Like most retail environments, I suspect that most liquor stores are experiencing an increase in refunds. There are plenty of customers who will have an excuse for why they need to return a particular bottle of liquor. If you are using liquor bottle security, then you should not have an inventory shortage because of the returns.
If you are not using liquor bottle security, than you might be seeing a shrink implication in addition to these returned bottles of liquor.
Refunded merchandise does not cause inventory shrink. If someone stole the merchandise and then refunded it, it is generally called a fraudulent refund. However, the inventory loss happened when the merchandise was stolen, not when the merchandise was returned.
That doesn’t mean the person standing in front of you deserves the refund, it just means that you are not going to have an inventory loss as a result. An exception would be if a refund is given when someone takes merchandise directly from a shelf to a counter and it is refunded. Because the merchandise never left the store, the refund causes to inventory discrepancy.
Best way that I have found to reduce these returns is to use the Alpha Security EASy Bottle bottle locks. If the bottles being returned still have bottle locks, you can safely bet that these are situations that need to be further investigated.
Visit the Loss Prevention Store to purchase EASy Bottle bottle locks by Alpha Security and your Electronic Article Surveillance or EAS system.
For more information on Alpha Security, Bottle Lock, Bottle locks, Bottle Security, EASy Bottle or Liquor Bottle Security and how they can work with your Electronic Article Surveillance or EAS system contact us or call 1.770.426.0547
