Loss Prevention Seminars

Employee Theft

April 16, 2015 by Staff Editor Leave a Comment

Employee theft according to the research done by many independent companies, is the number one reason stores across the country lose profits. A loss prevention team can help you address the issue and solve it, but most often than not, the theft that is happening in your store can go undetected for many months, or even years before your or your loss prevention team is aware of it. Training and educating your loss prevention team could save you thousand of dollars every year by making sure they attend workshops or seminars that keep them aware of the happenings of loss prevention every year.

Follow the links below to read more about this topic.

U.S. retail workers are No. 1…in employee theft

Light-fingered employees cost American stores (and consumers) more than shoplifters do.

It’s almost Groundhog Day, but for retailers, the holiday season is finally winding down.

“The four months from October through January are when stores see not just their biggest sales volume of the year, but also the most returns and exchanges,” says Ernie Deyle, a 30-year veteran of the retail loss-prevention wars who leads the business consulting practice at London-based data analytics firm Sysrepublic. “Unfortunately, the same four months account for about half of all annual shrinkage.”

That shrinkage, made up of missing goods from shoplifting and other causes, costs U.S. retailers about $42 billion a year, according to the latest Global Retail Theft Barometer, an annual industry study led by Deyle and inventory management firm Checkpoint Systems.

What Wal-Mart U.S. Executives Learned By ‘Walking The Store’

I began my career in the grocery business as a bagger. During that time I observed that my boss, and sometimes his boss and some other senior executives, would “walk the store”. These walks provided the opportunity to perform visual inspections to see what was going right and wrong with the store. We all understood that we needed to be on our toes in case someone from headquarters decided to pull a surprise visit. This is exactly what the senior management of Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) U.S. recently did.

Eight months ago Greg Foran took over the U.S division of Wal-Mart, which has struggled with hit and miss same store sales ranging from -1.5% to positive 2.4% over the past five years. He and his team decided they were going to make it their top priority to understand the business under their charge and that included store visitations. On Apr. 1, they gave investors a strategic update indicating that Wal-Mart U. S. may be losing its grip in executing some basic common sense retailing principles. Let’s examine.

Empty shelves

One of my bosses in the grocery industry had a saying, “we sell groceries not real estate” in reference to empty shelves, with the underlying implication that shelves need to be full of merchandise so that customers can buy it. Customers aren’t interested in the air above empty shelves. Greg Foran noted some occurrences of empty shelves and full backrooms in some of the stores he visited:

Group steals bags of cash from D.M. stores, police say

A group of thieves distracted employees at four grocery stores over the weekend and stole bags of cash, including $10,000 from one business, police say.

Three females and a male would enter a store and pretend to buy items while distracting employees to another part of the business, security video shows. One of them would then steal from behind the counter or an office.

They robbed La Cruz 3 and El Palomino on East 14th Street and La Favorita on East Grand Avenue on Saturday. Saigon Market on Euclid Avenue was robbed Sunday morning, according to police reports.

“They seem to be targeting mom-and-pop type places. Businesses like QuikTrip and Kum & Go have rules about dropping off cash once they get to a certain amount,” said Sgt. Jason Halifax of Des Moines Police Department. “It may suggest the suspects had prior knowledge of how the businesses handle cash.”

Filed Under: Shoplifting Prevention Tagged With: Alpha 2 Alarm, Alpha 3 Alarm, Alpha High Theft Solutions, Alpha Jewel Lok, Alpha Nano Gate, Alpha Security, Alpha Spider Wrap, Anti-shoplifting training, anti-theft devices, anti-theft tags, Loss Prevention Seminars, Loss Prevention Workshop, Periodic inventory, Prevent Shoplifting, prevent shrinkage, Retail Anti Theft Devices, retail security and monitoring, security devices

Social Media and Employee Theft

March 30, 2015 by Staff Editor Leave a Comment

There isn’t anything I enjoy more than catching an employee stealing. Whether it be through a lengthy investigation, or through an anonymous tip, it’s very satisfying to me. The idea that you employ someone, put money in their pocket and a chance to succeed, but they steal from you, eats at the pit of my stomach. I can’t stand a thief and to me, it’s even worse when it’s an employee. Throughout my career in Loss Prevention, I’ve handling thousands of employee theft cases. Most don’t really stand out to me, but there are a handful of stories that I like to share when I have the chance.

Social media has really changed the way we communicate and share information. Personally, I rarely watch the 9 O’clock news anymore. I just log into Twitter, or Facebook and see if there is anything relevant to me. No more are our personal communications private. Using social media as a communication device gives the entire world visibility to everything you say, or do. So, if you’re a thief, you should probably know this.

Recently I was having some issues with shoes in my store. I was constantly finding less expensive brands in the more expensive boxes. I started off finding one or two a month, so I chalked it up to a shipping error from the factory. As the weeks progressed, I began to find more and more, and I quickly realized I had a potential thief. I started running the sales for the cheaper shoes and noticed that one individual had purchased every single pair that I had found. Inside those boxes were no doubt the more expensive shoes, but who was this guy? I hadn’t a clue, and without any good leads, my case went cold. Until one of my employees helped me crack the case.

I was closing the store one Saturday night and a few hours before closing time, I started making the rounds to make sure everyone was zoning and cleaning up so we could get out at a decent time. I noticed one of my footwear employees on the computer in the manager’s office, so I started walking that way. He noticed I was heading in his direction, so he quickly left the area. A little while later, I went to check sales on that same computer and noticed there was a window still open. It was that employee’s Facebook page.

I maximized the screen, at first not realizing it was his page. What I saw shocked and amused me all at the same time. The window that opened was his private messages. Out of curiosity, I perused a bit. There, in the open, was a long conversation between my employee and a friend of his. The employee basically taking an order for shoes. My employee described how he would put the shoes in a cheaper pair, where to find them and even what cashier to check out with. I had found my shoe culprit, in the most awesome way possible. I printed out the page and a few days later, after letting his friend buy the stolen shoes, confronted the employee. He admitted to the several thousand dollars’ worth of theft and implicated several others in the store as doing the same. In total, I lost 5 employees. To this day, he has no idea that he led me to himself, and I have no plans on telling him!

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: anti-theft devices, anti-theft tags, Employee Theft, Loss Prevention Seminars, Loss Prevention Training, Loss Prevention Workshop, Retail Anti Theft Devices, retail security, retail security and monitoring, security devices, Shoplifting Prevention, surveillance

Bartenders Beware- Employee Theft

March 15, 2015 by Staff Editor

If your nightclub or restaurant is experiencing inventory losses with your alcohol, chances are you have a problem with employee theft. There is a multitude of ways that your bartenders can steal from you, but there is also a multitude of ways that you can prevent employee theft behind the bar.

One of the easiest ways is to ensure your bartenders and wait staff all go through some kind of loss prevention training. This can be either in house, or contracted out through a loss prevention workshop. During the training, you and your employees will become more aware of different ways that employees have been caught stealing. This is great way to let employees know not to try it, because it is a known method- and it doesn’t work.

It is also a chance to define exactly what constitutes theft- from the obvious stealing bottles, to free drinks, and even a matter of over pouring their shots of liquor. When your employees have a clear set of expectations, definitions and consequences, they are less likely to take the risk of stealing from you.

This is a prefect time to explain what the consequences will be for any employee caught reducing the company’s profits or inventory- intentionally or otherwise. Some offenses may only require additional training, while others will constitute termination of employment and prosecution.

For more information on Loss Prevention Seminars, Loss Prevention Training, or Loss Prevention Workshop contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 – Atlanta Georgia

Visit the Loss Prevention Systems website for more information on Retail Employee Theft and Retail Shoplifting problems and view the Retail Loss Prevention Seminars, Retail Loss Prevention Training and Retail Loss Prevention Workshop we offer to help with your Employee Theft and Shoplifting problems.

For more information on Loss Prevention Seminars, Loss Prevention Training, or Loss Prevention Workshop contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 – Atlanta Georgia

Filed Under: Seminar Tagged With: Employee Theft, Loss Prevention Seminar, Loss Prevention Seminars, Loss Prevention Training, Loss Prevention Workshop, shoplifting

Shoplifting Apprehension that Turn Violent

March 2, 2015 by admin Leave a Comment

Over the past two years or so, I’ve managed well over 1,000 shoplifting cases. Just like any other job, it starts to become a routine. You watch for selection, intent, pass the points of sale, exit. Approach, process, and on to the next one. It’s strange that in my line of work the daily routine is based solely on someone committing a crime. Well, what happens when the apprehensions is not so routine? What should you, or your team do if a shoplifter becomes confrontational, or even physically violent?

I’ve seen several instances of shoplifters becoming physically violent in the very recent past. Member of my team, including myself, have been physically assaulted and even pepper sprayed by shoplifting suspects. I’ve even see greater acts of violence at surrounding retailers. Is that really worth a $50 item? Absolutely not. We are seeing very often that drug addicts, who are stealing to support their habit are committing these crimes. Their minds are focused on their addiction and they will do whatever is necessary to avoid capture, even if that means harming you or a member of your team. The best defense is always a good offense, and the first step in remaining safe in this climate is to analyze the risk associated with each and every shoplifting detention.

I train my teams to analyze the inherent risk of a stop on two simple factors. 1) What is the item being stolen? Is it on its own a weapon? 2) The perceived state of mind of the suspect. Does your suspect appear to be under the influence of drugs, or alcohol? If you can answer yes to both, then there’s a higher chance of the risk of violence and it may be a better idea to allow law enforcement to intervene. I stress this every single day with my team. They all know that there is nothing in that entire store that is worth jeopardizing their safety. Sometimes, though, violence may come from the most unsuspecting source, and you should know how to react during these instances.

If you find yourself in a situation when confronted at the time of apprehension with violence, you should immediately terminate the apprehension and allow the suspect to leave… with or, without the merchandise. Never should you put yourself, your team or your customer’s safety in jeopardy over store merchandise. If you’re confronted and need to defend yourself, then do so in as safe a manner as possible. Training your LP staff in a basic self-defense course is a great tool that is being more widely adopted at more retailers.

In addition to those common sense steps, your company should also have clearly written and accessible policies regarding shoplifting apprehensions and the use of force. If you are in charge of these policies, you should set a clear expectation of how store personnel should contact a shoplifter, as well as details regarding the use of force. The last thing you want is for an employee to get severely injured while trying to protect assets come back with a lawsuit claiming they were subjected to an unsafe work environment. Without clear, written policies, that could be a reality.

Criminals will continue to steal, and a percentage will no doubt become violent in some way. In the LP filed, it is an occupational hazard. With the proper training and common sense policies, you can ensure the safety of your teams. Several states are also currently looking into passing new legislation that would enhance the charge for shoplifters who assault an LP agent. Some states also have laws on the books that turn a shoplifting into a strong arm robbery under these circumstances. If these were to become a nationwide standard, we may be able to start reversing this very disturbing trend.

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Anti-shoplifting training, anti-theft devices, anti-theft tags, anti-thefts devices, EAS Devices, Employee Theft, Loss Prevention Seminar, Loss Prevention Seminars, Loss Prevention Training, Loss Prevention Workshop, shoplifting violence, surveillance

Preventing Shoplifting

February 13, 2015 by admin Leave a Comment

Managers in your store can play an important role in preventing shoplifting. Being aware of the procedures to take when a shoplifting incident occurs protects your employees and your store alike. Shoplifting education programs through the NASP can help organizations prevent shoplifting and educate their employees. The rules and procedures to take by employees when a shoplifting incident occurs can save lives, medical bills and negative publicity occurring from a shoplifting incident. Follow the links below for more news about shoplifting.

Walmart Manager Says He Was Fired After Stopping Alleged Shoplifter

For several years now, Consumerist has reported on variety of stories where a former Walmart employee says they were fired either stopping a shoplifter or defending themselves in an altercation with customers. The latest such incident involves the manager of an Alabama Walmart who claims he was dismissed after stopping an alleged repeat offender from shoplifting again.

AL.com reports that the former manager was blindsided when he was fired a month after he chased and confronted a shoplifter attempting to steal nearly $1,000 worth of merchandise.

The man says the incident occurred during the night shift, when he heard an alarm signaling that an emergency door was open.

When the manager reached the door, he saw a man he described as an habitual shoplifter leaving with a cart full of merchandise.

“When I caught up to the individual he turned and grabbed me, struck me in the face and dragged me to the ground,” the manager says. “I got loose and was holding him down when security personnel from an apartment complex across the street came to help until police arrived.”

VIDEO: Teens ‘Terrorize’ Marysville Grocery Store

MARYSVILLE-

Five teenagers entered a Marysville Save Mart around 1:40 p.m. Wednesday and “terrorized the store,” police say.

A Marysville Police spokesperson told FOX40 four teenage girls and one teenage boy vandalized the store aisle by aisle, shouting out gang slogans and throwing grocery items on the ground. One of those items, according to police, was a bottle of oil, which caused a 64-year-old man to slip and fall.

The retired Air Force veteran was taken to Rideout Medical Center and treated for a potentially fractured elbow, according to police.

Store managers told officers on scene that employees tried to stop the teenagers, but one punched the manager in the face. At some point, police say the teenagers went to the liquor aisle, opened a bottle of alcohol, and started drinking.

The two officers who responded to the incident have minor injuries after one of the teen’s resisted arrest.

Arrests made in two Kroger shoplifting incidents

Two shoplifting incidents were reported Thursday at the Kroger grocery story on U.S. Highway 29, according to Athens-Clarke County police reports.

In one incident, Mary Ashley Moss, 22, of a Johns Creek, Ga., address was charged with shoplifting after swapping price tags on some items and concealing other items as she checked out of the store. According to a police report, Moss told Kroger managers “she did not think it was stealing since she was paying for something in the process.” According to police, Moss was attempting to take $50 worth of hygiene products. She was released from the Clarke County Jail after posting a $1,500 bond.

In the other incident, William Joseph Adams II, 47, of Timber Ridge Lane in Colbert, was charged with shoplifting after allegedly taking $75 worth of meat from the store.

Adams left the store in a blue Ford Fiesta that was stopped shortly after the incident, headed toward Madison County, by Athens-Clarke police. Adams was released from the Clarke County Jail after posting a $5,000 bond.

Filed Under: Shoplifting Prevention Tagged With: Anti-shoplifting training, anti-theft devices, anti-theft tags, anti-thefts devices, Loss Prevention Seminars, Loss Prevention Workshop, Prevent Shoplifting, prevent shrinkage, Retail Anti Theft Devices, retail security and monitoring, Shoplifting Prevention

A Sense Of Pride- Loss Prevention Training

February 5, 2015 by Staff Editor

Anyone who has every had to conduct or host a training class or seminar has had the same fear at some point- Will any of the information set in? Before I gave any of my loss prevention training classes I thought about it. I worried that the employees would be bored, finding the information irrelevant to them, or simply more concerned about what they were going to have for lunch later on that day.

During one particular class, I had a lady who was very upfront that the only reason she was working here was to get the employee discount. Needless to say, I quickly assumed that she would barely pay attention, much less remember anything that I was teaching her.

Months later, she came unexpectedly barging into my office. They very first thing she said was “I remembered what you said in loss prevention training about red flags…” Sure enough, she did remember, and she was right in picking up on some red flags, which ended up stopping a loss of almost $1200 dollars.

To this day, I am not sure about who had a greater sense of pride- her or me. She was so proud of herself for doing something she never dreamed herself capable of. I was proud that I had given her the tools, in such a way that she remembered after all of those months, to be successful.

For more information on Loss Prevention Seminars, Loss Prevention Training, or Loss Prevention Workshop contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 – Atlanta Georgia

Filed Under: Seminar Tagged With: Employee Theft, Loss Prevention Seminar, Loss Prevention Seminars, Loss Prevention Training, Loss Prevention Workshop, shoplifting

Most Controllable Expense- Employee Theft

January 15, 2015 by Staff Editor

The most controllable expense a store has is its payroll. Hours can be fluctuated up or down based upon the sales needs of a given day, week or a specific event. As such, when other store expenses rise, payroll is often the first to be cut to make up the financial difference. When hours start getting cut, employees will often take it upon themselves to make up the difference- resulting in employee theft.

Employee theft isn’t only about cash theft or inventory theft. Employee theft is about the unauthorized use or gain of any company assets- including payroll. Because it is easier for an employee to justify a slide in their favor of the hours worked than it is to justify stealing cash for that same amount of money, time card theft is an often overlooked but equally as detrimental form of theft.

Attending a loss prevention workshop that covers a variety of theft situations from employees can help you to not only see when time card theft is happening, but what to do about it, and ultimately how to avoid it from happening again.

Time card theft usually starts out pretty small- a few minutes here and there. If left unchecked, employees can start to wheedle multiple hours out of you before you begin to notice.

For more information on Loss Prevention Seminars, Loss Prevention Training, or Loss Prevention Workshop contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 – Atlanta Georgia

Time card theft usually starts out pretty small- a few minutes here and there. If left unchecked, employees can start to wheedle multiple hours out of you before you begin to notice.

For more information on Loss Prevention Seminars, Loss Prevention Training, or Loss Prevention Workshop contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 – Atlanta Georgia

Filed Under: Seminar Tagged With: Employee Theft, Loss Prevention Seminar, Loss Prevention Seminars, Loss Prevention Training, Loss Prevention Workshop, shoplifting

Post Christmas Blues

January 5, 2015 by admin Leave a Comment

Well, the 2014 Holiday Season is over; now we are dealing with the post-Christmas issues, returns, inventory and tallying up how we did! Even without official numbers you probably have an idea. Are returns higher than what you expected? Did shoplifters get more than what you were prepared to lose? One of the problems, we as business owners face, is that we get ramped up for sales but we tend to put off preparing for loses. We tell ourselves that we will get to it later. Then when that B or C priority rises to the level of serious loss, it is too late. But we all do that, with many things. It is part of running a business.

Eventually we get tired of dealing with something over and over again and decide to break the cycle. What is the saying? “Doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result, is the definition of insanity”. Thieves will not go away, in fact they will only get worse unless you deal with them head on with real business solutions. Shoplifting and employee theft are actually very simple issues to address. You will never eliminate them completely, however, you can reduce them to an expected level balancing the cost and effect.

Many retailers do not realize that they can and should attack both issues internally first. Take a look at your procedures. Step back and look at them – I mean truly LOOK at them, hard. Why are you doing something the way it is done? Is that the reason for your losses? A good example may be your cash handling procedures. Is your till generally short? How much? Why? If your policy is that you do not make an issue out of a drawer that is $15 or less short, then you have sent the message to your employees that they can steal or be careless up to $15. Fifteen dollars multiplied by 365 days a year is A LOT of money to any retailer, large or small. All of this because of your “procedure” or attitude.

How about shoplifters? Do you really know how to prevent and stop them? Do you teach this to your employees? If you don’t you can never expect to be as profitable as you can and should be. Shoplifters will react to your efforts by going elsewhere. That is what you want. This allows you to spend more of your resources and human capital on your paying customers. Sell more, lose less should be your motto!

If you want help, we are here for you. If you do not, that is OK also. But you can fix your losses.

We wish you a great and prosperous 2015!

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Just Don’t Do It- Loss Prevention Seminars

December 16, 2014 by Staff Editor

When I was growing up, my parents were notorious for telling me not to do things. They never really explained why not, they just told me not to. I can attest to the fact that this was not the most effective way to teach me a lesson. Now, as an adult, when I conduct loss prevention seminars, I go beyond just saying, “don’t do it” and actually share information to make a difference.

When employee theft is happening in a store, or is about to happen, you have to be more prepared than having a sign that says, “shoplifting will be prosecuted”. You have to train your employees that you are aware of different methods, and tactics used in employee theft. You have to be able to train the other employees to be eyes and ears when you are not there.

By sharing information on employee theft during loss prevention seminars you have the information to help your employees make better decisions. Employees who see the heightened awareness level in a store are less likely to try and get away with employee theft.

The stores that have a blanket statement, but no training or awareness, are more likely to have theft issues. Without a clear understanding of how deep the awareness and prevention goes in a store, the more likely employees are to abuse the system.

For more information on Loss Prevention Seminars, Loss Prevention Training, or Loss Prevention Workshop contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 – Atlanta Georgia

Filed Under: Seminar Tagged With: Employee Theft, Loss Prevention Seminar, Loss Prevention Seminars, Loss Prevention Training, Loss Prevention Workshop, shoplifting

Negative On Hands

December 1, 2014 by admin Leave a Comment

When you are conducting perpetual inventories, you are constantly assessing your stock levels. By maintaining accurate stock levels, you are ensuring your customers will have access to the merchandise they are looking for. This creates consistent customer service and maximizes your store’s sales potential. Having an accurate on hand inventory also helps you to reduce your cost of goods by eliminating erroneous inventory orders, as well as identifies potential theft issues more readily.

To have an accurate on hand inventory, you need to have a system in place that captures your inventory movement at the SKU level. This system should recognize any time an item comes in or goes out of your store. This should include receipt of product from the vendor, sales, customer returns, returns to vendors, and miscellaneous usage like damages or store use. You should also have a way to manually make inventory adjustments through processes like cycle counts or inventory replenishment audits.

By maintaining these counts and processes, you should be able to look at any given product and know exactly how many of this item you have. This helps you prepare for sales and special promotions, or to satisfy a larger than normal quantity purchase by a customer. Cycle counts are an invaluable tool in ensuring these counts are up to date and accurate.

A cycle count is a manual count done by a store employee to determine if what the store’s computer system says you should have on hand matches with what you actually have on hand. For example, you are preparing an end cap to be filled with “Item A” for an upcoming sale this weekend. Your on hand inventory says you should have 20 of the item, so you go and look to find all 20 pieces. After searching the sales floor, you discover that you can only find 15 pieces. So you take those 15 to the end cap and enter a cycle count adjustment into the computer system to subtract the missing 5 pieces. Your computer now says that you only have 15 pieces, and you have a shortage of five pieces.

After the weekend is over, all of “Item A” was sold. Your inventory tracking system shows that you have -5 on hand. Negative 5? That indicates that you sold more than what you physically had on hand. Hmm. Something is very clearly off.

One very likely possibility is that when the employee was looking to fill the end cap, they did not look in the back stock room to see if there was any merchandise there. During the weekend, another employee found the missing 5 pieces and restocked the end cap for the sale. Because the employee had cycle counted and adjusted the items out of the inventory, a negative was created when the “missing” five pieces were sold.

This is one example of why it is important to maintain an accurate inventory, even when a manual adjustment is made. When the employee made the adjustment, there was the potential to accidentally order more product than what was needed. If the computer system thought that there was less than what you actually had, an order could have been generated to get the stock levels back to where your store should be. Because the product was physically still in the store, you could have been left with extra product that you didn’t need.

Having a negative on hand of an item means that a recount should be made quickly to determine what the error was and have it fixed. Adjusting your inventory back up to the actual stock levels will not create an overage.

This is not extra product that you didn’t have before. Think of it like loosing a five-dollar bill and not knowing where it went. Then the next winter, you pull out your coat, reach into the pocket and find a five-dollar bill. That money did not magically appear. It was your money that you misplaced and later found.

Fixing your negative on hands does not add extra to your inventory, or your bottom line. It fixes your inventory where a shortage was previously created in error.

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Anti-shoplifting training, anti-theft devices, anti-theft tags, anti-thefts devices, EAS Devices, Employee Theft, Loss Prevention Seminars, Loss Prevention Training, Loss Prevention Workshop, Periodic inventory, Perpetual Inventory, prevent shrinkage, Shoplifting Prevention, shoplifting statistics