An Accurate, Successful Inventory Is Not Due To The Luck Of The Irish

How does Notre Dame’s football team manage to maintain a top program year in and year out? Is it the Luck of the Irish that does it? No, they field a competitive team by working hard and preparing for the upcoming season. As we enter March we think of spring and St. Patrick’s Day and the Luck of the Irish and lucky four-leaf clovers and all of these things. In retail, we also think about store inventory time and how the results will come out this year.

     If you are counting on the Luck of the Irish or just plain luck to get you through inventory and wind up with successful results you need to get a better plan. Obtaining inventory results that reflect a healthy, robust business starts well before the inventory date. While it may include the preparation time several weeks in advance of the actual day/night of inventory counting the real work begins when you start your shortage action plan.

     If this is the first inventory for your store you will not have a measurement or prior inventory as a baseline for what you will be up against. I would suggest that in your case you measure your store against the national shortage average OR you measure it against the national shortage average for your type of retail business. According to the National Retail Federation 2018 National Retail Security Survey, shoplifting accounted for 35.7% of losses while employee theft accounted for 33.2%. Loss Prevention Systems, Inc. personnel are well-versed in shortage and can be a helpful consultant to you in this area. For those who have inventoried previously you want to lower whatever the prior year shortage results were for your store. Obviously it would be fantastic if zero shortage could be counted on year in and year out but the fact of the matter is very few stores will come in at zero (I have seen overages but those always offset the next year due to poor counts or paperwork errors).

     So where does one start in their planning? First you have to look at your anti-theft strategies. With nearly 70% of the shortage attributable to theft you can take care of a big chunk of shortage by addressing this issue. Is your store using electronic article surveillance equipment to deter and prevent shoplifting and even employee theft? If you do not have an electronic article surveillance system in your first assignment is to get one. This includes the towers, tags, and even integrated cameras. Don’t use second-hand equipment or an off-brand system in your store. Using a name brand solution from Sensormatic is the best option and it is more affordable than you may think. Again, Loss Prevention Systems, Inc. can guide you into the best solution for your business no matter how big or small it may be.

     You then need to take a look at the other areas that impact shortage, operations, vendor shortage and a small portion which is undefined. Looking at each of these aspects can be time-consuming because there is so much that can impact each one. If you have managers working for you they should be looking at how shortage could be happening in their departments and present solutions to address them. That information then goes into a master shortage plan. If you are lucky you will have a team that knows where to look for shortage opportunities. If you don’t have that kind of luck or if you are the only manager for your store you are still lucky. Loss Prevention Systems, Inc. can work with you to conduct a risk assessment and identify vulnerabilities and devise plans.

     Finally, once your anti-theft system is up and running and your shortage action plans have been created you can spend the month prior to inventory prepping the store. There’s no magic to it, it is a detailed preparation to make sure every piece of merchandise is properly tagged and ready to be counted. Inspections of nooks, crannies, shelves, underneath base decks, on top of fixtures and in supply closets to locate items that have migrated where they should not have can add dollars back to your inventory.

     Four leaf clovers, lucky charms, wishful thinking nor luck of the Irish are going to get you a successful inventory. Theft prevention, careful planning and advice from people who have been in the Loss Prevention field WILL result in successful inventories. Follow this advice and find your own pot of gold at the end of the inventory rainbow.

Merchandise Audits For Stores Without A Loss Prevention Team

Loss Prevention Managers and Associates use audits on a regular basis to keep track of merchandise that may be potentially high theft items. The items may be high dollar such as iPods, laptops, computer tablets and so on. The products being audited may simply be easy to steal and resell. Such items can include a variety of products ranging from drill bits to medicines, razor blades and even fragrances. Audits are an effective tool for Loss Prevention departments to quickly identify theft trends and to begin investigating when and how losses are taking place. For stores that cannot afford a Loss Prevention department, it falls upon store owners and managers to investigate missing merchandise. The question then becomes, how does a management team decide what items should be audited or when audits should take place?

There are different types of audits that Loss Prevention teams conduct. Some audits are completed during inventory nights. The purpose of these audits is to ensure an inventory crew is accurate in the counting of your merchandise. Mis-counts lead to inaccurate results and skewed shortage numbers. An errant finger while keying in numbers can make your inventory too high. Counting too few items results in shortage neither of which is a good thing. A falsely low inventory result usually translates to a high shrink result the following year. It is also wise to audit locations to be sure endcaps, sidecaps, and special dump bins are counted. Think of the easy to miss locations in a store.

How do you decide what should be audited? On inventory nights the inventory team crew leader may print up sheets of “suspicious” counts or “exceptions”. Usually, that team completes some of their own audits but stores should have their own audits as well. If exception sheets are not printed by an inventory team stores can decide what areas or items they want to spot check. Usually, these are going to be sections that have small items (for example, cosmetics) where it would be easy for a counter to miss multiple items that can add up to big dollars. High dollar merchandise is another area to focus on, say for instance television sets, computers or some models of vacuum cleaners. Clothing may include leather jackets and designer dresses, popular targets among thieves. One thing to keep in mind during inventories is that inventory crews are not going to want to be pestered over every little discrepancy. Usually, it is requested that only variances greater than $25 or more than 10 pieces be recounted.

The other type of audits we are discussing usually focus on specific items (SKU’s) or categories of items, for example, denim jeans valued at $30 or greater. In order to make sure that audits are value-added there needs to be a determining factor that instigates the audit and that audits are not being done on every single item in a store. Putting too many items on an audit form will ensure they do not get done properly or regularly and that renders them useless.

Daily Loss Prevention audits are usually based on suspicious activity or a reasonable concern that a certain product will be targeted by shoplifters. In one department store I worked for, we started carrying a new line of leather coats. Due to the dollar value of these jackets, we started an audit form for these items and counted them every morning. Because we had a camera set on them we were able to review a days-worth of video in a short time if a count was off. In another store I worked for, we started to see vacuum cleaners of a specific brand start to disappear. We began daily audits and partnered with other retailers that also carried this brand. We found that ours was not an isolated problem and through audits, we were able to get several suspects on camera. The key is to follow up as soon as an audit finds a difference in what store inventory says should be on hand and what actual on-hands are. If a store-generated on hand report is not available, the current count would be compared to the prior day count. Discrepancies would be researched from receipt journals and if no item was sold, the video would be reviewed.

Audits are not difficult and can aid in reducing theft and shrinkage. Keep audit lists short to help make them impactful. Use cameras to record those items you suspect are being stolen or believe are going to be a high theft SKU. Track the time as well as the day the audit is completed to narrow the window to review on video if an item is missing. You don’t have to be in L.P. to conduct audits in your store.