Make Inventory Preparation Fun For Everyone

August 1, 2018 by Leave a Comment

     “It’s INVENTORY time let’s go have FUN!” There’s a phrase you will never hear. Let’s face it anyone who has been through an inventory knows that it is drudgery. Aside from the counting of merchandise, there is all the preparation that leads up to it. If done properly it is time-consuming and tedious. You and your team are standing on ladders looking on top of fixtures, digging through boxes, in cabinets, and behind fixtures for items that have been misplaced. There is also kneeling to look under gondola base decks, cashier stands or under soft drink coolers for that one little piece of merchandise that rolled under there months ago. Then there are the painstaking tasks that need to be completed such as going through merchandise to make sure everything is properly ticketed. Someone should be spending some time contacting vendors with cut-off dates for bringing in a new product or providing credits for merchandise they are removing. Store managers have to make sure all of the tasks are being planned out, assigning who will complete them and follow up on them. ALL of this is BEFORE inventory night even takes place. Oh did I mention you still have to keep your store operating while you get these projects done? No, it really is not a fun prospect and if your employees get grumpy or dirty and dusty while doing these things they may not be thorough in their assignments. Do your inventory overnight and employees get tired and frazzled and you could wind up having more shortage than you should. Finding methods to get your team on board and keeping them fired up requires making inventory fun.

     How do you make inventory fun and interesting for your employees? There is a variety of ideas store managers can introduce to make the process more engaging for their staff.

  • Almost every business has that one person who is creative and let’s face it super-energetic about fun activities. Find that person, make them your inventory “Fun Captain” and cut them loose. You may even give them a small budget to work with so it is more fun for them too and they feel empowered to make decisions. It will be a load off of your plate. Just be sure that there are brief status meetings you two hold so you can help keep things on track. Sometimes these folks can have grandiose ideas that can be tough to reign in if you don’t stay a little involved.
  • FOOD! Everyone loves food and it can pump up the mood of a team. If you have a “Fun Captain”, ask them to come up with a week of food ideas for each day of prep and inventory night. It doesn’t have to be fancy maybe “Doughnut Monday”, “Candy Corn Tuesday”, “Pretzel Wednesday” and so on, you get my drift. Inventory day should be a bit more special. I have seen everything from fruit, coffee, and soda brought in for energy overnights to sub sandwiches and chips. One place I worked for the store manager brought in breakfast foods at the start of the day and pizzas that afternoon. Be creative!
  • Music. I saw one store that did inventory overnight and since there were no customers they played upbeat music over the P.A. system. Someone from that store would occasionally get on the microphone or phone and pretend to be a DJ. It was lively, it didn’t cost anything and the “DJ” was entertaining and funny.
  • Hold contests. Who doesn’t enjoy being part of a contest? It may be giving a prize to the person who can find merchandise stuck in the oddest location. Maybe it is retail trivia questions focused on shortage and safety issues. A correct answer can be rewarded with a “fun-sized” candy bar. You can purchase those bags in any grocery store and if you sell them then requisition a bag.

There are other ideas you or your “Fun Captain” will come up with, the key is to make it enjoyable for your team. Remember, the more engaged your team is and the more they understand why they are preparing for inventory the better the overall results will be when shrinkage numbers come back.

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Stopping Shoplifters Is As Much Attitude As It Is Equipment

June 30, 2018 by Leave a Comment

We supply and install the best anti-shoplifting equipment made. Checkpoint Systems is the gold standard of Electronic Article Surveillance (EAS) equipment. Support is off the chart. Checkpoint Systems has factory Tech’s everywhere, I mean EVERYWHERE. They have to since the majority of the top retailers in the world are using Checkpoint equipment. These Techs are not sub-contractors. They are skilled EAS, Radio Frequency (RF) experts. As an example, my Sr. Tech Dan is a former Navy Electronics Technician; he worked on highly advanced systems that protect our country.

That’s all good and well but we can install the best equipment using the best people out there but if you do not have the right attitude, you will not have solved your shoplifting problem. You will simply have spent money and felt good about what you purchased but YOUR SHOPLIFTING PROBLEM WILL COME BACK.

You have to instill the right attitude about shoplifting prevention in yourself and your staff. Shoplifters are not afraid of the Checkpoint equipment all by itself. But, they are very afraid of the Checkpoint equipment when it is supported by a trained, knowledgeable staff. The equipment will work. It will notify you when someone tries to steal a protected piece of merchandise. But you have to be on your game long before this happens. Do you know what shoplifters look like? Do you know how to spot them before they steal? You can easily expose a shoplifter in your store with the proper customer service techniques. These skills will not make the shoplifter transparent but will delight your good customers and increase your sales. Good customers love attention, shoplifters hate it.

I believe this so deeply that we at Loss Prevention Systems include free, live shoplifting training as often as you reasonably need it. Staff changes, new manager or supervisor, new employees that are new to retail or your store? Let us train them, free of charge, for the life of your Checkpoint System when you buy it from Loss Prevention Systems.

So you get actual LP training from a former Director of Loss Prevention with over 35 years of experience. FREE!

So if training is the key, why do you still need the Checkpoint System? That is a great question and the answer is simple. The equipment is there to support you when you cannot be everywhere at the same time. Retailers’ biggest expense is labor. If we can keep labor dollars down, we are more profitable. The fact of the matter is that shoplifters seek out and even create situations where they steal when you cannot pay the attention required to spot and deter every shoplifter. By the way, one in ten people that are in your store right now is there to steal from you. That is where the Checkpoint System comes into play. It is working 24/7, does not take breaks, vacations, sick-leave or simply not show up. Checkpoint equipment has a great attitude and is always looking for shoplifters.

Now, what are YOU going to do to change your attitude and start getting the margins from your sales that you deserve? Contact Loss Prevention Systems now and make it happen. Chances are we will actually be able to assist you to begin stopping shoplifters before the system is even delivered and our amazing Techs can install it.

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Merchandise Audits For Stores Without A Loss Prevention Team

June 30, 2018 by Leave a Comment

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.

     

     

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How Abused Return Policies Can Hamper Customer Relations

June 30, 2018 by Leave a Comment

Having to balance a customer friendly environment that makes patrons feel like you want their business and keeping a structure in place that ensures the store is profitable can be difficult. This is especially true when it comes to customer returns. At times, return policies even seem to put store management and loss prevention teams at odds with each other. On one hand, stores are afraid that a strict return policy will turn off regular customers and result in a loss of business. On the other hand Loss Prevention teams in their efforts to…well…prevent losses have a tendency to want to tighten procedures on everything. There is an argument to be made for both sides but there may also be a happy middle ground where both can come to an agreement.

Customers can and do lose receipts and in many instances, this hinders the person’s ability to get a refund and in some stores, it may even prevent an exchange of merchandise. In some of these situations, the customer may only be seeking to exchange an item for a different size, color or design and yet the manager sticks to the policy regardless of circumstances. This hardline approach can and does anger many shoppers and it will result in lost business. Yes, the policy is in place and the intentions of it are good but the lack of flexibility in not permitting even an even exchange or a trade for a similar item can be a poor choice. A store will pay for that decision through the loss of future sales.

Many stores have gone to the extreme of allowing an exchange or return giving the shopper up to 365 days to make a return! In a cbsnews.com article, “15 Stores With The Best Return Policies”, by Maryalene LaPonsie, Nov. 22, 2017, they reference 15 stores that have some of the best (read easiest) return policies. The article points out that even among these stores a bit of tightening up on the policies had to be done due to return fraud and abuse. Still, consumers will find that even without receipts they can at least receive store credits towards future purchases. Not too bad for losing a receipt and keeping merchandise for a year.

From a Loss Prevention perspective, this seems far too excessive and an abuse of a retailer’s goodwill. Taking back a return that is a year old or even 90 days old means that item has dropped in value due to markdowns or because it is out of season and no one is going to purchase it. Loss Prevention departments are concerned with profitability just as are store managers but tend to see things in more immediate terms. Taking that winter coat back in July means that it is either going to take up valuable stockroom space or will have to be marked down. Is there some way to come to an understanding between Loss Prevention concerns and store manager concerns?

Shoplifters do abuse store return policies often on repeat occasions. A May 14, 2018 article by journaltimes.com staff, “Racine woman charged for Walmart thefts”, reported on a woman who was caught on camera entering a Walmart store, selecting an airbed and taking it to the return desk and receiving a gift card. She was caught on camera committing the same type of theft about three weeks later at the same store. The story reported that the suspect had a history of shoplifting in the county dating back to 1991. In a related story from Houstonherald.com, May 21, 2018, a woman entered a Walmart store and “placed several items into a cart including DVD’s, floor mats, jeans, household goods and groceries.” The story relates that she went to the service desk and made returns for items she hadn’t bought and was able to get about $64 cash. This offender also had a history of 10 prior theft convictions.

Store owners and Loss Prevention officials need to devise clear-cut policies that provide fair returns and refunds to honest customers while putting roadblocks in place for criminals. Once policies are hashed out and agreed upon, consistency in administering those policies is required. Deviating and making exceptions only opens up the door to return fraud and abuse and takes you back to square one and career shoplifters will continue to abuse your goodwill. 

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Good Intentions With Bad Outcomes; Retailers Must Prepare For Increased Violence From Shoplifting Gangs

June 30, 2018 by Leave a Comment

Actions based on good intentions don’t always have good results. One of the most famous of missteps was the Coca-Cola attempt to improve its formula and market “New” Coke. The idea was well-intentioned but the public reception was cool if not outright hostile. According to the website INVESTOPEDIA, “ “Classic Coke” returned to the shelves less than three months after it had been retired.” In the same article, they point out that in 2008 the manufacturer of Motrin found out that there was a problem with the medicine not dissolving properly. Reportedly they did not want to “incur the associated negative publicity, the firm sent out secret shoppers to buy the products off of store shelves, which resulted in a lawsuit in Oregon in 2011.” (“8 Good Intentions With Bad Outcomes”, Lisa Smith, updated December 15, 2017). Laws can have the same problems of unintended consequences, helping one constituency while hurting another.

In an article in LPM Magazine, “Retail Crime In Los Angeles”, May 1, 2018, An example of a law that was intended to help “reduce prison crowding in California’s overwhelmed prisons and provide treatment rather than jail time to qualifying drug offenders” was Proposition 47. How could such a program go wrong? Who would not benefit from such a law? Apparently, retailers are bearing the burden of unforeseen consequences in this case. According to the article part of Proposition 47 also converted “many non-violent offenses, including shoplifting from felonies to misdemeanors.” The story goes on to say that shoplifting offense under $950 result only in a citation to show up in court. Inevitably career and habitual shoplifters are going to learn what the lines are between a misdemeanor and a felony and they are going to take advantage of those delineations.

It seems that shoplifting has dramatically increased in Los Angeles as criminals have found that it is lucrative for them to engage in the crime with minimal cost if they are caught. The ramifications that are being felt include increased monetary losses for retailers due to theft-related shrink. Worse, the story states that violent behavior from shoplifters is seemingly on the rise. Danger has always been a concern for retailers and especially Loss Prevention professionals when stopping a shoplifter(s). Now that potentially violent criminals have been released because of the reclassification of certain crimes the stakes are higher. The story points out that gangs are becoming more active in shoplifting. As mentioned criminals are quick to learn and they learn rapidly when penalties for a crime become less severe.

Violence in shoplifting cases is becoming more pronounced and not simply in Los Angeles. A story on ketv.com by the reporter, Michelle Bandur, Dec. 20, 2017, referenced a group of women boosting merchandise from retailers in the Omaha area. Detective Galloway interviewed in the report, “said they don’t avoid confrontation and may resort to violence.” He said they have received reports that these women will, “… load bags in front of employees and sometimes I’ve been told by employees they will taunt them.” He went on to describe incidents of the members of the group knocking people to the floor. They have attempted to run over others in a parking lot if they noticed a person trying to take a picture of their license plate. These incidents support data from the National Retail Federation 2017 Organized Retail Crime Survey. According to the survey, 98.5% of responding retailers reported “ORC (Organized Retail Crime) gangs are just as aggressive or more aggressive and violent when compared with last year. 26.5% said that gangs are much more aggressive than in the previous year (pg. 10). If these numbers from the NRF Survey are true, when coupled with Proposition 47 retailers in L.A. may be in for some very rocky times in years to come.

Retailer owners must become familiar with methods to prevent shoplifting without endangering employees in the process. Tried and true methods such as aggressive customer service may not be effective deterrents any longer. Adjustments by Managers may include carefully reviewing hours of operation and not staying open as late at night. If cameras are not in place owners may want to install them to have quality video and pictures for police in case of a serious incident. Starting a Retail Crime Prevention organization in partnership with local police can help identify theft trends and organized and violent persons. Finally, retail theft prevention training from Loss Prevention Systems Inc. can provide more information on how to stop theft and keep your employees safe from harm.

Prop. 47 may have been well-intentioned but it has opened up a Pandora’s Box of problems for California retailers.  Through proper training, owners and managers can position store teams to be ready for security and safety issues now and in the future.

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A Checkpoint System Is Now More Important Than Ever

May 31, 2018 by Leave a Comment

Shoplifters seem to be getting bolder than ever. Much of this is greed. Many people simply want stuff and have no moral compass. Others are emboldened by lax law enforcement or Politicians that pass laws that do little to protect you. Whatever the case be, it has a negative impact on Retailers. We are expected to open our stores, compete, pay employees, pay expenses, taxes…. And make a profit. Shoplifting theft is yet another pressure on us.

The key to stopping shoplifting is prevention! You have to keep the losses from occurring. Once the shoplifter has stolen merchandise, even if you catch them, you lose money in labor, unsellable merchandise, sales and the like. This is where a Checkpoint System shines. This is high-quality commercial grade equipment that works 24/7. However, like anything else, you must get as much value out of any equipment you have. A piece of equipment that can pull double and triple duty for the same investment brings a better return on investment. Consider what Loss Prevention Systems offers.

First, when our customers purchase a system from us, they get FREE anti-shoplifting training for the life of the system. This is live training by a Loss Prevention professional as often as you reasonably need it. I actually spend a fraction of that time on the Checkpoint System itself. Most of the time is spent teaching you and your staff how to detect and dissuade shoplifters from even entering your store. You can actually have fun with shoplifters. Drive them crazy and they will get frustrated and simply leave you alone.

Next, there is a whole world of new innovations in the Checkpoint Systems line. People/Customer counting is one. Your system can count customer traffic. You then receive a weekly report that details your traffic by the hour of the day, day or the week. This data can be merged into your sales data to give you a more complete picture. Customers use this data to help with decisions on staffing levels, open/close times and more. The system will also report on the Checkpoint System alarms. How and when they occur. This further feeds into your decisions about staffing levels. You may say that my cash register tells me traffic. Not so, as not every customer that comes into your store makes a purchase. Why is that? Possibly because you do not have enough staff on at the times when you really need it.

How about remote control of your Checkpoint System from your mobile device while inside your store? This feature notifies you of alarms, maintenance issues, and real-time stats. You can be in your office, stock room or anywhere in your store and the system will notify you of an alarm. Immediately. This also gives you control of the system itself. Checkpoints systems are already ECO-friendly in their power consumption. But you can set up a schedule that tells your system to power down during the hours you are closed. Over a year that money adds up.

Marketing? Our systems have AD Panel capability either built-in or as an add-on. The antennas are there at the front door anyway, why not have them greet your customers with signage that you can change out as often as you wish. Promote an item, a sale, a special or simply say “welcome”. Print whatever you want and slide it into the clear acrylic frame. Now you get double duty without taking up any more floor space.

How about control of items you do not want to leave the store under any circumstances? Key rings, customer hand baskets, notebooks, documents, tools, equipment or supplies. Simply put a tag or label on them.

Contact Loss Prevention Systems today and we will help set you on the path to higher profits!

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Keeping Track of Sales And Customers This Year For Next Year’s Summer Planning

May 31, 2018 by Leave a Comment

It is hard to believe but summer is almost here! What are you doing about it? As crazy as the question may sound there is a reason I ask. What are you doing that will be different than what you did last summer? Do you know what it was you did to inspire additional sales last year? Maybe you didn’t do anything at all differently. Maybe you added a new piece of summer merchandise to your merchandising strategy. How did that item do in sales? Was it a blockbuster for you? On a similar note, how was the customer foot traffic in your store? Did you see an increase in the number of patrons last summer over the rest of the year? If you aren’t asking the questions then you are probably flying by the seat of your pants and that is not going to be beneficial to you at all. Sales tracking and Customer Counting can assist you in exponentially growing your sales.

Adding products to your merchandise lines may be a good idea. Perhaps last summer you purchased 100 units of a new brand of suntan lotion to supplement your summer lineup. Did you keep track of how many of those units you sold at full price? Did you wind up taking markdowns on them in order to get them to move? You may have eventually been out of the merchandise but if you were not tracking how many you sold by the week you may have lost money if they all went at the end of the season at or below cost. By failing to follow sales of seasonal items you could develop a false picture of how a product moved and make the costly mistake of carrying it again the following year. One aside to this; be sure that seasonal merchandise is in a prominent location. Sticking this merchandise on a back endcap or in the main run is not going to produce the results you are seeking. This can also give you a poor picture of how the item could really have driven sales had it been in a more visible location.

Customer foot traffic is also an important tool for summer planning for the next year. If one of your intended purposes in adding a summer product line in your store is to drive up sales you need to know whether it has the intended effect. If you are keeping track of customer counts you can determine if a new product is drawing in more shoppers. A spike in customer counts can be compared to sales tracking of a new product(s). If there appears to be a correlation in the data you can make preparations for the next summer and plan for additional sales by bringing back those summer items. If a group of summer products proved profitable and drew in more customers then add to it with new summer goods. It would also be a good idea to review those sales figures and add more people on shifts. You may find that customer counts proved to be much higher than sales transactions were. If this is the case it is possible that your store could have lost sales by having insufficient cashiers or sales floor staff to provide assistance. Customer counting can also benefit your store with a breakdown of the time of day patrons were shopping. This provides flexibility in adding staff at peak times rather than adding people for an entire day if it isn’t necessary.  Though it may take time to plan it out using the information you have collected from sales tracking and customer counting the payoff will be seen in sales increases.

A website, workzone.com, had an article, “45 Planning Quotes To Help You Reach Your Goals” by Steve Pogue. One of the quotes was from Warren Buffet, “Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree long ago.” Another quote attributed to Robert H. Schuller, “Spectacular achievement is always preceded by unspectacular preparation.” So friends, spectacular sales next summer will be dependent on how much preparation you are willing to put into planning today. Dedicate time now in reviewing your seasonal specialty item sales and how many customers entered your business and create a plan that will dazzle you with results next summer.

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School’s Out – Time To Get Ready For School: Tips To Prepare for a Successful Back To School Season

May 31, 2018 by Leave a Comment

Summertime is here and now is the time for children to rejoice and shout for glee as most are finishing up their school year. Put away the pens and paper and lunchboxes and prepare to enjoy the warm, sunny days. No Mr. and Ms. Retailer, not YOU, the children. The moment the schools let out is the moment you should be preparing to roll out the merchandise for the next school year. Wait too long and you will be a step or two behind your competition.

Certainly, most children will not be anxious to go school shopping so soon after starting their vacations but we, the dads and moms out here, are always looking for special sales and deals that will save us a few bucks. Education may be free but all of the accessories are not. Think about what we parents are purchasing to send the kids off to school. We are asked to provide crayons, pencils, pens, glue, and paper. Lunchboxes, backpacks (wait, regular or see-through?), binders and notecards also fill our school supply lists. From there schools and grades may have varying requirements. The retailer who is going to be top of the class is the one who will anticipate the needs of the pupils and parents and prepares accordingly.

What are some of those things that you can do to get the head start that will drive sales for your business?

  • If you aren’t keeping old school supply lists filed away, start doing so. This will give you a good idea of what teachers will probably ask parents to provide the coming year. The schools will probably not make lists for the coming year available until July so knowing last year’s information gains you some advantage.
  • Advertise. Use social media and in-store flyers as cost-effective means of getting the word out to customers. You may also want to check on the price of a radio spot to air a short commercial. If you only rely on posting flyers and banners in the store you are limiting your advertising to those customers already shopping with you. You need to spread the message to bring in additional shoppers.
  • Create displays near the front of the store that focuses on school-related supplies that complement each other. For example, create an endcap with binders, loose-leaf paper, pencils, pens, crayons, compasses, and protractors. If your store is geared to clothing then displays for children’s clothing should be on focal points. Regardless of what your store specializes in, order a one-time shipment of some lunchboxes and food storage containers for sandwiches, chips, dressings/sauces. Parents are conscientious of rising school lunch prices and reusable containers appeal to both the cost concerned and environmentally focused families.
  • In the process of creating the displays don’t forget about merchandise protection. Use electronic article surveillance labels and hard tags on everything. Don’t lose sight of the fact that those displays will also attract the attention of shoplifters and they will steal merchandise that isn’t secure. Small and expensive items will be especially tempting.
  • Begin clearance pricing some summer products earlier to free up floor space for back to school related merchandise.
  • An easy to overlook opportunity is to keep your check lanes full of impulse buy goods. Snacks and drinks are top items but finding cool gadgets and pens that may interest students and adults are great opportunities for a few extra dollars.
  • Don’t forget about add-on sale items. Calculators tend to be popular and they need batteries. Peghook your calculators, keeping your high-end TI-83’s, TI-84’s, etc. in Alpha Keeper boxes to make them available to customers while protecting them from theft. Add the corresponding AA and AAA batteries on additional rows of peg hooks and deter theft by using Auto Peg Tags. Speaking of batteries it would also be a good idea to place battery chargers and rechargeable batteries in this type of display. Again, expense minded and green-minded patrons will find something to appeal to them here.

It is not always easy to think outside the box when anticipating the needs of school students especially if your store specializes in one area but it can be done. Be creative and it can pay dividends.

A final thought on back to school sales opportunities. Some retailers offer special deals to teachers (who present official credentials). Not only does this help your profit line it is a huge boon for teachers who often use their own money for classroom supplies. You can develop a new loyal customer base with such an offer. Make preparations early for the return to the classroom and you will demonstrate you have learned your lesson well.

     

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Inventory Over? Scrutinize The Results If They Seem Askew

May 31, 2018 by Leave a Comment

Some people in retail look forward to it and some dread it. What am I talking about? Inventory! From the planning stages and meetings with the inventory counting team to the actual inventory day it can all be a lot to accomplish even for the best of planners. But what happens when you get through the actual counting phase? What comes next? You wait for the results. You may get preliminary results immediately but for larger stores booked inventory may take several weeks and they have teams to analyze the results. As a small retailer you may have to analyze the reports yourself but do you really understand what you are looking for? Are your results accurate? Stores have to keep track of what they have on hand and owners need to know where shortage has taken place and how it has happened.

A detailed review of the inventory results is important. They can identify areas that may be indicators of poor vendor service. If your store sells groceries, snacks, soft drinks or adult beverages you are most likely served by direct store delivery vendors. If a shortage is somewhat high in these departments you might not be receiving all of the credits you are supposed to receive. This is not necessarily an indicator of theft but it could be. It may be simply poor scanning and crediting for merchandise a vendor is removing from the store. Those credits could be due to product getting ready to expire or that has expired. It may be it was a promotional product that isn’t selling in the quantities the vendor was hoping for. Whatever the reason, the representative could have miscued an entry, for example, scanning a partial pallet of sodas and keying in a quantity of 10 versus 100. If the vendor is in a hurry and no one caught the error at the time it could be costing your store a lot of money.

While we are talking about administrative errors causing shortage it is important that store owners take a look at all of their billings. In a big box retail store, we had monthly P/L (profit/loss) statements that showed the dollar amounts of merchandise shipped to us for each department. One year when inventory results revealed a high shortage result in our shoe department I went back through all of the P/L statements and found an unusual billing amount. I tried to correlate it to a seasonal reset or specific event but was unable to pin it to anything in particular. I sent my concern to our inventory analysts who reviewed the information and found we had been overcharged $10,000 in the shoe department that particular month. Review P/L statements or invoices for potential errors if inventory results seem out of line.

Look at the departments that are showing the shortage. Do they look like areas that would be prone to theft or could there be other administrative issues involved? For example, if you own an office supply store and you have a high shrinkage in printer ink cartridges there is a strong probability this is a theft concern. On the other hand, shrink in foam project boards could be due to process issues. Are individual foam boards shipped in multi-pack shrink wrap? It could be the items are not being separated and a bulk set is improperly sold as a single unit at the register. Have individual units been damaged and unsellable but not properly marked out of stock before tossing them? Foam boards are probably not being stolen but improper handling is costing money to your store just the same.

Certainly, theft has to be a consideration in the review of inventory results. But one must be careful not to attribute ALL shortage to theft. Doing so may keep you from impacting up to 26.7% of your losses in the next inventory cycle. According to the 2017 National Retail Security Survey, 21.3% of a shortage is due to administrative and paperwork errors and 5.4% is the result of vendor fraud or errors. That said it is important to dig into potential theft concerns that are impacting your store. Are you the target of shoplifters? Do you have an employee theft problem you did not realize existed? Getting a handle on theft must be part of your follow-up in creating a shortage action plan to improve shrinkage. Consultation with Loss Prevention Systems Inc. is a good starting point for finding a solution to all of your shortage concerns, theft included.

 If you take inventory and find you are missing SKU’s because results are askew, take time to dig into the findings. Knowing where shortage happened this year and taking steps to correct it will give improved results next year.

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Stop The Flow Of Bad Employees!

April 30, 2018 by Leave a Comment

The IT world has a phrase “garbage in, garbage out”. The same concept applies to hiring new employees. If you do not put effort into selecting a new employee, then chances are you will be disappointed down the road.

In my 40+ years of loss prevention experience, I have investigated and interrogated a little over 2300 employees for theft. When you have seen that much theft, you begin to look at the source. Loss Prevention folks tend to be the ones catching the sludge coming out of the end of the pipe. We are dealing with employees that no one else can deal with. Normal management techniques do not work. So I began looking back up the pipeline, to the source. Loss Prevention starts at the time an applicant even thinks about putting in an application for work with your company.

Look at it as filtering out as many bad people as we possibly can in this process. When a person visits your business, in person or the employment page on your website to put in an application what do they see? It should be a clean image. Do you drug test? That wording or sign makes many folks that know they will not pass a drug screen turn around right there. So the filtering process has started.

Next, do they see that you will do a thorough background check? Criminal records check, credit check, education verification, sex offender register, driver’s license check (if applicable), previous employment verification and so on. A person with a clean “record” or with minor issues only, will not be concerned. However, the folks with poor records may simply move on. So we just filtered out more. These are people we are not interested in talking to and would be a waste of our time.

If you have our Applicant Management Center (AMC) solution, then the next step is that the candidate will fill out your custom application online. So instead of getting paper documents with handwriting that may be poor and full of inaccuracies, you are getting a file with data that you can read and respond to. One of the documents that can be included in this process is the release of background checks. Folks that have a bad record that thought you really might not check are now faced with signing a legal document. They know that if they lied on your AMC application, that you will find out. We just filtered out some more people we do not want to hire. The good folks can then attach their resume or any other documents you require.

With the Applicant Management Center, you get an organized, readable packet that you can review online and print out if necessary. I should mention at this point that the Applicant Management Center archives all of your applicant’s information. So you can go back even years later to retrieve the information.

Upon your review, you can email the applicant to set up a phone or in-person interview, ask questions or send a “no thank you, not interested note”. If you decide to go forward with an interview, then you should have already taken our personal, FREE, LIVE two-hour seminar:

Armed with the techniques we teach, you are better suited to get more truthful answers to your questions. For established Loss Prevention Systems customers, we conduct this training as reasonably often as you need it – free of charge. We train you how to set up the interview and how to ask questions. For example, an applicant most likely will tell you if they have stolen from previous employers. You just need to know how to ask.

Next in the filtering process is to actually run a background investigation. If you have our AMC, then all you do is click a box and the background checks begin. For example, if the checks you want include a drug screen then your applicant is contacted through email with a link to set up an appointment at a lab near them (we are Nationwide). Once that process is completed, then you receive the results automatically in AMC.

Criminal records checks would also start. We like to run a Social Security Number (SSN) Trace before we run criminal records. An SSN Trace is basically the “header” off of the applicant’s credit history. It does not provide any financial information. It does, however, give us the addresses where the person has lived. We can then check those jurisdictions for criminal records. That way, if the applicant omits a place they have lived where they have a criminal record, we should find it anyway. SSN Traces are VERY inexpensive to run. We do an actual “Court House” search, not some off-beat “database” masquerading as a records check.  Many States allow for Statewide records checks (all counties & cities). But there are some that do not. At that point, we search County records.

So all of the checks have been run and as the results available in your Applicant Management Center are updated, you are notified. You can continue with the process, if necessary another interview, additional questions, job offer or letting the candidate know they have not been selected.

AMC is very inexpensive to onboard, our background checks very competitively priced with some of the fastest turnarounds in the industry. If you would like to try AMC, we will set you up for a FREE SIX MONTH TRIAL, no obligation. You would simply pay for any background checks you request along the way. However, you do not need to request any background checks to have our Applicant Management Center.

Contact us today for more information and to get started.

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