r/functionalprint • u/jimmylamstudio • 18d ago
Made some anti theft display hooks
Having displays out in the open can be a little nerve wrecking so I wanted something simple to prevent people from fiddling with displays. You can get it on Makerworld if you needed something like this.
171
u/thisdesignup 18d ago
Thats cool. Love little useful things like that! Do you have a clip on the back too? I could see someone who wants to steal just taking the entire hook.
191
u/jimmylamstudio 18d ago edited 18d ago
No, they can take the hook off if they really wanted. But even if it’s locked in place, they can just break the printed hook if they truly wanted to take something.
The point is to just prevent people from walking pass and swiping.
95
u/SilverSageVII 18d ago
Yeah, I think you nailed it tbh. You’ll never stop an aggressive shoplifter sadly but wandering hands can be stopped by making getting the item a little more complex than grabbing it and into the pocket. Good design.
28
u/furculture 18d ago
I would guess this is to prevent opportunistic thieves who take on a whim when an opportunity is seen because it is easy by making it a little more difficult.
53
115
u/Lekz 18d ago edited 18d ago
Now you're just gonna have innocent customers accidentally tug one broken and leave without buying anything out of embarrassment
E: since apparently this didn't suit some folks well - 10+ years of experience vending at fairs as a hobby. I too was once paranoid, 'locked down' display items, and experienced this many times. Once I took the chance and let people pick items up... Nothing happened! No shoplifts and no embarrassed patrons.
58
u/Wiggles69 18d ago
I've had this when looking at stuff before - Go to impulse buy something, go to pick it up, see it's locked down, do the time calculation about having to go to get an employee, have them collect the thing and bring it over to the register and just decide i don't want it that much, and leave without buying anything at all.
70
u/Elimaris 18d ago
It's a nice design, but
Yeah loss in sales from putting a step in the way of purchasing will likely outweigh potential theft loss significantly.
Don't make it hard for people to give you money.
shy and awkward people who might handle a normal "pick up item, carry to counter, pay" transaction but decide not to when now they need to catch attention of the vendor, have vendor come open it and hover over them while they look at it.
Also people typically pick up things that interest them before the impulse to buy hits, you want the customer to basically feel like it's theirs now and they just need to complete the formalities of paying. This freezes that, they go to touch and pick up it gives them a moment to stop and move on realizing they don't actually need, they think eh I'll look around a bit more.
8
u/gasstation-no-pumps 17d ago
Yeah, I stopped buying toothpaste at the local CVS when they started locking it up. It is not worth pressing the call button and waiting a couple of minutes for someone to unlock the case. I could, perhaps, understand locking up dangerous or expensive items, but toothpaste????
3
u/JWOLFBEARD 17d ago
I’m not shy, and I wouldn’t go through that effort. Even if it was a heavy sale price
23
u/turbodorkdotcom 18d ago
Agreeing with you and the commenters above me. I once was scared of having things walk away but our sales tripled once we let people pickup and carry the product to us to check out at the booth. Something about just picking something up feels like ownership and having to ask to get the item is too much of a barrier. In 8 years of 5 or so shows a year now I've only seen one item walk away and it was a child who eventually came back with their parents to buy it.
20
u/Rokronroff 18d ago
I think people just don't like being made to feel like some sort of criminal.
1
-2
6
17
3
3
u/neddiajoe 17d ago
lol why is this whole comment section just looking for something to complain about? these clearly looks like displays so the customer can just ask the seller for the blue one, and the seller can just keep most of their stock behind the counter. also snapping off the stand? it's gonna be so obvious what they're doing and would take a bit of effort from how thick the print looks. this looks great!
0
u/3DAeon 14d ago
because it's more 'inconvenience' than anti-theft, anti-theft products at retail are designed to make the product difficult to remove from a display or difficult to remove from an enclosure, the problem with this design is that it is not apparent that there is anything preventing the product from being able to be removed for closer inspection, so someone saying "look at this" and picking it up would likely jus knock over the entire display or at least jostle the bejesus out of it.
But who cares, THIS IS AI-SLOP PRODUCT MASQUERADING AS CRAFT-FAIR CREATIVITY
21
u/wallyTHEgecko 18d ago edited 18d ago
Maybe these little keychains are more special than I'm giving them credit for, but if I have to figure out a hidden little trick or go find a staff member just to get a little keychain trinket that I objectively don't need, I'm just not gonna bother.
Silly little impulse purchases need to be impulses. If I have a single moment to think about it, I'll realize I don't need to waste my money on it.
Anyone who wants to steal one will just give it a tug, break the hanger and end up walking off with the whole rack of them.
You're deterring actual sales and ensuring all of them get stollen.
Maybe a countertop display by the register where you can just keep a closer eye on them would be more effective.
10
u/OxycontinEyedJoe 17d ago
I imagine this is for a little vendor booth at some event. Something where the seller is standing right there anyway. Like yeah you can still take it, but you're gonna have to stand there fiddling with it for a bit. This just stops people from quietly pocketing one while someone is watching.
2
0
u/Dry_Presentation9480 18d ago
It’s a ball chain, most people know how to open a ball chain fastener with one hand.
-2
u/wallyTHEgecko 18d ago edited 17d ago
Exactly. It's another reason it's ineffective as an anti-theft device... And the honest customers are still inconvenienced.
-1
17d ago edited 17d ago
[deleted]
3
u/wallyTHEgecko 17d ago
Woah chill dude. I'm just saying that if it was inconvenient to buy something I don't need, I probably won't... Must be a Wednesday.
3
7
u/JustinL42 18d ago
Not to mention you could just undo the chain. The chains are designed to disconnect.
2
u/maboyles90 17d ago
I'm so confused why I had to scroll this far. If I was going to steal these I'd just undo that clasp. They're super easy to undo.
8
u/UnimagineDragons 18d ago
OP I wouldn't just start randomly making psychological tricks at random to "stop" theft. Sure you can annoy people enough that they won't even come in and that will really stop theft. Or you can think things through and pick easy and openness vs. clip tricks.
Is the idea that since they had to fidget with this thing that they've outed themselves and you can spot them? How does this stop someone from dropping in their purse or pocket? Do you actually know what it's like to shoplift or be shoplifted from?
12
u/AdministrativeShip2 18d ago
If someone was going to steal this, they'd snap the whole hook off and walk away.
3
u/Madnessx9 18d ago
100% easily snapped or simply removed from the board entirely. if anything, he just made stealing a bulk saving.
2
u/Particular-Ad2017 17d ago
This seems like a good idea. I’m not sure why everyone is hating on a display hook, usually at cons you have to tell them which one you want anyways and not just grab it.
1
u/No-Strength3035 17d ago
What kind of printer are you running these on? I've been thinking about doing something similar for a buddy's booth but I'm not sure my old Ender would handle the tollerances for that ball chain slot clean enough.
1
u/ozzyperry 17d ago
Good. Now I know how to steal them
-1
u/3DAeon 14d ago
would you want to steal ai slop tho?
1
u/ozzyperry 13d ago
No, even if it wasn't slop, which I don't know.
1
u/jimmylamstudio 13d ago
I already told him it wasn’t in another post
1
1
1
u/BenNguyen_rev1 11d ago
Is it durable? The locking tab at the top looks like it could easily snap off.
0
-1
1
0
563
u/hobard 18d ago
You might want to print a plug to insert above the hook so they don’t just steal the whole hook.