It Takes A Well Rounded Manager To Prevent Shoplifting

We all work with difficult personalities, right? If you’re out there reading this and you don’t, well you should consider yourself very lucky. There hasn’t been a job, office, or store that I’ve worked in where I didn’t have at least one difficult personality to work with. One that stands out involved a store manager who was tired of shoplifting in his store. He would call me every week it seemed to complain about the theft problem and tell me that my department (LP) wasn’t doing enough to prevent shoplifting in his store. Being is that preventing loss was literally, all I did, I took it just a little personal. To make matters worse, this same store manager would resist every LP initiate that came down. 

 This particular store was having a huge issue with electronics being stolen at the store. As a way to prevent shoplifting of these items, I had our offices send him a few cases of Alpha Spider Wraps. A few weeks later, I was conducting some visits in stores and found that the cases were still sitting in the warehouse. The store manager told me that he didn’t have the payroll budget to spend in order for his employees to put those devices on the products that he, himself, was complaining about being commonly shoplifted. Would’ve taken 10 minutes and he could’ve saved thousands of dollars in shrink. 

 There are in fact some of you, right now, sitting at home, or in your office reading this, saying to yourself, “Wow… I’m kind of like that manager.” Even though you’ll never say it to anyone but yourself, you know it. It’s not because you want to battle, but it’s because you’re thinking too much like a manager. I used to think that a good LP professional had a background in law enforcement, or degrees in criminal justice. What I’ve learned is the opposite. Some of the best people that work for me now have MBA’s, degrees in marketing and even Human Resource management. I bring this up for one reason. In order to prevent shoplifting, you have to see it from not only an LP perspective, but also from a business view as well. 

 You own your business. Someone comes to you and says, “Here’s this tool. If you implement this tool today, you will increase your profits.” Chances are, you’re going to use that tool. That exactly what EAS devices are to retailers. Tools to reduce losses, thus increasing your profits. Don’t be that manager anymore. Accept the tools available to you and prevent shoplifting losses before they ever happen.

For more information, contact us: Prevent Shoplifting, or call 1.770.426.0547