I’ve worked in retail, and… That’s not an actual RFID alarm sticker, and it’s not just there for the potential theives.
Some manufacturers will actually put an RFID tag on the inside of the box. These tags work exactly like the RFID stickers, and they’re deactivated the same way (usually a magnet underneath the store’s counter).
This sticker is actually a “chip away” anti-theft sticker. They frequently go on the same products that get RFID stickers, but all they do is tear apart instead of peeling off. They’re mostly an internal tool for LP to try to link thefts and fraudulent returns (that number is the store number that it came from). This one just happens to conveniently have “ALARM” printed on it as a secondary feature, letting thieves know that the item will set off the alarm without showing where the RFID tag is.
Edit: I should probably add that they also put them on high-theft non-alarmed items, but they probably didn’t get separate sets of stickers.
It surprises me that the tags are deactivated instead of read by a reader and registered in a database as “sold” and the alarm system checks that database whenever it reads a tag. That way it would be impossible for thieves to just deactivate the tag with their own magnet.
I’ve worked in retail, and… That’s not an actual RFID alarm sticker, and it’s not just there for the potential theives.
Some manufacturers will actually put an RFID tag on the inside of the box. These tags work exactly like the RFID stickers, and they’re deactivated the same way (usually a magnet underneath the store’s counter).
This sticker is actually a “chip away” anti-theft sticker. They frequently go on the same products that get RFID stickers, but all they do is tear apart instead of peeling off. They’re mostly an internal tool for LP to try to link thefts and fraudulent returns (that number is the store number that it came from). This one just happens to conveniently have “ALARM” printed on it as a secondary feature, letting thieves know that the item will set off the alarm without showing where the RFID tag is.
Edit: I should probably add that they also put them on high-theft non-alarmed items, but they probably didn’t get separate sets of stickers.
It surprises me that the tags are deactivated instead of read by a reader and registered in a database as “sold” and the alarm system checks that database whenever it reads a tag. That way it would be impossible for thieves to just deactivate the tag with their own magnet.