It is important stop shoplifting but it is just as important to find ways to prevent as much operational shortage as possible. In part 1 of this series I shared a recent story about finding merchandise during a transaction that could have resulted in shortage. A customer had placed 3 ring folders in a binder and failed to mention it as I rang the binder. I did look inside and discovered about $7 worth of merchandise. The operations on the front registers and how cashiers are processing merchandise can be a prime location for operational shortage. Aside from hidden merchandise there is the temptation to use a ‘quantity’ key when checking out a lot of merchandise that is the same. Scan the first item, do a count of the items and key in the total amount. It saves time over scanning each one right? Well maybe not. As I am working the back to school season I am finding a lot of issues with merchandise quantities that are wrong. One example was when I was looking for a specific colored folder for a customer. Our on-hands showed we had a certain number but I was unable to locate them. I encountered a similar problem with index cards and composition books. While Sensormatic systems can help prevent some operational errors as I mentioned in part 1, they can’t impact all errors. If merchandise is properly scanned and deactivated or tags are removed the system has done what it is designed to do. It did stop shoplifting and would have identified merchandise missed in a basket when merchandise was processed at the point of sale. It won’t have any impact on a register keying error or merchandise stocking errors on the salesfloor.
The on-hands problem was causing several problems. I had one customer looking for wide-ruled composition books for her child. I showed on hands of over a hundred but they were nowhere to be found. Having told the customer our system said we had plenty it led to a somewhat embarrassing situation for me. In another instance I had a customer looking for a certain style of index card. Our system showed we had a quantity of 35 I had to search and in the end I could only locate 10. At least we had them but we had 25 packages of index cards I could not account for. For the sake of this conversation let us assume the cards are priced at $1.00 each that is $25 in shortage. Were they stolen? I don’t think so (though I can’t completely rule it out since we don’t have tags on them to activate our Sensormatic systems). I believe cashiers were busy, got lazy and rang up one style of index cards counted the total in the sale and keyed in a quantity. They could easily have rung up a package of unlined 3×5 cards and failed to notice the other cards were 3×5 lined cards. It may seem like no big deal but if customers are coming to your store looking for an item and you think it is there and then it isn’t you are causing a huge customer service issue to yourself. Customers don’t go to places where they feel they can’t find what they want. To make matters worse if they have a poor shopping experience they may share it on social media. It also may delay your store replenishing the merchandise you need to get back in stock, leaving ugly holes on your store shelves.
Sensormatic systems are extremely effective when it comes to reducing theft and fraud and some operational shortage. Bill Bregar, the CEO of Loss Prevention Systems, Inc. a firm that helps small and medium sized retail stores prevent theft and fraud recommends this system to their clients. Store managers and owners must recognize that there is more to shortage reduction than to simply stop shoplifting. You must recognize where operational shortage happens and make that part of a larger shortage reduction action plan.
For more information on how to stop shoplifting, contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 today.
