Editor’s Letter

Jack Trlica, Editor-in-Chief

An Industry That Is Flourishing

Whether you are on the retail side of the desk, the supplier side, or a piece of the business that is transitioning into asset protection, we encourage you to join us in this exciting journey that is retail loss prevention. The past two years have been a roller coaster ride for the broad economy as well as our niche loss prevention industry. Not only has the business of retail had to pivot and change with the pandemic, so too did the business of serving retailers with the technology and programs necessary to manage those changes.

Solutions providers had to change how they communicated with retail buyers, how they demonstrated their software, and how they partnered with existing clients to continue to serve their needs—often from a long distance. By most accounts, the industry not only survived the downturn, but in more cases than not, actually flourished.

From the magazine’s perspective of providing informative content for our loss prevention readers as well as a venue for advertisers to promote their products and services to LP buyers, we too transitioned rapidly and successfully. The year 2021, our twentieth anniversary of publishing the magazine, was one of our best.

Creatively, we redesigned the print magazine to be more contemporary and readable, which was very well received. Not only was the magazine filled cover to cover with outstanding editorial content from our many contributors, but it also provided considerable thought-leadership content from our sponsoring partners.

So too, our digital channels were packed with original and thought-leadership content in the form of daily e-newsletters, website posts, audio and video podcasts, whitepapers, and live and on-demand webinars. All this content was shared with our social media connections as well.

The magazine’s success is directly attributable to the twenty years of trust and credibility that has built the LP Magazine brand as well as the foresight of our many advertising partners who resisted the temptation to pull back and, instead, trusted us to carry their message to the industry throughout the pandemic. Every recession or economic downturn has proven that those companies that continue to market themselves during economic uncertainty end

Every recession or economic downturn has proven that those companies that continue to market themselves during economic uncertainty end up with greater market share in the end.

up with greater market share in the end. We expect this will hold true again.

With that said, we are forecasting an even stronger 2022. We have exciting plans to continue to expand both our print and digital channels. We plan to continue to widen our editorial content beyond the traditional topics we’ve addressed during the past two decades to new topics that asset protection and retail operations organizations are finding important to the ongoing evolution of retail. We are already writing more on cybersecurity, the Internet of Things, risk management, and the supply chain, and we are on the lookout for what the next important topics may be.

Whether you are on the retail side of the desk, the supplier side, or a piece of the business that is transitioning into asset protection, we encourage you to join us in this exciting journey that is retail loss prevention. After having spent over thirty years associated with this industry, I can attest that it continues to be an interesting, exciting, challenging, and close-knit community.

Thanks to everyone who has supported our twenty-year journey. Join us for the next twenty. Who knows where retail loss prevention will be in the next decade and beyond?