Black Friday 2019 falls on November 29, and Memphis retailers are bracing for one of the busiest shopping weekends of the year. The National Retail Federation projects that more than 165 million Americans will shop between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, with a significant portion still preferring brick-and-mortar stores over online alternatives. In Memphis, that translates to packed parking lots at Wolfchase Galleria, long lines outside Target and Walmart locations along Germantown Parkway and Poplar Avenue, and a security challenge that stretches local resources thin.
The private security industry in Memphis has been gearing up for this weekend since September. Companies large and small have hired seasonal guards, coordinated with Memphis Police, and mapped out deployment plans for the roughly 72-hour window when retail crime spikes and crowd management becomes a real concern.
The Scale of the Operation
To understand what Black Friday security looks like in Memphis, consider the geography. The city has three major mall properties (Wolfchase Galleria, Oak Court Mall, and the struggling Southland Mall), dozens of big-box retail locations, and hundreds of smaller shops spread across a metro area that covers more than 300 square miles. Each location needs some level of security coverage during peak shopping hours.
The major national security firms handle the largest contracts. Allied Universal, which holds contracts at multiple Memphis retail properties, deploys its heaviest staffing on Black Friday and the weekend that follows. The company assigns guards to interior posts, parking lot patrols, and entrance monitoring at the shopping centers it covers. Securitas handles similar work at commercial properties and some standalone retail locations in the East Memphis and Germantown areas.
Regional and local firms pick up the contracts that the national companies either can’t staff or don’t pursue. Walden Security, a Chattanooga-based firm with a strong presence across Tennessee, covers several Memphis retail clients and has built a reputation for reliable staffing even during peak demand periods. The company’s Tennessee roots give it an advantage in recruiting guards who know the local market.
Phelps Security, another Tennessee-based operation, handles a mix of retail and commercial contracts in the Memphis area. Smaller firms like these compete on responsiveness and local knowledge, offering clients a level of attention that the national giants sometimes struggle to match when their resources are stretched across hundreds of locations in a single metro.
Shield of Steel, a veteran-owned company operating out of 2682 Lamar Avenue, takes a different approach from most of the firms handling holiday contracts. Founded in 1998 by former law enforcement and military personnel, the company deploys armed officers and runs GPS-tracked patrol vehicles across its client sites. That model, which emphasizes documented accountability over sheer headcount, appeals to retailers who want proof that patrols are actually happening on schedule. For Black Friday, Shield of Steel assigns additional armed officers to its retail clients and runs extended patrol hours through the weekend.
Crowd Management: The First Priority
The most visible aspect of Black Friday security is crowd control. Memphis shoppers have seen the national news footage of stampedes and fights at store openings in other cities, and local retailers work to prevent those scenes from playing out here.
Walmart, which operates more than a dozen locations in the Memphis metro, moved away from the traditional midnight door-buster model several years ago. By 2019, the company was opening most of its stores at 6 PM on Thanksgiving Day, spreading the initial rush across a longer window. That change reduced (though didn’t eliminate) the kind of crush that had caused injuries at Walmart openings in years past.
Target followed a similar strategy, opening its Memphis-area stores at 5 PM on Thanksgiving. Best Buy, which tends to draw some of the most intense Black Friday crowds because of its electronics deals, opened at the same time. The earlier openings meant that security teams had to start their shifts by mid-afternoon on Thursday, adding hours and cost to the holiday deployment.
At Wolfchase Galleria, crowd management focused on the common areas and food court, where large groups gathered between store visits. Mall security coordinated with individual store security teams to manage the flow of foot traffic through anchor store entrances, which served as chokepoints during peak hours. Guards stationed at these transition points could slow the flow when interior spaces got too crowded.
Parking lot management was equally important. Wolfchase’s lot fills completely on Black Friday, and the overflow spills onto side streets and nearby commercial properties. Security teams directed traffic at the main entrances and patrolled the outer edges of the lot, where vehicles parked far from store entrances were more vulnerable to break-ins.
Retail Theft Prevention
Shoplifting spikes during the holiday season everywhere, and Memphis is no exception. The city’s retail theft numbers track above the national average, a reflection of broader economic pressures and a court system that, in 2019, was still processing a backlog of property crime cases.
Loss prevention during Black Friday operates on two levels. Inside the stores, trained investigators watch for organized retail crime (ORC) teams, groups of shoplifters who work together to steal large quantities of merchandise for resale. These aren’t casual thieves pocketing a pair of earbuds. ORC teams use booster bags (foil-lined shopping bags that defeat electronic article surveillance tags), coordinate diversions to distract staff, and target specific high-value items.
Memphis had dealt with several organized retail theft rings during 2019. The Shelby County District Attorney’s office prosecuted cases involving groups that operated across multiple stores in the Whitehaven and Hickory Hill areas. Some of these rings sold stolen goods through online marketplaces or at flea markets in the surrounding counties.
On Black Friday, loss prevention teams inside major retailers work longer shifts and add staff to cover the increased floor traffic. Plainclothes investigators mix with shoppers, watching for known ORC operatives and the behavioral patterns that suggest coordinated theft. Surveillance camera operators monitor feeds from multiple angles, communicating with floor staff via earpieces.
Outside the stores, security guards focus on vehicle break-ins. The pattern is predictable: shoppers leave bags visible in their cars, walk into the next store, and return to find a smashed window. It happens dozens of times across Memphis on Black Friday and the following weekend. Guards can’t prevent every incident, yet regular patrol routes through parking areas do push opportunistic thieves toward less-monitored locations.
Armed Security: When and Why
The question of armed versus unarmed security comes up every holiday season in Memphis. The October shooting at Wolfchase Galleria, where gunfire erupted in the parking lot during normal shopping hours, underlined the reality that Memphis retail locations face threats that go beyond shoplifting.
Most mall and retail security in Memphis uses unarmed guards. The liability and insurance costs associated with armed personnel are significant, and many property management companies prefer to leave armed response to law enforcement. Unarmed guards observe, report, and serve as a visible deterrent. They don’t engage armed suspects.
Some Memphis retailers, particularly standalone locations in higher-crime areas, do contract for armed security. Pawn shops, jewelry stores, and check-cashing businesses along corridors like Lamar Avenue, Elvis Presley Boulevard, and Summer Avenue commonly post armed guards during business hours year-round, with extended coverage during the holidays.
The armed guard model requires more from the security company. Tennessee law mandates that armed guards complete firearms qualification, carry proper registration from the Department of Commerce and Insurance, and meet ongoing training requirements. Companies that deploy armed personnel need insurance policies with higher liability limits, which increases their operating costs and, by extension, what they charge clients.
For the firms that specialize in armed security, the holiday season is when clients are most willing to pay the premium. A jewelry store owner on Poplar Avenue who runs with a single unarmed guard most of the year might add an armed officer for the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. A car dealership along Covington Pike that’s had vehicles stolen off its lot might contract for armed overnight patrols during December.
Coordination with Memphis Police
The Memphis Police Department runs its own holiday security operations parallel to the private sector effort. MPD assigns additional officers to retail corridors during Black Friday weekend, with a particular focus on the Germantown Parkway shopping district, the Poplar Avenue retail stretch, and the Southaven-Memphis border area where outlet malls draw cross-state shoppers.
The department’s approach combines marked patrol vehicles with plainclothes officers working inside and around major retailers. MPD coordinates with the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office on coverage for unincorporated areas and with the Germantown and Collierville police departments for suburban retail locations.
Off-duty MPD officers are in high demand during the holidays. Tennessee law allows off-duty officers to work secondary employment in uniform while carrying their service weapons. Retailers and property managers hire off-duty officers directly, paying them hourly rates that typically exceed what private security guards earn. The arrangement benefits everyone: the retailer gets a fully trained, armed officer with arrest authority; the officer earns extra income; and MPD gets additional security coverage without pulling officers from regular patrol assignments.
The competition for off-duty officers creates friction with private security companies, which can’t match the credentials or authority that an actual police officer brings. Some firms have responded by emphasizing what they do offer that off-duty officers don’t: dedicated attention to a single client rather than split focus between multiple employers, guaranteed shift coverage rather than availability that depends on an officer’s regular schedule, and technology (GPS tracking, digital patrol logs, real-time reporting) that provides documentation of every patrol route and incident response.
The Economic Picture
Holiday security spending in Memphis reflects both the size of the local retail market and the city’s crime reality. Property managers and retailers spend more on security than their counterparts in lower-crime metros, and that spending increases each year.
The cost of a single unarmed guard for an eight-hour shift in Memphis runs between $15 and $22 per hour billed to the client. Armed guards cost $22 to $35 per hour. Off-duty MPD officers typically charge $35 to $50 per hour. A mid-sized shopping center that wants security coverage from 6 AM to midnight during Black Friday weekend is looking at a bill of several thousand dollars, just for guards.
Technology adds to the cost. Camera systems, LPR readers, and access control hardware represent capital expenditures that spread across the year, yet maintenance and monitoring during peak periods often require additional spending. Some retailers bring in temporary monitoring staff during the holidays to watch camera feeds that go unmonitored during slower periods.
For security companies, the holiday quarter can account for 20 to 30 percent of annual revenue. The firms that execute well, staffing every post on time with guards who show up dressed properly and do their jobs, earn contract renewals. The ones that stumble, sending guards who don’t show up, don’t stay awake, or don’t follow patrol protocols, lose clients to competitors.
What to Watch for This Black Friday
Memphis shoppers heading out on November 29 will encounter a security presence that’s larger and more visible than what they see during a normal shopping week. Uniformed guards at store entrances, patrol vehicles circling parking lots, and the occasional police cruiser positioned near major retail centers will all be part of the scene.
The threats haven’t changed much from previous years. Vehicle break-ins will remain the most common crime of the weekend. Shoplifting will spike inside stores. Arguments over parking spaces, merchandise, and cut lines will occasionally escalate. And the small but real possibility of a violent incident, the kind that made headlines at Wolfchase in October, will linger in the background.
The security industry’s job is to minimize those incidents and respond quickly when they happen. Whether it’s a national firm deploying dozens of guards across multiple locations or a local company posting a single armed officer at a strip mall on Lamar Avenue, the goal is the same: keep people safe enough that they come back to shop again. In Memphis, where retail and crime exist in close proximity, that’s a job that never really gets easier. It just gets busier in November.