How many CCTV cameras does a shop actually need?

This is the question we are asked more than any other, and the number is the least useful part of the answer. Four cameras in the right places beat eight in the wrong ones, and the difference is not subtle: it decides whether a recording is evidence or just footage.

The four that earn their place

1. The till, from above and behind the customer. This is the most valuable camera in the shop and the one most often mounted wrongly. Behind the counter looking out gives you the customer's face and the money at the same time. Facing the counter from across the shop gives you the back of everyone's head.
2. The entrance, at face height. Not high in a corner looking down — that gives you the top of a cap. Around 2.2 m, angled slightly down, so somebody walking in is framed from the shoulders up for two or three steps.
3. The main aisle or the display of expensive stock. Whatever a shoplifter would go for.
4. The stockroom or back door. Uncomfortable but true: a meaningful share of retail loss is internal, and the back door is where it leaves.

The fifth, if the shop justifies it

An external camera covering the frontage and the pavement. It is the one that helps with the things that are not theft — a damaged shutter, a vehicle, a dispute outside — and it is the one the police ask for. Full-colour night vision matters here more than anywhere: a full-colour night camera gives you a shirt colour, and infrared gives you a grey shape.

Two placements that waste money

A camera pointed at a window or a glass shopfront. It spends the day exposing for the brightest thing in frame, and everyone who walks in is a silhouette. Point cameras away from the light.

A camera in the far corner "covering everything". At 20 metres a face is a handful of pixels at any resolution you can afford. Coverage is not the same as identification, and only one of them is useful afterwards.

Resolution: where to spend and where not to

Put the resolution where you need to identify somebody — the till and the entrance. 2MP is genuinely enough to see that something happened; 4MP or 5MP is what you want when the question is who. On an aisle camera, 2MP is fine and the saving buys another position.

What it costs, roughly

Four Wi-Fi cameras and the memory cards, fitted, is the cheapest honest system for a small shop. A cabled four-camera IP system with an NVR and a hard drive costs more and is the right choice if you want continuous recording you never have to think about. We stock both — see Wi-Fi cameras and IP cameras — and we will tell you honestly which one your shop needs rather than which one costs more.

Buying for several shops, or fitting out for a client? We sell wholesale, and the rates are worth asking about before you order at list price.