How Does Your Store Prevent Shoplifting?

Our company pays an outside vendor to come perform our annual inventories.  That keeps the checks and balances system in place, and helps keep the store management honest in their accountability of losses.  (Several instances of managers attempting to fraudulently pad their inventory numbers by filling empty boxes, or fudging pre-counted merchandise have been discovered, but that is a whole other blog for another day!)  We do what we can to Prevent Shoplifting, deter employee theft, and watch for any paperwork and vendor errors all year long, but the actual count of the store is crucial.  We need this reporting because we have to know where we are losing merchandise in order to stop it in the future.  We are given a “shrink” budget because some loss is inevitable, but if we are getting hit and don’t even know it, then that budget won’t cut it.  The inventory crew found several empty packages during the count: a muscle stimulator, allergy medication, and an over the counter diet drug.  Those three items combined for about a $250 retail loss, and we didn’t even know they were missing. 

It’s not easy to Prevent Shoplifting.  It takes planning, execution, and in many cases Retail Anti-theft Devices.  From now on those electric muscle stimulator boxes will be protected with Alpha Spider Wraps.  I don’t want them locked up because they are truly an impulse item.  People browsing the pain relievers may decide that creams and pills aren’t enough anymore, so I want them to have the option of choosing that product instead.  But if I hide it behind the counter, even if I put a sign there explaining it’s new location, the chances I will sell any become basically zero.  The same goes for the large quantity count boxes of allergy medications.  I need those available on the shelf.  They obviously have a much higher retail than the 30-day boxes, but they also offer a significant convenience to the customers.  So the answer may be to encase these size boxes in Alpha Keepers. 

The idea is to Prevent Shoplifting, not to lose sales.  Sales fixes problems.  When you determine your “shrink”, it is the percentage of loss compared to your sales.  

There are so many choices when it comes to Retail Anti-theft Devices, you have to decide what works best for your merchandise.  If you specialize in cosmetics you will use much different product protection than a store that sells electronics.  Both types of stores have to Prevent Shoplifting or they cannot survive, but they have to know which items are the most vulnerable and which devices to use that will deter theft.  

I do not have the space to put everything up behind the checkout, nor do I ever want to.  Shoppers prefer to choose their items, pick them up, read the instructions, etc.  By utilizing the many tools from Alpha Technology, we are able to protect the items on the shelves while still giving the customers access to the items they came to buy. 

For more information contact us at Preventshopliftingloss.com or call 1.770.426.0547