Grocery stores lose billions each year to shrinkage caused by products that are damaged, expired, stolen, or not properly scanned at checkout. However, proactive shrinkage-reduction steps don’t need to impact the shopper’s experience negatively.
The most effective strategy balances grocery shrinkage reduction with shopability—keeping products accessible, pricing visible, and traffic flowing.
Let’s take a look at how ESLs and retail display hardware can help.
Product Protection Designed for Grocery Stores
Protecting high-demand items is essential for reducing shrinkage and maintaining profitability. At the same time, the right fixtures must preserve accessibility and a positive shopping experience.
ADA-Safe Security Fixtures
Security solutions must balance strength with safety. ADA-safe fixtures protect merchandise while ensuring customers of all abilities can access products and displays.
Several Kinter products are available to keep your displays ADA-compliant:
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Flush sign holders: Gripper Flush Sign Holders for Slatwalls keep signage tight against the fixture to prevent snagging and crowding.
- Hinged styles: K-Frame Gondola Upright Holders will swing back when bumped in busy aisles to avoid injury and damage.
- Under-shelf mounting options: Spring-Mount Gripper Sign Holders provide flexibility in high-traffic areas without obstructing products or sightlines.
ADA-safe fixtures reduce shrinkage by keeping products secure without creating barriers that limit accessibility for shoppers. Their low-profile, bump-safe designs also deter theft by ensuring displays remain organized and easy to navigate in busy aisles.
Tethered Demo Hardware for High-Value Accessories
While customer-product interaction and hands-on experience can often drive sales, these products are also frequent targets for theft. Without packing, they are easily slipped into a pocket, bag, or otherwise disguised in the theft process.
Tethered demo hardware helps solve this challenge by securing merchandise directly to the display.
Security tethers allow shoppers to handle items while preventing walk-off theft, making tethers a practical choice for high-value accessories in electronics, health, and beauty aisles.
Secure Bins and Hinged-Lid Containers for Small Goods
Small items are among the most vulnerable to shrinkage because they are portable and easy to disguise. Clear, durable bins stop this type of merchandise from becoming an easy target by offering secure and organized solutions. These solutions keep the product accessible for consumers by maintaining product visibility without compromising security.
Options like the Heavy-Duty Bin with Pegboard or Slatwall Hooks provide reliable display flexibility.
Opti-Bins with label-holder accessories make pricing updates simple, while merchandising bins in clear acrylic, vented glass, or wicker materials enhance presentation.
Kinter can also custom-engineer lids or locking covers to secure high-risk items further.
Anti-Sweep Shelf Dividers and Fencing
Shelf sweeping is one of the most damaging types of grocery theft, often contributing to significant losses in a short period of time. This theft tactic quickly sweeps or clears multiple items from a display into a bag or cart to steal in bulk.
Low-profile front fences and dividers offer a simple but effective way to make sweeping more difficult while still keeping products easy to see and reach.
Kinter’s Shelf Dividers and Front Fences keep items organized on the shelf, and the Magnetic Back Shelf Gripper helps maintain alignment even when standard back-shelf holes are not available.
This solution combination reduces opportunities for theft while keeping displays clean, orderly, and inviting for shoppers.
Learn more about how low-profile front fences can reduce sweep attempts in our blog.
One-at-a-Time Pusher Trays and Take One Hooks for High-Shrinkage SKUs
Limiting how much product a customer can remove at once is another proven way to reduce shrinkage. One-at-a-time dispensing systems ensure products are shopped fairly and securely.
Kinter offers Take One Metal Hooks with T-Scan Bars and Anti-Sweep Metal Hooks that control product flow on pegged displays.
For categories in need of custom support, Kinter can design pusher tray systems that release items individually to protect high-shrinkage SKUs.
This combination of secure retail display hardware helps retailers reduce losses without compromising shopability. When paired with electronic shelf labels for rapid pricing updates and clear signage, stores gain an integrated defense that strengthens both operations and customer experience.
"Retailers often underestimate how much shopper engagement depends on trust. When products are displayed securely but remain easy to handle or view, customers feel comfortable interacting with them. That drives purchasing decisions." - Gary McWorther, Business Development Executive at Kinter
Pricing Protection Designed for Grocery Stores
Accurate pricing is the core of a successful grocery operation. When shelf tags are wrong, customers lose confidence, sales slip, and checkout slows as staff are forced to verify and correct prices.
Protecting pricing requires consistency and clarity, along with tools that make updates fast and manageable across thousands of products.
By pairing dependable hardware with digital tools, retailers can reduce mistakes, streamline updates, and create a shopping experience that feels reliable from aisle to checkout.
Electronic Shelf Label and Digital Price Tag Holders
Electronic shelf labels and digital price tag holders give retailers the ability to update prices across an entire store in real time. This eliminates the constant labor of replacing paper tags and greatly reduces the chance of price mismatches at checkout.
Our product lineup includes clip-on attachments, magnetic mounts, adhesive strips, stands, rail systems, and label covers, each designed to hold digital price tags securely in place. Our extensive selection of ESL and digital label holders is engineered to fit:
- Gondolas
- Refrigerated cases
- A wide range of fixed shelf styles
- And more!
Kinter’s custom ESL holders are made to keep digital tags secure and readable, even in the busiest sections of the store. When a retailer has a unique layout or a specialized display, Kinter can build custom solutions that fit smoothly with the fixtures already in place. This approach supports accurate pricing, protects margins, and keeps the overall presentation neat and consistent.
"Digital pricing improves two things: speed and trust. Storewide tags that match checkout prices will increase customer confidence in their shopping experience with you.” - Gary McWorther, Business Development Executive at Kinter
Case Study: A Major Retailer’s Dilemma
One large grocery chain found it challenging to keep pace with frequent price changes across thousands of products. Employees were spending hours replacing paper tags, and errors at the shelf were becoming a routine problem.
After switching to electronic shelf labels secured with Kinter ESL holders, the retailer could update prices in minutes across hundreds of locations. Customer complaints about incorrect pricing dropped, while labor costs and shrinkage were reduced. With digital tools supported by durable hardware, the chain built a pricing system that stayed accurate, saved time, and protected margins in a competitive market.
Read the full case study showing how Kinter helped the national grocery chain improve its pricing efficiency and improve customer satisfaction.
Shrinkage affects every grocery store, and unchecked losses can multiply. The right grocery display hardware can help reduce shrinkage while keeping accessibility strong for customers to browse and buy.
Well-planned fixtures safeguard inventory and protect margins while keeping shelves neat and approachable. From ADA-safe security fixtures and tethered demo hardware to shelf dividers, bins, and digital pricing solutions, Kinter offers tools that strike the balance between security and shopability.
Explore the full range of anti-theft retail hardware and pricing protection solutions designed for grocery stores. View or download the Kinter catalog to find fixtures that fit your needs, or connect directly with our team about custom display solutions for your grocery stores.
Additional resources:
- Electronic Shelf Label Holders
- Tackling Product Sweeping in Retail
- Kinter’s Retail Display Hardware Solutions
- Kinter Blog for more insights and solutions