COPYING EMPLOYEE THEFT

Quite often, I like to showcase a new theft trend, or perhaps a funnier shoplifter story for a bit of humor. This month is no different. We’ve talked about some pretty serious issues on the past two articles and now I just want to share a story that goes along with that employee theft piece. It’s something I bet each and every one of you will react to immediately after reading.

At one point last year, our company finally gave us (Regional LP Managers) access to our store’s P&L statements. You would think we would have already had this… Better late than never I suppose. It’s a great tool for me to see the overall profitability of the store. I can use my expertise to help the store reduces losses/expenses and to become a more profitable business. One store in particular stuck out. They were over their office supply budget by thousands of dollars. Odd.

Most stores spent between $500-$1000 a month on office supplies like toner, paper, pens and pencils. This particular store was spending triple that; at least $3k each month. I met with the store manager during a visit and asked about that line item. He was just as perplexed. Where were these office supplies going each and every month? We devised a plan. We initiated a “buy back” program for all employees. We put up signs in the offices and common areas asking all employees to clear their lockers, cars and homes of any supplies they may have taken home. It happens, no big deal. When the employees returned the items, we weighed them on a digital scale. The employee with the heaviest return received a gift card. Well, it worked. We had pens and pencils for the next two years. Next month, the store still spent $2k in supplies.

Baffled, I reached out to our accounting department. Surely, there had to be an error somewhere. Perhaps a line item was being mixed in where it shouldn’t be. It took a few days, but I convinced one of the accountants to give me an itemized breakdown of all office supplies the store had ordered over the past year. Toner. The store was ordering toner. Lots and lots of toner.

I questioned the managers and personally searched the store. Over the past six months, the store had ordered nearly 25 replacement toner cartridges. Couldn’t find them, and couldn’t explain why the store was ordering so many. I decided to ask the administrative assistant. A kind of last ditch effort to explain why the store kept ordering copy toner. 15 minutes into my conversation and I had a theft confession.

Toner, apparently, will resell very easily online, especially if you mark it down about 50%. The administrative assistant was ordering toner, then simply walking out the front door with it. She’d post it on eBay and was making a pretty healthy profit from it. It was a first for our LP department. No one else had ever, in my company’s history, uncovered this form of theft. It was a bit unusual, but still cost us well over $12k. My advice to you; look over your office supply orders.