Staff Editor — Page 197

The money is where the merchandise is

April 9, 2012 by Staff Editor Leave a Comment

Often I find that my team is focusing too much of their time and efforts on employee theft investigations into things like fraudulent discounts and other types of abuse at point of sale and they forget about the biggest kind of loss, merchandise theft. Don’t get me wrong, discount abuse and other fraudulent activity are important to identify and resolve. They can also be easy to find through some dedicated research, and the hard evidence is usually right there in front of you. This can lead to some solid cases and after a rigorous interview process it can frequently lead to admissions of merchandise theft, cash theft, and other dishonest activity as well. But what about those people who are only taking merchandise?

We catch an enormous amount of shoplifters in contrast to the few internal theft cases that we identify each year. Comparing the amount of time that a shoplifter spends in our building versus the time an average employee spends in our building, the employee has far greater opportunity to steal than the shoplifter does. While we are talking about time, how much of our time do we spend on cameras watching for employee theft opposed to the time we spend hunting for shoplifters? I know for us the difference is huge. So the question begs, how many more internal theft cases could we identify if we focused a little more of our time and surveillance on our employees. Recent surveys have found that 48% of losses are contributed to employee theft, and it has steadily been on the rise since 2008 surveys which contributed about 44% of losses to employee theft. The numbers are staggering. It makes me think we should probably be focusing a little more time and energy on our employee theft investigations.

For more information on employee theft , employee theft investigation or internal theft contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 – Atlanta Georgia

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: employee theft, employee theft investigation, internal theft

Where is the weak link?

April 9, 2012 by Staff Editor

When it comes to applying clothing security, we had a solid tagging process in place in our store. As soon as the merchandise was received, we had a tag on it. The only problem was that when I went to audit our tagging compliance on the sales floor, I was always coming up with clothes missing tags. The truck unload team swore it wasn’t them, and after observing their process I knew it had to be something else. What we finally came to realize was that one frequently missed task when providing clothing security was the tagging of returned merchandise. There are often very firm and well planned processes in place for tagging merchandise such as clothes as they are received, but if you do not have a hold of tagging merchandise as it is returned you will always come up short of 100%.

Often times returned merchandise is missed in regard to anti-theft devices. It is a process in which merchandise is brought into the store, yet it is often not considered as receiving. Because of this it can cause us to miss the regular processes that are followed when merchandise is received. Having product protection plans in place for merchandise that is returned can have a huge impact on ensuing complete accuracy.

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For more information on how you can use Clothing Security Anti- theft Devices in conjunction with your Electronic Article Surveillance or EAS system to protect your Clothes and help you prevent retail theft in your business with products like Cheap Labels and Cheap Tags contact us.

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Filed Under: clothing alarm Tagged With: Cheap Labels, Cheap Tags, Clothing Security

Are You Being SMART With Me?

April 6, 2012 by Staff Editor Leave a Comment

Retail security is a vast ever-expanding world of tips, tricks, gadgets and gizmos. Trying to determine where to start can be a completely overwhelming task. Even though there are a zillion ways to create an anti shoplifting plan, try sticking to just one or two simple ways to begin with. Once you are comfortable with the scope, highlights and limitations of your plan it is much easier to move on to round two: execution.

When you are starting to execute, think of it like any other action plan. One of the methods we used frequently was the SMART Plan. Are you being Specific, Measurable, Actions, Realistic, and Timely?

When I train my managers, I always guide them through the SMART Plan way of thinking. All too often I would see elaborate action plans that sounded great on paper, but were far too complicated, time consuming or expensive to ever really work out.

Pick out something easy to institute into your daily routine. Anti theft devices like labels and tags are readily available and simple to use. You can also easily procure cheap labels and cheap tags to fit into your budget. It’s an all around SMART move!

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For more information on how you can use Anti- theft Devices in conjunction with your Electronic Article Surveillance or EAS system to help you prevent retail theft in your business with products like Cheap Labels and Cheap Tags contact us.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Anti-Shoplifting, Cheap Labels, Cheap Tags, retail security

Just For the Men

April 6, 2012 by Staff Editor

When I worked for a high-end retailer, we had an extensive men’s wear department. It was such a big deal that some locations in the company actually had a separate store dedicated just to men’s wear. The suits were a huge part of our bread and butter sales, so to speak.

One of the problems we did run into was missing pieces to suits. We were diligent about making sure our miss matched pants and jackets didn’t belong to each other. We would also notice that vests were starting to come up missing. It turns out, our clothing security wasn’t the greatest in the suit department, and thieves were starting to take notice.

One of the ideas to prevent further theft was to use some anti theft devices secured to the clothes. By using a cheap tag in conjunction with a cheap label, we were financially able to tag each piece of the suit.

Our losses slowly started to diminish as word spread. We also spent less time looking for the errant piece of a suit that wasn’t there.

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Filed Under: clothing alarm Tagged With: Cheap Labels, Cheap Tags, Clothing Security

The hard (liquor) sell

April 5, 2012 by Staff Editor

Over the course of my career I have had worked in several different states across the country. Each time I moved, I needed to reacquaint myself with the local and state laws regarding beer, wine and liquor sales.

Some states are dry on Sundays, and sales Saturday have a specific cut off point. Some allow liquor only to be sold in sate run stores and locations. In the state I currently live in, beer, wine and hard liquor can be sold by just about everyone in the retail community. You see it at the local supermarkets, convenience stores, drive thru, the big box retailers, and even the local dollar stores are in on a piece of the action.

With such a competitive market, each and every sale needs to count. Bottle security is extremely vital. Loss of product not only robs you of your inventory, but also the sales and the customer loyalty. I highly recommend using any of Alpha Security’s bottle locks to enhance the local store’s bottle security.

With so much on the line, I don’t see how it makes any sense to not use bottle locks or any sort of bottle security. All too often I see a lack of security on a store’s alcohol and I know they are dearly paying the price.

Visit the Loss Prevention Store to purchase EASy Bottle bottle locks by Alpha Security and your Electronic Article Surveillance or EAS system.

For more information on Alpha Security , Bottle Lock , Bottle locks , Bottle Security , liquor bottle security or EASy Bottle and how they can work with your Electronic Article Surveillance or EAS system contact us or call 1.770.426.0547

Filed Under: Security Tagged With: Alpha Security, bottle lock, bottle locks, bottle security, easy bottle, liquor bottle security

Preventing Return Fraud

April 4, 2012 by Staff Editor Leave a Comment

Using anti-theft devices can be an effective tool to preventing return fraud in stores with return policies geared toward providing good customer service. Return fraud has been and continues to be a major problem in retail security. ORC (Organized Retail Crime) groups target merchandise that is valuable and easy to steal, which typically is merchandise lacking anti-shoplifting devices. The groups take non-tagged merchandise in order to appear legitimate when making a return of the merchandise they had previously stolen.

Return fraud, when conducted in ORC situations, will usually occur in several visits to the store. When dealing with a chain of stores, these visits may occur one after another as they travel a central interstate or highway. The first visit may only involve a subject staging merchandise in a specific and secluded area of the store. The merchandise will probably be the highest valued, easiest to conceal, non-tagged merchandise that they can find. This subject may stage the merchandise in bags prior to leaving. The second visit will consist of the concealment and/or theft of the merchandise that was previously staged for them. This visit will probably take no longer than five minutes in the store and is difficult to detect. The third visit is where the fraudulent return takes place where the subject will return the merchandise that was previously stolen. These visits will often consist of several different subjects, and all three steps may happen simultaneously with several sets of merchandise. The easiest way to combat return fraud is to protect your merchandise with anti-theft devices.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Anti-Shoplifting, Cheap Labels, Cheap Tags, retail security

Loss Prevention, not Lost Profit

April 4, 2012 by Staff Editor

In order to truly execute a sound shrink reduction plan, it is important to determine the overall cost analysis. If a plan reduces shrink, but also reduces sales, for example having high theft pieces of clothes under lock and key, is it really a feasible plan.

What about the financial costs to execute this reduction strategy? Anti theft devices are readily available, but what is the difference between the expensive name brands and the cheap tags and cheap labels?

What you really want to protect your clothes from theft is to use cheap tags and cheap labels that are reliable and accurate. Some foreign made tags and labels may be inexpensive, but they are not reliable.

They may reactivate themselves causing customer issues, or they may simply not be activated at all. If that’s the case, you are paying good money for a piece of plastic that doesn’t do anything at all to help you reduce shrink.

Rest assured, it is only a matter of time before the thieving community (or your employees) are aware of these “dummy” tags. Better put your trust and money into reliable tags from the beginning to protect your investments.

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Filed Under: clothing alarm Tagged With: Cheap Labels, Cheap Tags, Clothing Security

Tips on implementing a Checkpoint system

April 2, 2012 by Staff Editor Leave a Comment

So you have a brand new Checkpoint security system and all the tags one could ever need for a store but still question how to implement it. The important thing to remember is that any anti-shoplifting system will likely stop all but the most seasoned thieves in their tracks so you need to know how you might consistently confound their efforts long enough to spot them and call the cops.

One thing to consider would be placement of individual tags. You always want to make the tags visible enough so your staff knows where they are to remove them, but in such an awkward and unnoticeable spot that they prove difficult to remove otherwise. I have seen a lot of winter jackets with tags placed at the very edge of the sleeves where there is little fabric for the tag to hold onto making it extremely easy to simply pop them off. Instead I must recommend a point such as the base of the collar or even the armpit area of the jacket. That way there is a decent amount of clothing in the way to conceal the tag, but also makes it nearly impossible to illicitly remove said tag without causing severe damage to the jacket itself.

The other thing to consider is the Checkpoint system gate. These noticeable, unmistakable pieces of equipment sit at your doorways waiting for some tagged item to pass through them before emitting a loud and irritating alarm for all to hear. It does no good without tags on your products so make sure all the items you are looking to protect have the appropriate tags on them.

Visit the Loss Prevention Store to purchase retail anti theft devices and your Electronic Article Surveillance or EAS system from Checkpoint Systems.

For more information on Anti Shoplifting , Checkpoint Security System or Checkpoint Security Tags and how they can work with your Electronic Article Surveillance or EAS system contact us at Retail theft prevention or call 1.770.426.0547

Filed Under: antishoplifting Tagged With: Anti-Shoplifting, checkpoint security system, Checkpoint security tags, checkpoint systems, retail theft prevention

Lead the Horse to Water…Now Drink!!!

April 2, 2012 by Staff Editor

Small businesses number one killer is employee theft. Most cases of internal schemes can reach 100k in loss. The problem is their larger counterparts invest money for loss prevention services. The small business owners many times are unwilling to invest in such things as background checks. Having a pre employment screening process quite honestly is probably the best investment a small business owner could make. Merely perusing a resume and calling a few previous employers who will only verify the fact that they worked at that place of business. As a loss prevention consultant I have seen the ravages internal theft can cause. Usually when trying to sort out the “who what where and why” the first thing I can point to is the fact that no criminal background checks or employee background checks were being conducted.

One particular case which stands out from the past is a female small business owner who ran a flower shop. She never gave loss prevention a thought let alone contacting a background check company to inquire about pre employment screening. Her thoughts regarding loss prevention never made it past having a lock on the door and keeping the register drawer shut. She had contacted me due to the fact that each month she was coming up short on both money and stock and that after checking for clerical errors she could not find the problem. When I sat down with her I asked her about her employees and how she felt about employee theft. She was very adamant that her employees were very trustworthy and her friends and that thought process was out of the question. I knew this was going to be a long a painful road for both of us. I decided to contact a couple of background check experts to bring them in to discuss their past cases to give very detailed examples of how employee theft can utterly destroy a small business.

It was a truly enlightening experience for the business owner to see how a lack of background checks could impact a business in such a negative way. It did not take long for her to retain the background check company and discuss with the background check experts the most feasible criminal background checks as well as employee background checks.

The implementation of the pre employment screening process was tedious however the business owner s very happy with the results. She runs a very successful business to which she attributes the achievements to her very strong and now vetted staff.

For more information on background check experts , background checks , criminal background checks , employee background checks or pre employment screening contact us at the background check company or call 1.770.426.0547

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: background check company, Background checks, criminal background check, employee background checks, pre employment screening

Don’t You Know?

April 2, 2012 by Staff Editor

It absolutely amazes me that more retailers are not actively concerned about their liquor bottle security. When I say, “actively concerned” I am really talking about a lack of any visible type of bottle security. It doesn’t just have to be hard liquor, but expensive wines as well.

I was out at my local liquor store this evening. As I walked up and down the aisles, I noticed that this particular retailer had shelves absolutely jam packed with bottles. They had such a variety, it was almost overwhelming. I think I saw wines from every corner of the world. Some places I didn’t even know they could make wines.

What I didn’t see were any bottle locks. Not a single bottle had a bottle lock for bottle security. I had to wonder to myself that maybe this retailer was over saturating their inventory with a huge variety of SKUs to attempt to make up for their shrink losses. It would make sense. That wouldn’t be the first time I have stumbled across a store trying desperately to out run their shrink.

I some times forget that not everyone knows how much difference a device like a bottle lock can make. Many retailers and small business owners don’t know that there are solutions for preventing inventory losses. It’s just a matter of looking in the right places.

Visit the Loss Prevention Store to purchase EASy Bottle bottle locks by Alpha Security and your Electronic Article Surveillance or EAS system.

Filed Under: Security Tagged With: Alpha Security, bottle lock, bottle locks, bottle security, easy bottle, liquor bottle security