Staff Editor — Page 336

Retail loss prevention solution a click or call away

September 21, 2010 by Staff Editor Leave a Comment

Retail Loss Prevention has been around for many years. Names like Store Detective, In house Detective, Grocery Cop, Loss Prevention Agent, Undercovers, and more have been bounced around and used all over the place. Whatever the name, the job of a person in Retail Loss Prevention is ever-changing.

From Apprehending shoplifters, to running an inventory, leaders in Retail Loss Prevention are always out to find the best return on the investment. This is no small feat. As most business people would probably agree, a knowledgeable and effective loss prevention department can seriously impact the business. Now, whether this impact is negative or positive depends on the organization.

Knowledge is power. In this day and age, it is important for loss prevention leadership to look at ALL aspects of the retail business. Is the retailer suffering from shoplifters? What about organized retail crime rings? Are they having issues with cash shortages? Maybe their receiving habits have gone unchecked for too long. What about employee awareness? Deciding what works best and building a custom program to each retailer should be the goal.

By far, one of the best ways Retail Loss Prevention can impact their business and partners is by helping build the awareness of all employees. Most employees are not aware of losses other than shoplifters. They don’t know about markdown abuse, price adjustments, refund fraud, discount abuse and other point of sale schemes used by the dishonest employee. Employee awareness impacts shrink and losses effectively when managed appropriately.

As experts, Loss Prevention Systems, Inc. provides a valuable service to the retailer working closely with management, ownership and or operations, they can advise on all aspects of the business where opportunities for improvement exist to reduce losses and boost profits.

For more information visit us at retail loss prevention or call 1.770.426.0547

Training Is A Key Component In Atlanta Anti Shoplifting Programs

September 20, 2010 by Staff Editor Leave a Comment

As an LP professional and the former Director of Loss Prevention for several large companies I figured out pretty quickly that if the only solution I had to an anti shoplifting program was apprehension that I would not be around long.

Why? It goes back to the old saying: “Once the horse is out of the barn…” Prevention is the solution to any anti shoplifting program. To get there we have to look at what is the most cost effective approach…Training. By training yourself and your staff you will deter shoplifting no mater which way you take you’re anti shoplifting program.

Retail theft in the form of shoplifting is dependent on your ability to convince the shoplifter to go elsewhere. Training your employees in the art of using customer service as an anti shoplifting tool is a cost effective approach. Shoplifters hate attention so let’s give them a lot of it. In fact once an employee is trained to actually spot a shoplifter they can go into the customer service attack mode. Customer service them to death!

Of course people who are shoplifting come in many types. Training will help even your newest employee to become a retail theft deterrence very quickly. In most cases once you have a core of people trained they can then train others.

What should comprise a great anti shoplifting training program? There should be amongst other topics training on: How to identify a person who is shoplifting. How shoplifters steal, how to shut down the shoplifter and actually frustrate them (that way they go elsewhere, maybe your competitor) and apprehension (if necessary).

Train your people correctly and reinforce the training in an ongoing manner and you will see your retail theft losses drop like a stone.

For more information: anti shoplifting training in Atlanta or call 1.770.426.0547

Filed Under: antishoplifting Tagged With: Anti-Shoplifting, retail theft, shoplifting

Clothing security tags boost profits

September 20, 2010 by Staff Editor

Retailers who use clothing security tags notice a boost in profits beyond expectations. It is a simple yet often overlooked formula for figuring out the return on stopping retail shrinkage or inventory loss. Simply divide the value of the lost merchandise by the net profit (not gross profit margin which is obviously much higher).

Example, a $35 stolen shirt with a net margin of three percent requires $1,166.67 in sales to recoup the loss. Hard to believe isn’t it. It is one of those “I don’t look at that because I don’t want to know” things. Loosing one $35 item is not a $35 loss. In order for the business to replace the items total retail value of $35 you will need a net profit of $35. $35 divided by a net profit of 3% is $1,166.67.

So obviously a very powerful way to boost profit margins is to control losses and use products like clothing security tags to keep the merchandise on the rack. If total losses is 5% in a $1mil per year clothing boutique the total lost merchandise is $50,000 per year. Now look at that divided by the net margin and you will get $1.6mil. If you can reduce your losses by a realistic 50% by using security tags on clothes you will be adding $25k to the profit margin. I’ll leave that one to you to figure the boost in net margin…it is significant.

Check out the world’s leading manufacturer of clothing security tags and clothing alarm systems, checkpoint systems and learn how you can stop loosing merchandise and start boosting profits today.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: clothing alarm, Clothing Security, clothing security tags, security tags on clothes

Loss Prevention Agent – To catch a thief?

September 20, 2010 by Staff Editor

A loss prevention agent, by industry standard, is a trained and well versed person working for the benefit of the retailer, restaurant or business owner. The primary mission of the loss prevention agent is to identify, observe and make the apprehension of customers suspected of theft.

Get to the point! A loss prevention agent has the responsibility of catching shoplifters. What a skill. I remember (as do most loss prevention professionals) spending countless hours on the sales floor, peeking around corners, under display shelves, using one way mirrors or in the rare event, using high tech CCTV equipment. I was undercover and the hunt was on.

Every day I came to work, I made it a point to show the business owner that shoplifters are in their store. I made it a point to blend in, become part of the local community shopping these stores. Pushing a shopping cart around the store and focusing on the “hard hit” areas like liquor, health and beauty or hardware. Sooner or later, one would arrive, a shoplifter. Your adrenaline kicks in, you try to remain calm. He selects 2 bottles of liquor and stuffs them into a backpack he has placed on the floor. Wow, I thought to myself, right in front of me. He stands up, as I read the label of the liquor bottle I’m holding, and heads down the aisle to the front of the store. I keep my distance, trying not to lose sight of him. He passes the opened and manned register and makes no attempt to pay for the merchandise. I gain on him. He exits, I follow. “Excuse me sir”, I say…

A common, everyday occurrence for retailers and small businesses alike, Customer Theft! More so a nuisance, but gone unchecked can ruin a business leading to employee layoffs and business closures. It wreaks havoc on the morale of other employees when they witness customer theft and nothing is done or can be done. It is said that roughly 30% of losses can be directly related to shoplift activity.

A loss prevention agent can be that solution. Hired specifically to detect and catch shoplifters, the right agent can make a huge impact on the success of your business.

For more information contact us at loss prevention agent or call 1.770.426.0547

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: loss prevention agent

Loss Prevention Security, Hiring Procedures, Atlanta

September 20, 2010 by Staff Editor Leave a Comment

Loss prevention security professionals that have been in the business for some time understand that simply conducting employee theft investigation after investigation is not the primary solution to company profitability.

I began to notice early in my career that the loss prevention people are really the ones catching the sludge coming out of the end of the pipe. We deal with the most undesirable soon to be ex-employees. When you are constantly doing this you have a tendency to look up the pipe and try to figure out where all of this comes from. The answer is that it starts the moment that a person walks in to apply for a job.

If your company has poor or weak hiring policies then you are simply setting the company and yourself up for more sludge. I am not even going into the issue of what this costs the company to train and replace the bad hire let alone the cost of that a poor performer caused you in lost sales and productivity. That is for another blog.

Loss prevention is exactly that, preventing loss. In a way when we have to conduct an employee theft investigation we have lost. Whatever the employee did should have been prevented. So how do we do this?

Security and loss prevention must be involved and have input into the hiring process. We should be working directly with Human Resource management as partners to achieve the company’s goal, which is a profit.

Our company should be selecting the most desirable and best candidate for the position. Part of this should be consideration for their background and attitudes. Has this person been involved in any undesirable behavior, criminal activity, poor personal money management and poor work history? In addition what is this candidates attitude towards management, supervision and loss prevention. What is their work ethic? All of these areas affect the company and loss prevention mission, profit. Loss prevention security is not simply chasing bad guys

This is in addition to security and loss prevention involvement in other areas such as inventory control, merchandising and store layout. Loss prevention security personnel must interface with all areas of the company to insure that the profit mission is achieved. But again these are issues for another days blog.

Security and loss prevention is one of the major keys to a profitable company. Ignore it as many have done and face an unprofitable environment while catching more sludge than you should have to.

For more information contact us: security and loss prevention or call 1.770.426.0547

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: loss prevention, loss prevention security, security and loss prevention

Your Attitude About “Prevent Shoplifting Loss” Is Paramount

September 20, 2010 by Staff Editor Leave a Comment

Someone told me a short time ago that they did not have a shoplifting problem and that “their” customers would not do that to them. Wow, what do you say to this? We know from reliable studies that shoplifting makes up about 35% of retailers losses (employee theft is about 45%). For a retailer to have that attitude simply tells me that this person is asleep at the switch. His business, a gift type store, is a clear target. “Prevent Shoplifting Loss” is not even on his radar.

Many times we run into retailers that feel that if they are paying the bills and got some money at the end of the month that they are doing well. It doesn’t matter that shoplifters or employees are stealing. The sad part about this is that with just a little effort they could have much more money on the bottom-line. This is money or profit that they are already making. They just let it slip out the door.

Consider the cost to put in a Checkpoint system. It is a very small investment in both dollars and labor. The payoff is higher profits as the system generally pays for itself in six to eight months.

But even worse an attitude like this is frightening. To not use even good customer service skills to detect and prevent shoplifting loss is simply asking for shoplifters to hit you. Once you become known as an easy target it is like fly’s to honey. As with anything else attitude can be most of the problem. If that retailer does not understand that shoplifters are out there and take proactive measures to prevent shoplifting what do you imagine his employees think? They simply do not care.

In the long run retail is like life: survival of the fittest. If you are not stronger, smarter and faster than your competition then you are simply someone else’s dinner.

Don’t be someone else’s meal ticket prevent shoplifting loss you can also call us at 1.770.426.0547

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Prevent Shoplifting

Retail Shrinkage And Loss Prevention – Atlanta

September 20, 2010 by Staff Editor Leave a Comment

Retail shrinkage cancels millions of dollars in sales. That means all of your hard work for an entire year can be wiped out by a single retail shrinkage loss.

Our goal as business managers is to get retail shrinkage and retail loss down to a manageable level. We will never eliminate it all together. However, we can push retail loss down and maintain it at a point where we can predict and budget for it.

What steps do you take to prevent retail shrinkage losses?

Let’s examine some of the common inventory shrinkage problems:

Pricing errors
   – Inaccuracy when pricing
   – Low price on item
   – Incorrect tag on item
Missing SKU/price tickets
   – Sales at the wrong price cause lost profit
   – Extra time is involved in tracking down correct price
Receiving errors
   – Accuracy in counting
   – All items must be correctly piece counted
Illegible or incorrect writing on documents
   – Written information must be easy to read
   – Information must be accurate
Padding inventory
– Gives a false picture of the company’s profits
Merchandise or product transfer
   – When a transfer is not generated, retail shrinkage is created for the sending store or unit
   – Incorrect transfers create retail loss
Shoplifting
   – Makes a substantial impact and can add up quickly
   – Shoplifting must be accounted for through incident reports and then writing off the items
   – Losses also include empty packages, price tickets hidden in bathrooms, etc.
Register discounts
   – Discount errors create retail loss
   – Only management should authorize discounts
   – Management must insure the correct amount of discount is taken
   – Deception constitutes fraud
Fraudulent or improper refunds/returns
   – Evaluate each situation
   – No receipt could mean possible shoplifted
merchandise
   – An associate’s best friend with receipt and no merchandise.

Retail Return Policy

A good return/exchange policy should contain the following items:

A time limit for returns and exchanges should be made. For example, no returns are allowed after 30 days.

Require ID

If an exchange is given, the original item should be circled and noted on the customer’s receipt. A new receipt should not be given to the customer.

Receipts should be required (train the customer). If a receipt is not available, then ask for proof of purchase such as a canceled check or charge statement.

Voids
– The “number one” way employees steal cash
– Associates void legitimate sales and steal the cash
– Investigate voids without management approval
Fraud or improper use of time card
– Ghost “employees” created in order to collect pay
– Clocking in or out for another employee

For more information on retail shrinkage contact us at: retail loss or call 1.770.426.0547

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: retail loss, retail shrinkage

New Tools In Employee Theft Investigation – Atlanta

September 20, 2010 by Staff Editor Leave a Comment

Conducting an employee theft investigation is a complicated undertaking best left to professionals. However, in the past several years a new CCTV tool has not only become available but the cost is now very reasonable. This tool is the link between a retailers CCTV system and their POS.

Employee theft at the POS was always time intensive. You had to match up the detail tape to the CCTV recording of the cashier at the POS. Time stamps on both systems never matched up and even when they did it was very difficult to keep going back and forth between the two.

Now imagine this, you are conducting an employee theft investigation of a cashier. But now the POS terminal data show up on the same screen with the video of the cashier and customer.

Now we see in perfectly synchronized clarity both together. As the cashier is ringing up a pack of gum but actually bagging up DVD’s we see it as clear as day. That type of employee theft is as old as theft itself. But now there is no question at all what happened.

The cool thing about this new technology is that many new DVR’s have this great corporate fraud investigation tool built in. A simple connection is made from the POS terminal to the DVR, usually a CAT 5 cable. There is normally a little programming at the DVR as there are so many different POS systems out there that it simply needs a little adjustment.

Employee theft at the POS is now exposed quickly and easily. The best part is that the system is running 24/7. So when you catch onto an employee theft scheme and begin your investigation it is easy to go back and do research. This is another good argument for adequate drive storage on your DVR.

For more information contact us about employee theft investigation in Atlanta or call 1.770.426.0547

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: corporate fraud, corporate fraud investigation, employee theft, employee theft investigation

Ho Ho Ho Employee Backround Checks

September 19, 2010 by Staff Editor

It’s the day after Thanksgiving. The store looks wonderful; you are surrounded by customers busily buying! You and your store team have worked hard to get to this day. Now starts the fun and excitement of the retail holiday season. The new folks seem to be fitting in just great! Look at them up there at the register taking care of those customers! You think to yourself, employee background checks, who needs to spend that money? Boy they sure are friendly!

You laid the ground work for a successful holiday season. You bought the merchandise, you planned the advertising and you hired some employees to help you handle the additional traffic this season brings. You ran an ad and had an outstanding reaction to your “now hiring” banner. You took the time necessary to make sure your new people were the right mix for your store. You personally interviewed each one, gosh were they nice. You called and did reference checks on them, gee her old supervisor gave her a glowing personal recommendation! The store owner next door was talking about the employee background checks he did before he hired anyone this year. He got a lot of great information from the background check company. Heck though, what does he know. You have been doing this longer and know people better. Go with the gut feeling that these new employees are all going to be fantastic.

The day ends. Sales were just awesome! Wait, the register is short a lot of money.

How many managers have been in this position? Have you had your heart sink to the bottom of your stomach when the missing cash is discovered? No it’s not always the newest people that steal from their employer but, how much of that theft can be deterred by doing proper employee background checks? As an employer, you are only privy to a certain amount of information. Why not let a professional get the rest for you?

For more information contact us at employee background checks or call 1.770.426.0547

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: background check company, Background checks, employee background checks

Checkpoint Systems And Habitual Shoplifters

September 18, 2010 by Staff Editor Leave a Comment

A study that I saw some time back said that habitual shoplifters, even after they have been caught, will return to the same store to steal again because the chance of being caught is only 2% unless you have an Electronic Article Surveillance (EAS) system like Checkpoint Systems.

Wow! Even when they are caught they are going to hit you again because you do not have protection. I understand this because the time you caught them was probably not the first time they were shoplifting in your store.

The only way to shut them down cost effectively is with an EAS system. When I was a Director of Loss Prevention I saw immediate results when we would role out Checkpoint systems in our stores. The shoplifters simply went somewhere else. Shoplifting was no longer a given in our stores. We made it much more difficult. People who are involved in shoplifting are lazy for the most part. They would rather steal than work. Make it difficult and they will take the path of least resistance.

This also allowed us to target specific merchandise that the shoplifting groups would be after. If we noticed an increase in shoplifting for an item we would apply checkpoint tags to that item and the theft would stop.

Checkpoint tags and labels can be applied to almost any merchandise. Checkpoint systems labels are disguised in a number of ways and are paper thin. The other systems tags are simple for a person who is shoplifting to spot and remove. Another trick is to put two checkpoint tags in different places on particularly hot merchandise.

If you want to keep shoplifting losses down you will have to be proactive and make your store an uncomfortable place for a shoplifter to be. But the trick is to create this environment while your good customers do not feel it at all. Paying close attention to your customers creates a positive customer service experience. Greet them when they walk in, follow up with them on the sales floor and make sure that they can reach you easily. Shoplifters hate this very concept!

For more information contact us at: Checkpoint Systems or call 1.770.426.0547

Filed Under: antishoplifting Tagged With: checkpoint systems, Checkpoint tags, shoplifting