Where to put the cameras
in a shop

The till camera goes above the head of whoever is taking payment, facing the counter: hands, cash drawer and card terminal are what matter, not the customer's whole face or the ceiling. Mounted too high, it only catches caps and the tops of heads; too low, the cashier's own body blocks the shot as soon as they lean forward. The range that works for most counters is 2.2 to 2.6 metres, angled towards the work surface and slightly to one side of the cashier, never directly above the back of their neck. It's worth testing it with a real person behind the counter before screwing it in place: what looks fine on the installer's screen while standing may not match what it records at the actual height of a seated or shorter member of staff. That five-minute adjustment saves having to redo the job.

It covers a lot of ground and proves little. A fisheye gives an overview of the shop that tells you where someone moved, but the distortion at its edges rarely lets you identify a face or pin down which hand took which product, which is what you really need the day there's a theft. It makes sense as a complement in the middle of the shop, supporting the fixed-point cameras, never replacing them: the till camera is still needed, framed on the counter, and the entrance camera is still needed, facing whoever comes in. A common mistake is buying a single wide-angle camera in the belief that it replaces three, and discovering on the day of the theft that the image is lovely but useless as evidence. If the budget is tight, fewer well-framed cameras are better than a panoramic view that sees everything and proves nothing.

Only the minimum needed to identify whoever comes in: the door and roughly a metre of threshold, not the whole pavement or the pedestrian crossing. A front-of-shop camera that takes in the whole street records neighbours, delivery drivers and cars that have nothing to do with the shop, which besides being unnecessary creates a data protection problem: the more people unconnected with the business the camera captures, the greater the responsibility of whoever installs it. And it's not just an abstract legal issue: a camera pointing at the doorway opposite or a neighbour's window generates real complaints and sometimes a formal complaint that could have been avoided with a simple change of angle. It's enough to tilt the lens downwards and check live what appears in the frame before fixing the bracket.

Yes, and it's usually the most overlooked point. The door connecting the shop to the back room, and the loading bay if there is one, are where stock disappears without any customer or member of staff at the counter seeing it go. Unlike shoplifting, which is usually caught by the till or aisle camera, stockroom shrinkage almost never has witnesses, so one well-placed camera on that specific route does more than two or three spread along the product aisles. You don't need to cover the whole stockroom: the access door and, if there is one, the loading area are enough to know who went in, when and what they came out with. It's also the point at which to review who has a key or access code, because a camera without access control only records the problem; it doesn't prevent it.

No, without exception, and no sign can fix it. Changing rooms, enclosed fitting rooms and toilets are spaces where privacy is assumed, and they're off limits to any camera, whether it's watching customers or staff. The argument that "this is where the goods get hidden" changes nothing: theft of cash or products is controlled at the till, at the exit and on the shop floor itself, not inside an enclosed space meant for changing clothes. Installing a camera there, even a concealed one or one that's switched off most of the time, exposes the business to a fine and, above all, to losing the trust of customers and staff if it's discovered. If the real problem is theft from the fitting rooms, the solution is to limit the number of items taken in, not to record inside a closed cubicle.

Facing whoever comes in, whenever possible: it's the only thing that lets you see a face and identify someone later. A camera facing the other way, following someone who has already come in, only catches the back of the head and the clothes of whoever is leaving, which is of little use if someone needs to be recognised for a police report. If the shop only has room or budget for one camera at the door, that camera has to face whoever is arriving, not the inside of the shop. Backlighting is the usual enemy of this shot: if the door opens onto a very bright street, the person coming in can end up as a silhouette and lose all identifying value, so it's worth checking the framing at different times of day before signing it off.

Square metres aren't the unit that counts, and that's the most common mistake when quoting for an installation. What you need to count are the critical points: the entrance, the till, the route to the stockroom and, if there is one, any aisle out of sight of the till. An 80 square metre shop may need three well-placed cameras if it has a single counter and a small stockroom, or five if it has two entrances and several aisles that block the view. Counting square metres leads to spreading cameras evenly across the space, which is exactly the mistake that produces footage of ceilings and empty aisles instead of hands and faces. The right way to size an installation is to walk the shop pointing out each spot where something can really happen, and put a camera there, and only there.

It's almost always better not to frame it that way, because a shop ceiling can usually be cabled without major works: a suspended ceiling, surface trunking or a discreet cable grommet sorts out most premises without pulling anything apart. A Wi-Fi camera avoids the data cable, but it still needs a power supply somewhere, so the saving in work is smaller than it seems: if you have to run power to the camera anyway, running a network cable as well costs little more and gives a more stable picture, with no dropouts and no dependence on the shop's Wi-Fi coverage. Wi-Fi has its place in rented or temporary installations, where works aren't worthwhile because the business may move soon. In a shop that intends to stay, cabling from the outset saves the frustration of a frozen picture on the day you need it most.