Every dollar in your business matters. And yet, if you’re like most operators, you’re losing money every day in ways you can’t always see.
You’re aware of the dramatic events, like a break-in or damage to a high-margin product. Yet it’s the small things that happen, little and often, that lead to the majority of your shrink. A quiet refund processed with no customer present. The inventory case that goes missing from your back door. Or the customer line that grows too long, costing you sales as frustrated guests walk away.
The solution? You already have cameras. You already have data. But they’re siloed. By the time you piece together what happened – if you even can – the damage is done.
That’s where video analytics comes in. Instead of video being just an ‘after-the-fact’ record, video analytics transforms your cameras into proactive tools for loss prevention, fraud detection, compliance, and even operational improvements.
In this article, we’ll unpack:
What video analytics is (and how it’s different from “just video”)
How video analytics helps with loss prevention across industries
Real-world use cases: fraud, shrink, compliance, and more
The ROI of adding video analytics to your business
What to look for when evaluating a video analytics solution
Why Solink is a trusted choice for retailers, restaurants, and multi-location businesses
Think of traditional cameras as a locked filing cabinet. They’re there, they hold information, but to get answers you need to dig through hours of footage manually.
Video analytics offers a superior solution. It uses artificial intelligence (AI) and integrations to make your video feeds searchable, measurable, and actionable. Instead of scrolling through endless video files, you can type “refund with no customer” or “person in red jacket” and pull up the clip you need instantly.
Even more powerful? When you connect video to your business data – like point-of-sale (POS) transactions, access control logs, or alarm events – video becomes the source of truth. You don’t just see what happened. You see why it happened.
This difference is critical in loss prevention. Instead of discovering theft days later, you can detect it immediately, investigate in minutes, and prevent repeat offenses across locations.
The path forward: Steps to modernize security and maximize video-driven value
Most businesses are sitting on a goldmine of untapped video data, limited by outdated systems that keep video siloed and reactive. Download our guide on how to get more from your video data.
How can video analytics help with loss prevention?
Now to the heart of the question, how can video analytics help with your loss prevention strategy? Here are a few of the key benefits.
1. Linking video to transactions
Most theft in restaurants, retail, and hospitality happens quietly at the register. Refund fraud, void scams, and sweethearting (giving unauthorized discounts or freebies to friends) all eat into your margins.
With video analytics, every refund, discount, or no-sale event in the POS is automatically matched with video footage. Managers can review suspicious transactions in seconds. If no customer is visible on screen during a refund? That’s evidence of potential fraud.
Impact: Faster investigations, fewer blind spots, stronger cases for loss prevention, HR or law enforcement.
2. Real-time alerts
Loss prevention isn’t just about finding fraud after it happens. It’s about stopping it in its tracks.
With event-driven analytics, you can set up custom alerts for unusual activity, like:
A register drawer opened without a sale
Motion detected at the back door after hours
A customer queue exceeding service standards
Unauthorized entry into restricted storage
Instead of reviewing footage days later, managers get an alert in real time. That means action can be taken immediately.
Impact: Prevent losses before they grow, reduce false alarms, protect staff and assets.
3. Inventory protection
Shrink doesn’t just happen at the register. It can happen in stockrooms, receiving docks, and even during deliveries.
With video analytics, you can:
Verify deliveries match invoices.
Monitor back-of-house activity to spot theft.
Track suspicious patterns, like employees lingering near stock without reason.
For industries like cannabis and high-value retail, where compliance requires proof of “seed to sale” integrity, this isn’t just loss prevention. It’s staying audit-ready.
Sometimes loss isn’t obvious in one transaction, it’s the pattern over time. A single refund looks harmless. But a cashier processing 10 times the refunds of anyone else? That’s a problem.
Video analytics flags these anomalies automatically, helping managers focus on the right transactions instead of sifting through thousands.
Impact: Spot repeat offenders, cut down on investigation time, reduce training gaps.
5. Faster, stronger investigations
Investigating fraud used to mean hours of scrubbing through footage and reconciling it with reports. By the time you had evidence, days or weeks had passed.
Video analytics compresses that timeline into minutes. You can pull up the transaction, watch the clip, and take action, whether that means coaching, disciplinary action, or escalation.
Impact: Labor savings for managers, stronger documentation for HR, faster case resolution.
Prevent losses with smarter video insights
See how video analytics can make loss prevention more effective.
Financial services: Validate ATM disputes, protect branch operations, detect fraud at the teller level.
Why Solink is the best video security and data analytics solution for your loss prevention strategy
Solink isn’t just another security platform. It’s a video intelligence system that helps multi-location businesses prevent loss, improve operations, and protect margins.
Here’s why loss professional experts love Solink:
Works with your existing cameras (no rip-and-replace).
375+ integrations, including POS, access control, labor, and alarms.
Real-time alerts and exception reporting.
Centralized dashboards across all your locations.
Dedicated customer success managers with 24/7 global support.
For retailers, restaurants, cannabis operators, logistics providers and many other businesses, Solink turns loss prevention from a reactive process into a proactive, profit-protecting strategy.
Ready to see Solink in action? Book a demo today and explore how video analytics can help you protect your business.
Frequently asked questions about video analytics and loss prevention
What is video analytics in loss prevention?
Video analytics applies AI and data tools to video feeds, making them searchable and actionable. For loss prevention, it means you can quickly identify fraud, theft, and suspicious activity — instead of manually scrubbing hours of footage.
How can video analytics help with loss prevention?
Video analytics helps by linking transactions to video, flagging suspicious activity, sending real-time alerts, protecting inventory, and making investigations faster. It shifts video from a reactive evidence tool into a proactive prevention strategy.
Which industries benefit most from video analytics for loss prevention?
Retail, restaurants (QSR/FSR), cannabis, warehousing, logistics, and financial services all benefit. Each uses video analytics slightly differently — from refund fraud detection in retail to compliance audits in cannabis.
How does video analytics reduce investigation time?
Instead of spending hours reviewing footage, managers can pull up a transaction and instantly see the video tied to it. Investigations that used to take days now take minutes.
What’s the ROI of using video analytics for loss prevention?
The ROI of video analytics for loss prevention
Loss prevention investments pay off when they deliver measurable ROI. Here’s where video analytics shines:
Shrink reduction: Catch fraud early and stop theft before it spreads.
Labor savings: Investigations go from hours to minutes, freeing up managers.
Compliance: Audit-ready video proof for regulators, insurers, and law enforcement.
Training and coaching: Use clips to onboard new staff and reinforce policies.
Cross-functional ROI: Security, operations, HR, and compliance teams all benefit.
When margins are thin, even a 1-2% reduction in shrink can be the difference between loss and profit.
Optimize security operations with video analytics
Learn how advanced analytics can support loss prevention efforts.
