to another episode of Crime Science Podcast. This is one of our weekly series where we go do sort of a roundtable and catch up with ourselves and our listeners around what's going on in the world of particularly

retailing. And boy, there's a lot. So we'll start a little bit talking about, of course, COVID-19. talking about, of course, COVID-19, the, you know, a concern out there is the idea of multiple viruses since normally cold and flu season increases during the colder months in this hemisphere. And here we are now, my understanding is it's been relatively mild for obvious reasons down under because of so many people sort of sheltering in place and not as much exposure and transmission as a result of that. But the idea that flu, influenza, that RSV and COVID could coexist, particularly flu and COVID at the same time, is a concern. And I know we've mentioned this before, and that now going in for a flu vaccination might mean more than ever before. Again, the fact that it, like any vaccine for a virus, or many of the

vaccines, let's say, don't always provide complete and total sterility or immunity, but they can dramatically or significantly anyway boost our immune response and reduce either the idea that we'll have much of an infection, if any at all, or at least reduce the severity of the disease if we do get it, a large enough viral dose or load into us. So the recommendation is getting the flu vaccine so that there's no confounding. The symptoms can be similar. And we also know the COVID symptoms can be all over the place and that so many people are asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic for a long time, but yet are shedding. And the super spreaders are a concern out there. So, and again, there's some data now around the idea that

vaccines may provide some long-term neuroprotectivity for dementia and things like that. So there may be some additional benefits out there, but again, talk to your medical professional, your trusted professional that you've got and get their advice on these things. I know here in Gainesville and at the University of Florida, the students are back in waves. We've seen an escalation in positive infection rates, but it's not been overly dramatic. The first almost 12,000 students that were tested, I think there were somewhere around 50 to 200. Now, we might be up to over 100, maybe closer to 200. But I think at this point, there's been between 11,000 and 14,000 students tested. So it's there, but we've got about a 21% positive test rate so far.

That's just people that are tested. But all students had to be initially tested in the way that faculty students and earlier the graduate students were here. 10,000 of the students signed a pledge, over 10,000, this Gator pledge that they would wear a mask. And I can tell you from driving or even walking around campus and around town, it's a pretty compliant group. Now, we only see what we see, but I see a lot of masking going on, and that might obviously help explain the relatively low infection rate. My understanding, too, with a recent study of almost over closing in on 12,000

college students initially that were tested positive there were zero hospitalizations. Now we also know that therapies or at least the care that's given out there by physicians has improved dramatically through a lot of rapid learning as far as when to intubate or not and how to do things, as well as getting some therapeutics in there into the system. You know, looking again at the, you know, the idea of trackers out there and understanding, but with therapies, in other words, somebody's got the disease, how do the physicians treat it? There are now 315 treatments in development in various phases, over 200, closing in on 211, it looks like right now, vaccines and trial, of which we know of at least 24 in phase one.

That's where they're just looking, hey, do we get a signal? And then we're looking at the safety profile, what kind of side effects might be there. The same way, again, we conduct research here at the University of Florida and at LPRC around crime reduction strategies or tools and treatments. Phase two, 14 vaccines and expanded safety trials.

Phase three now, nine vaccines and large-scale efficacy and dose-ranging trials. Three now have limited approval for early or limited use. We know that there are quite a few people now around the world that have been given a vaccine and the same number roughly that have been given a vaccine, and the same number, roughly, that have been given a placebo, not the real vaccine. So there are increasing numbers of humans that have been vaccinated against COVID-19, and that's continuing to grow. And that's why you may or may not see what you're hearing now,

that in November we might start to see some larger vaccines going on, vaccinations going on at a much higher level. One thing that's, of course, been in heavy planning, we've mentioned before, is distribution of the vaccines as they become available, and there'll be initial vaccines, and you'll see probably steady improvements, you know, Gen 2, 3, and so on. But the strategies around looking at data from past infections, looking at modeling, putting all the variables in, and this modeling is taking place across the globe, I understand. But there's sort of three strategies. Do we initially vaccinate the most exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, that coronavirus? In other words, frontline healthcare workers and

essential workers on the frontline where there are hot spots and clusters of infected people. Or do we first vaccinate the most vulnerable to serious disease, the COVID-19 disease, but particularly a serious version of the disease? And then the third, though, is do we first vaccinate the heavy spreaders, those that are most likely to expose large numbers of people, including those that are most exposed and those that are most vulnerable. And it turns out in some studies, it looks like they're heavily considering that the spreaders and the data seem to show this from past infections as well as the simulated ones,

these epidemics and pandemics, that might be the best way, particularly young people. They're more social, they're more mobile, and they're exposing themselves more readily in some cases. And they don't know. We've talked about people that are super spreaders that are asymptomatic and so on. So just stay tuned to see how this works. Like what is the most heartfelt way to do things? We talk about emotion versus evidence, activism versus analyses. This is going to be one of those kind of thought and actual real life experiments out there. What do the practitioners, what do the policymakers, how do they go? Do they go with the data and can you reduce in the spread? And if the best way to do that is to first vaccinate those that are driving transmission versus those that are most vulnerable and so on. And what combination

of all those? Okay, let's do this with those most exposed. Let's continue to figure out in better and better ways. And this seems to be very effective right now, protecting the most vulnerable, while now vaccinating initially, potentially, those that are most likely to drive infection transmission. So that's a little bit there. Switching, we still see some bits of rioting and looting. It seems to be more and more and more isolated with everyone on edge. Will there be another triggering event? We know that there are heavy duty investigations into each and every encounter that happens and with more and more body worn cameras and other better evidence, other cameras and things like that. You know, you'll see a lot of this come

to bear on any type of encounter that is a potential trigger. And so again, at LPRC, working with the group from the loss prevention innovation working group here at LPRC, on this idea of a fusion center, that provide more visibility and coordination amongst retailers that want to participate in that. So stay tuned on that. And so we're continuing with some of the R3 research initiatives, the rapid response research, particularly on high value, high return innovation. on high value, high return innovation. Again, starting in that zone four, the parking lot, on enhancing the curbside efficiency and experience,

but including safety and security during that process with more and more of our parking lots and their return, their BOPUS, BORUS, curbside ecosystems being imaged with our Matterport and other technologies right now. We're in development of where we're pouring that information and that imagery into virtual reality so that the UF intern and faculty that we're working with on virtual reality will be able to do much more rapid research around different options. And again, in science, it's all about options. What's a logic model? What are options and ways that we might deliver that? Let's start collecting data from the shopper, from the employees, and in some cases,

from the active criminal offenders, have a 3D picture, and now start weighing in, okay, narrow down to one or two or three options. Now we can do some rigorous testing to see what boosts efficiency and user experience and so forth and reduces victimization. So stay tuned on what we're doing with R3. So what I'll do is impacts coming up the first week in October. We're excited. Record enrollment, the strategy ad for the most senior. Again, we just surpassed what's our normal enrollment already. And we're expecting we're going to get a record enrollment there from our vice presidents of asthma protection or loss prevention out there. And very excited about that. More reporting going into our knowledge

center. But always please go to lpresearch.org to our, you'll see the COVID-19 landing page, the writing and looting preparation and prevention landing page. You'll see the, of course, the enrollment opportunity for LPRC Impact 2020. That is open to the public, most, almost all sessions. And strategy ad is invitation only of the most senior APLP leaders or decision makers. So with that, I'm going to go over to a friend and colleague, Tony D'Onofrio. Tony, if you could take it away. Thank you very much, Reid. And today is a special day. We have a special guest with us. His name is Joe Skoruba, a really great industry friend. Joe is the editorial director and feature blogger for RIS News, a leading retail voice from the Ensemble IQ media portfolio. Joe is

frequently named as one of the top influencers in retail and technology. He's a frequent speaker at conferences such as SXXW and directed Oracle Open World and the NRF Big Show. His blog was named the top B2B retail blog by Folio Magazine. The RRH News website was named the best B2B website by Folio Magazine in both 2018 and 2019. It's my great pleasure to introduce Joe. Go ahead, Joe. Well, thank you, Tony and Reid, and especially Tony, who I have been reading through social media and meeting at industry events around the country for a number of years. And Tony, I really miss our seeing each other at the NRF Big Show and all of the other conferences that we usually get together at.

And hopefully we'll be able to do that soon. Thank you for welcoming me to the podcast. And my intent today is to provide some insight into what retailers are thinking and doing right now to adjust to the unique circumstances we're experiencing during the pandemic of 2020. Now, especially, I'm going to be focusing on the upcoming 2020 holiday season, which Michelle Gass, CEO of Kohl's, has said will be a holiday like no other. Now, my expertise is in the areas of retail and retail technology, and those are the ways I'm going to shape my comments. Now, retail has always been at the forefront of change. This is nothing new. Retail is characterized by continuous evolution and reinvention because basically it's had to. It earned its keep every day in the

marketplace and is on the front line, so to speak, of any macro changes that occur. As a result, the smartest and most successful retailers are those that have invested and reinvested over time in innovation and adaptation because that enables them to meet marketplace demands regardless of disruptions. Now, that said, the COVID-19 pandemic is the biggest disruption of the 21st century so far, and we all recognize it has had a profound impact on retailing. And also, of course, the overall economy. Many industries have been decimated since the outbreak in March. And, you know, a couple of of those include restaurant industry, airlines,

movie industry, concerts, international travel, et cetera. But retail in particular has become deeply distorted by the effects of the pandemic on shopper behaviors during what we have to recognize as an at-home economy, something pretty new to us. And of course, government lockdowns. Brick and mortar stores, for example, are closing in record numbers because of these shifts, upwards of 20,000 stores so far in 2020. Also, e-commerce at the same time, for the second quarter, by the way, just numbers just recently announced, grew by 31.8%. So stores are closed. E-commerce is up.

By the way, they're predicting that e-commerce will grow 44.5% year over year. And that's actually a rate we have so far this year, so it's likely to go up and that's from the US Department of Commerce. By the end of the year, e-commerce as a share of the retail pie will account for 14.5% of US retail sales and that's up from 11% in 2019 according to eMarketer.

So these are some macro shifts that certainly play into this. And it's something that what I call a retail industry pandemic distortion. And it's producing a once in a lifetime, if I could perhaps be a bit prone to making a big pronouncement here, a once in a lifetime bifurcation in retail with big winners emerging among essential retailers, and these are retailers that the government's allowed to stay open with their brick and mortar stores to sell food, drugs, hardware, etc. And then the big losers, on the other hand, that have endured long periods of enforced closure. And to get specific here, by winners, I'm referring to the booming online sales that I cited. In many cases for specific retailers, we're seeing a doubling and tripling of online sales.

This has produced record overall sales growth in quarterly reports for these essential retailers and, of course, strong profits for their shareholders. In this group, just mentioned a few, Walmart, Target, Overstock.com, Tractor Supply, Kroger, Costco, Dollar General, Home Depot, Lowe's, and Amazon, of course. Now, in the big loser group, thanks to being deemed non-essential and enduring store closures, basically are a whole collection of clothing store retailers, department stores, and specialty stores. And some names there include JCPenney, Pier One, J.Crew, Neiman Marcus, Brooks Brothers, and Lord & Taylor, all of whom declared bankruptcy recently, and others that have not declared bankruptcy but are

still hanging on despite losing massive amounts of sales and profits are the TJX companies, Ross Stores, and Burlington. So this is the pandemic. This is when six and a half million confirmed cases of COVID-19 occur in the United States and more than 27% worldwide. This is the reality retailers face as they approach the biggest selling season of their calendar year, the fourth quarter, which includes the end of the year holidays, a time when the average retailer pulls in 30 to 40% of annual sales. However, the point I'm going to take, the perspective I'm going to take here is that with great challenges come great opportunities. So I'd like to spend a few minutes talking about the number one topic on retailer minds today, and that's how best to succeed during the final quarter of the 2020 holiday season and what steps they can take that will have an immediate impact on setting strategy. So you're likely to see many of these steps I'm going to talk about here, these eight points I'm going to talk about being set in motion by retailers. And I focused on these, by the way, in a recent Retail Insight blog that I write for RIS News,

and you can find that at www.risnews.com. So number one, the number one point I pointed out was supercharged communication channels. And this plays an important role because in an at-home economy, digital communication is king. So retailers are advised to ramp up efforts in text messaging, something they have not always pursued. Social media, of course, but also online service options on their website, on their mobile devices. And it's also time for retailers to roll out, or if they already have them, to boost such new technologies as chatbots and voice commerce, which is being used in larger numbers because of the at-home economy in in-home voice commerce devices, and as you've seen perhaps recently in some advertisements on TV for Buick in automobiles.

Buick is calling themselves an Alexa automobile these days. Number two as a tip for retailers, something you're going to be seeing is spreading out of promotions. Retailers are still reeling from supply chain breakdowns they experienced during the early days of the pandemic from stockouts on one end of the spectrum and overfilled warehouses on the other. Now, to avoid causing further breakdowns of this kind and disappointing shoppers and frustrating them, retailers are starting their winter sales promotions now, basically in September, or they will be starting them in a few weeks. And the intent here is to spread out the selling cycle and avoid disappointing

shoppers with delivery delays caused by holiday surges. And of course, FedEx, the USPS, UPS, And of course, FedEx, the USPS, UPS, and other delivery services have already predicted there will be delays. Number three, the tip I have for retailers and something you're going to as athleisure over fashion, such as the home over shiny new things, and focusing on the family over personal style. Essential means more than just groceries and cleaning products. It includes a wide range of products that shoppers literally cannot live without, such as cooking utensils, supplies, and tools, home improvement materials, vitamins, personal care, home office materials for all the folks working at home, and games and learning materials for at-home children. All of these can be considered essential products. Omnichannel is

and always has been king. That's my number four tip. And while e-commerce is currently setting sales records, the key takeaway for smart and successful retailers is that investing in omnichannel supercharges all of the channels. This includes optimizing websites, mobile channels, online marketplace platforms, click and collect in stores, and fast fulfillment for shipping and home delivery. The point is that the channels feed off of each other to create a virtuous circle. Number five, focus on commerce-ready inventory. Now for retailers, inventory is where the rubber meets the road. In the traditional supply chain, however, inventory is something that you can consider more of as containers, as cartons, ships, planes, trains, and trucks. However, what retailers learned during the early days of the pandemic is that every other link in the supply chain is just prologue to the steps

associated with inventory management at the point of sale. So right now, retailers should be making investments in technologies and processes that optimize final mile maturity of inventory, such as order orchestration, direct-to-consumer shipping, fulfillment, home delivery, click-and-collect, and geofencing in parking lots for curbside pickup. Now, home delivery, for one example, for home for curbside pickup. Now home delivery for one example is estimated to increase by 30% for the 2020 holiday season according to the last mile technology vendor convey and just the other day I think it was the end of last week 7-Eleven for example not your traditional home delivery kind of retailer just partnered created a big partnership with Instacart so that 7-Eleven could also be involved in home delivery. Number six, personalized services and boost empathy. In a

divisive and worrisome environment, a little personalized messaging goes a long way, and this goes for the holiday workforce, which should not only be trained in health and safety rules, but also in empathy and de-escalating the oft-times fraught emotional state of shoppers. Personalize and reassuring messages to go into all of training and communications, which includes greetings as shoppers enter or leave the store as they wait in line for checkout, and even in simple messages sent to shoppers for shipment notification and order confirmations. Number seven, appointment scheduling comes of age. Thanks to the pandemic, shoppers can now make appointments to enter bike shops, liquor stores, and restaurants, to name a few. Best Buy

maximized sales during the early days of the pandemic through its robust program for appointment scheduling. Walmart and Target, among its robust program for appointment scheduling. Walmart and Target, among others, extensively use appointment scheduling technology to set pickup times and parking lots for online orders. My last tip, number eight, is reinvent demand data. I think the number one issue on retailers' minds today from the conversations I've been having is how to adjust demand data so they can set their holiday purchasing plans in motion with accurate forecasts. It's no secret that the demand data tools retailers use are based on historical sales, which are useless in a pandemic holiday season. season. Smart retailers, however, are modifying their demand data models by ensuring that all of their internal data sources are aggregated into a single demand signal. And this includes store sales, online sales, mobile sales, loyalty programs, third-party marketplaces, and direct to consumer sales. For many retailers, these databases are siloed. Smart retailers will also add new external sources to the demand database, such as social media, competitive data, supplier partner data, and more.

Additionally, they will move as fast as they can to create dashboards that show real-time data, which will enable transparency in individual sales by product, by store, by channel, by category, and by geographic region. And in this way, they're going to be able to make meaningful adjustments to maximize sales in the moment. Now, let me wrap up, Tony, by saying that with great challenges, or reemphasize, that with great challenges come great opportunities. And the retailers that follow steps like the eight I've listed, we'll get it right and we'll succeed in the fourth quarter of 2020. And I think you'll see a lot of that. And let's not forget that 2020 is a year and a holiday season like no other in the long history of retail.

Thank you, Tony. Thank you very much, Joe. That was very, very enlightening. And let me actually add by some predictions of what the holiday season could actually look like from Salesforce. So Salesforce, and I'm actually going to take a global perspective on the data that I'm going to share today. So up to 30% of all global retail sales will be made through digital channels this year during the holiday season. And again, that's a spike. Prime Day, which was initially Amazon Prime Day, which was initially Amazon Prime Day,

which was initially scheduled for July, was moved to October. And it could potentially steal up 10% of cyber weeks in digital revenue. And because it's in October, there's only 50 days between the cyber week and the rest of the holiday season. So what that tells you is exactly what Joe was saying. Things are going to move earlier this year in terms of shopping. Also to support what Joe was saying, parcels shipped by traditional delivery services will exceed capacity by 5% across the globe this year. What that literally means that up to 700 million gifts are not going to arrive on time this year. What that literally means is that up to 700 million gifts are not going to

arrive on time this year. Stores will be critical once again, but mainly as fulfillment centers. And the ones that have services such as curbside, inside that drive-thru, will see a 90% increase in digital sales. And finally, from Salesforce, the media mix will continue to dramatically shift to personalization and localization. 10% of mobile orders will be through social channels. So that's from Salesforce. From Tatista, in terms of the spike that we're all going through, this is the latest data they published on online traffic through June. Supermarkets are up 61%, sports equipment 48%, jewelry and watchers 31%, and cosmetics 19%. And finally, home furnishing DIY up 16%. Saw a spike. Home furnishing DIY up 16%. Saw a spike. And then what are the reasons why you want to,

what are good reasons why you want to buy online? So direct delivery to home was number one, followed by cheaper prices, more convenient way to shop, available around the clock, and greater product range are the reasons. And that, again, is from Statista. And finally, from Statista, since Walmart recently announced a Walmart Plus counter to Amazon Prime, these are the reasons why people buy Prime from Amazon.

Number one, they want the free one-day shipping. Number two, this was a surprise, which, again, tells you that some retailers have figured out they need to be media companies. Number two is the availability of Amazon Prime Video. Number three, free same-day shipping. Number four, exclusive deals, access to exclusive deals. And number five, which again was a surprise is access to amazon prime music so those again some thoughts to support some of the things that joe said and with that i'm going to turn over to

tom oh thank you tony reed and joe thank you for jumping on um a little bit of the same old same old when it comes to risk but we'll just talk a little bit about as children are returning to school the northeast you may have noticed that your Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google meetings have been challenging. Most of the major conference providers are struggling with the spike in demand. They've all seemed to level out, but as I think we actually experienced ourselves with the podcast here. As schools continue to go back in, these strains are real. It also leads us to the cybersecurity risk of continuing to remind everyone of the listener work computer separate from your children's school computer because it is a soft target. Turning news to some specific targeted cyber attacks from North Korea, there was a whole bunch of reporting that went out in the last week. Pretty much every publication that reports on cybersecurity

mentioned a group called the Beagle Boys, and it's a North Korean state-sponsored attack that particularly attacks banks and ATMs and doesn't necessarily target just banks. It's really more of an ATM where they're using a remote attack and actually a person at the ATM taking money out. This is really not a new phenomenon, but it resurfaced in February. Some could lead that it had to do with COVID, but the reality here is that this has been going on globally for some time. It is starting to make its way into the United States and affecting folks that have retail, retailers that have bank ATMs in their locations. And what happens is there's a remote access and actually someone is at the ATM collecting cash. Last year, there was a lot of news about it and it kind of fizzled

out. But the interesting part here is that this is a state-sponsored North Korean attack where the funds and the proceeds go back to the government. It's just a reminder that cybersecurity needs to be forefront and thinking of risk and that it isn't just kind of the old anthem of this hacker in their basement that there are state-sponsored attacks. And with retail going through such an advanced digital transformation, we become prime targets. We have a plethora of customer information and a plethora of financial data, as well as just good, good networks to go after because of the size and scheme. The ATM cash out schemes, while they're not directly targeted towards retail, are affecting some retailers here. But again, it's just a reminder of the state-sponsored impact.

Many consumers are faced with increased chargebacks. I know we've been talking about this for months, but one of the things, especially in your more entertainment-driven things that have venues. Travel has experienced a huge spike in chargebacks, and these aren't all related to fraud. Some of these are just services that weren't rendered in the retail sector. It could be new items that didn't come through. And again, pretty much if you look at all of your payment data, there's numerous people reporting on this. The numbers are from June and July, but you're seeing an upward of 40% chargeback increases, and they're not all to fraud. Some of

them are fraudulent in nature or friendly fraud where customers are double dipping, if you will. But then also a direct result of some of the challenging times we're in is as retailers are becoming overwhelmed and flipping the e-com switch, as I call it, you know, your brick and mortar stores that had a small e-com footprint that went to a larger e-com footprint. They're balancing that customer service and taking care of the customer with the chargeback area. So a good customer who legitimately doesn't receive a package files a dispute and calls for a refund and actually gets both. This is actually occurring. There are a whole bunch of different ways that retailers are combating it. But the challenge here is that balance of I want my customer to be happy.

They really didn't receive it. And that piece. that piece. So the miscommunication and obviously once the chargeback is received, it isn't always relevant or evident to a retailer and or a customer for that matter. And personally, just to give a personal, we, my wife and I made a large order of furniture that was not delivered and it took the retailer 67 days to credit our card. So the reality, we actually did dispute it. We didn't, we did not double dip, but it took the retailer 67 days to credit our card. So, um, the reality, we, we actually did dispute it. We didn't, we did not double dip, but it took the retailer 67 days. And this is a very large retailer with a global footprint. And what they said is they were just overwhelmed. And that's a perfect

example of how, um, you know, we, we contacted the bank and didn't double dip, but we probably would have been credit would have been given the money twice. That's a very real challenge that retailers are having right now. And there was a whole host of reporting that just went out the last week with May, June, July numbers that kind of play to that. So it's just a reminder of the importance of balancing your customer service with your risk models when you're walking through. Reid mentioned a little bit about some of the protest activity, and I know that we talked about this a couple times on the call. We are working, the LPRC is working in a working group to create a virtual special

operations grant center, or SOC. We had a really productive call last week, and I think we've had a call the last few weeks in a row, and really coming back to the membership with a tangible solution to help drive information to the masses really related to civil disturbance, whether any global or U.S. event that would interfere. So we're starting, obviously, with a very pointed, narrow approach to make sure that we can get information out. But it couldn't be more timely. And last week, there was this weekend, but not even last week, this weekend, there were two fairly large organized protests throughout the United States. One did not lead to a riot, the other one, it did. And there wasn't a tremendous amount of news coverage on it. I actually, um, uh, received some stuff over the weekend of some

fires being set in Manhattan and I struggled to find news on them. Um, so, uh, the importance of having an open source intelligence gathering, and that is the reason the LPRC is working on it. I know that we'll have an update for the group during impact and we'll continue to update on this, but I would argue, it's not about brushing off the manual about social media listening. It's really about coming up with different ways to do it. And I'll leave you with this Twitter in the last 60 days has really restricted a lot of their search terminology through Twitter. So if you've ever heard me speak about it and read and I've spoke about it actually

several times in the past, you could through Twitter's kind of open feed get about 2% of what there were. You'll notice today that a lot of terms are being limited on what you can search or what's coming up. So now more than ever, it's important to have a solution out there to help really identify where there'll be business disruptions related to civil disturbance, whether it be violent, whether it be a protest or a nonviolent protest. it be a protest or a nonviolent protest, obviously in this, with all of the extenuating circumstances, retailers want to know what entrances to close, what entrances to open. And I'll leave you with the note of it's ever-changing and fluid. So stay tuned for the updates on the LPRC SOC and over to you, Rick. All right. Thanks so much, much tom tony joe for all your insights incredible information and you know we we're really about the red and the green shopper but again it's about safeguarding vulnerable people in these places and spaces and that's where we always start and

that's where we end the shopper's got to have, the employee's got to have a very safe and secure experience. And that's what we're dedicated to, or there is, there are no sales. So we'll go back over to you, Kevin, and we'll turn over as our producer, but I want to thank everybody for joining us today. Please be safe out there. Any questions, comments, suggestions, we are always open at operations at lpresearch.org. And again, that is the website, lpresearch.org. And having said that,

signing off from Gainesville. Thank you.