Perpetual Inventory

Loose the Battle, Win the War

July 30, 2014 by admin Leave a Comment

I read a horrifying news article about a man, who had been convicted of shoplifting, winning a lawsuit to the tune of $500,000. That’s right- half a million dollars paid out to a man who was convicted of shoplifting from a store. The report was horrifying for two reasons.

The first, because he was a shoplifter who might never have to work a day in his life again, basically was paid out to steal. Two, because the reason he won his suit was because he was injured during the course of the apprehension as a result of his shoplifting.

It raises a very important question of where do we, as retailers and business owners, draw the line? Where do we say we will allow this particular loss to happen to avoid an even worse loss? In essence, how do we loose the battle to win the war?

As the news report goes on, this particular man seems to have made a habit of bringing up (and winning) lawsuits stemming from his alleged shoplifting incidents. When the businesses could not win their cases against this man to convict him of shoplifting, he turned around and sued for slander, liable, and wrongful apprehensions.

While this particular situation is probably one of the more extreme examples of how a shoplifting stop can go horrifically wrong, this is not an unrealistic topic for businesses to be aware of.

Any time a shoplifter is stopped, or even approached, we have a responsibility to be right- 100% right. We also have to be able to prove it in a court of law. The days of acting on gut feelings or suspicions are long gone.

We have a right to protect our stores and to make shoplifting stops. We need to do so in a way that is also fair and legal to the suspected shoplifter- lest we also incur a half million dollar settlement at our expense.

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Employee Theft, loss prevention, Loss Prevention Seminar, Loss Prevention Seminars, Periodic inventory, Perpetual Inventory, POS ROI, prevent shrinkage, retail security and monitoring, Shoplifting Prevention

What are your Loss Prevention Priorities for this year?

June 4, 2014 by admin Leave a Comment

The workforce in any retail store has to be aware of the policies and procedures that a company or retail store has to deterred shoplifting, and the steps to take when encountering a shoplifting incident. Your management team has to be the most knowledgeable about what to do and how to proceed during such incidents and the steps necessary to take to make certain the safety of the employees are not jeopardized. Shrinkage due to employee theft is very prevalent in retail and the amount they shoplift surpasses that of the amateur shoplifter, being aware of what is going on in your store can lead to less shrinkage and more profits for your store.

Read more news about shoplifting by following the links below.

Retail loss prevention team priorities for 2014

The challenges facing today’s retail loss prevention teams are increasingly complex and serious, from cyber security to active shooter to workforce training, compliance issues and – unfortunately – even armed gunmen inside stores or shopping malls. And with NRF’s annual Loss Prevention Conference and EXPO coming up in June, we wanted to know what’s top of mind for retail LP professionals. We asked a few of our LP Advisory Council members to weigh in on what their top priorities are for 2014. Three different retailers, three different answers. But in our unofficial small survey, we found one common theme — people.

Retailer Keeps Loss Prevention Low and Customer Satisfaction High with DigitalPersona Fingerprint Solution

DigitalPersona, Inc., a trusted partner for biometric identity verification solutions, today announced that New Look, a leading China fashion retailer, has selected a Point-of-Sale (POS) system enabled with DigitalPersona^® fingerprint technology. After a successful trial at six of the retailer’s stores in February 2014, New Look is set to expand their use of biometrics in 16 of its stores by the end of 2014 — with longer-range plans to equip 100 stores by 2017. The retailer initially selected biometric technology as an alternative to passwords for improving time and attendance accuracy, but found it also enhances loss prevention and customer service.

Stupid Criminal: Doomed robbery

Today’s Stupid Criminals were doomed from the beginning.

You would think if you are going to rob a store, you might want to first look into what that store sells.

Well these Stupid Criminals thought it would be a good idea to rob this store in Dallas, Texas but you see that wasn’t the smartest idea.

Why?

Because what does the store sell? Surveillance cameras of course.

The owner of the security business supply store caught both the criminals on no less than 17 cameras.

Now the robbers did have plenty of warning before they tried to rob the store. There were at least four signs outside the store that told them they were being recorded.

They were able to get away with $10,000 worth of equipment.

No word yet if they’ve been caught.

Filed Under: Shoplifting Prevention Tagged With: anti-theft devices, anti-theft tags, EAS Devices, Employee Theft, loss prevention, Loss Prevention Seminar, Periodic inventory, Perpetual Inventory, Shoplifting Prevention

Don’t Know What You’ve Got Until It’s Gone

May 6, 2014 by admin Leave a Comment

Inventory accuracy is absolutely critical to maximizing sales and customer satisfaction. In the most basic of terms, if you do not have product, you cannot make a sale. If you cannot make a sale, your customer will be dissatisfied and will go somewhere else to make their purchase.

There are two kinds of inventory tracking and processes: Periodic and perpetual inventories.

A periodic inventory is one where a business takes an inventory on an infrequent basis. It might be every six months, or even annually. At that time, all of the current merchandise/ assets are accounted for. Inventory numbers are then based off of the previous inventory.

Thanks to the accessibility of computers and other digital tools, perpetual inventory is more common. It tracks each movement that the inventory takes from receipt of the product, to sales, to returns. This allows for much more immediate reaction to stock levels, customer satisfaction, and theft concerns. Inventory levels can be determined immediately through a spot check called a cycle count.

A cycle count is an informal count of a specific item of merchandise. Say you are gearing up for a sale and want to know if you have enough merchandise to satisfy the demands of the sale. You can look at your perpetual inventory system and see “item X” should have a quantity of 10. You go throughout the store and look to find all 10 pieces of inventory. After looking on the sales floor, stock rooms, and wrap stands you find all 10 pieces and know your inventory on hand is accurate.

If you can only find 5 of the item, you would start by ordering in more of the product to satisfy your upcoming sale. Next you would want to investigate why you are missing 5 of “item X”. Did they break and get thrown into the garbage unaccounted for? Were they stolen? Is this a shipment from a vendor that is in transit? Did the vendor make a paperwork error and over charge you?

By upgrading your inventory systems to a perpetual inventory you can react faster to such shortages and then quickly resolve the losses. You still want to have a periodic inventory, at a minimum once a year, to ensure your inventory is accurate. Cycle counts are good to spot check items, but simply cannot be done for the thousands of SKUs that most businesses carry on any given day.

Call us today at 1-770-426-0547 if you would like help fixing your loss Prevention problems.

Sell More, Lose Less!

Filed Under: Shoplifting Prevention Tagged With: anti-theft tags, anti-thefts devices, Employee Theft, Loss Prevention Seminar, Loss Prevention Training, Loss Prevention Workshop, Periodic inventory, Perpetual Inventory, security devices, Shoplifting Prevention, surveillance