It is already that time of the year again: the air is cooling, the day is ending earlier, and the leaves are falling from the trees. It is a beautiful reminder of what is right around the corner—the holiday shopping season. Whether this excites you or terrifies you, it also means that there is going to be a large influx of shopping traffic. In order to meet the demands of the season’s shoppers, everyone is hiring seasonal employees to help them get through the holidays. To make sure you stay in the black, it is important to avoid hiring seasonal employees who are only there to commit internal theft, taking not only their paychecks, but a lot more than you bargained for.
Seasonal hiring decisions tend to be made in a rush. With all of the other preparations for the season, including increased levels of merchandise stock, preparation auditing, and other seasonal tasks, hiring the right seasonal employees tends to be an issue that is put on the back burner. In order to save time conducting employee theft investigations, it is wise to spend some extra time screening your seasonal employees, and ensuring they are a good match for the job.
I have been working in retail loss prevention for many years. Each year I witness the large influx of seasonal associates. There are sometimes so many that I don’t even get a chance to learn their names before they are gone. Not only do we see a very large increase in external theft and shoplifting during this season but each year, we see a great amount of employee theft—usually from seasonal employees. So what can these employees do to damage your business? After all, they are only hired for a few months; how much damage can they do?
The answer is: a lot. Last year, the business I work hired a new cash-handling associate on a seasonal basis. Within the span of one week, she was able to steal over three-thousand dollars from the registers before we caught on to her. Luckily, we were able to identify the employee theft and resolve the incident before she could quit, which she had planned to.
So what is the solution? Well, there is no foolproof answer; no matter what you do, there is always some risk involved in making hiring decisions. Nonetheless, there are a number of things you can do to minimize the risk you are taking when hiring! Taking time to hire quality seasonal associates is the first step. Once they are hired, making sure they are trained well, and will not cause losses by making costly mistakes is the second component. Lastly, to minimize the risk of internal theft, make sure associates don’t work shifts alone if that is an option. Also, utilize various checks and balances, including merchandise protection, to limit any one employee’s ability to commit employee theft without another employee’s knowledge. Compartmentalizing business tasks and rotating employees through those tasks not only trains the employees well, but prevents them from having too much unchecked power.
Large corporations can sometimes absorb some losses, especially if they are small, isolated incidents as is the previous example. However, if you hire only a couple of things, it is really easy for them to cut into your profit—not to mention that you are paying them to steal!
For more information contact us: Internal Theft or call 1.770.426.0547
It is already that time of the year again: the air is cooling, the day is ending earlier, and the leaves are falling from the trees. It is a beautiful reminder of what is right around the corner—the holiday shopping season. Whether this excites you or terrifies you, it also means that there is going to be a large influx of shopping traffic. In order to meet the demands of the season’s shoppers, everyone is hiring seasonal employees to help them get through the holidays. To make sure you stay in the black, it is important to avoid hiring seasonal employees who are only there to commit internal theft, taking not only their paychecks, but a lot more than you bargained for.
Seasonal hiring decisions tend to be made in a rush. With all of the other preparations for the season, including increased levels of merchandise stock, preparation auditing, and other seasonal tasks, hiring the right seasonal employees tends to be an issue that is put on the back burner. In order to save time conducting employee theft investigations, it is wise to spend some extra time screening your seasonal employees, and ensuring they are a good match for the job.
I have been working in retail loss prevention for many years. Each year I witness the large influx of seasonal associates. There are sometimes so many that I don’t even get a chance to learn their names before they are gone. Not only do we see a very large increase in external theft and shoplifting during this season but each year, we see a great amount of employee theft—usually from seasonal employees. So what can these employees do to damage your business? After all, they are only hired for a few months; how much damage can they do?
The answer is: a lot. Last year, the business I work for hired a new cash-handling associate on a seasonal basis. Within the span of one week, she was able to steal over three-thousand dollars from the registers before we caught on to her. Luckily, we were able to identify the employee theft and resolve the incident before she could quit, which she had planned to.
So what is the solution? Well, there is no foolproof answer; no matter what you do, there is always some risk involved in making hiring decisions. Nonetheless, there are a number of things you can do to minimize the risk you are taking when hiring! Taking time to hire quality seasonal associates is the first step. Once they are hired, making sure they are trained well, and will not cause losses by making costly mistakes is the second component. Lastly, to minimize the risk of internal theft, make sure associates don’t work shifts alone if that is an option. Also, utilize various checks and balances, including merchandise protection, to limit any one employee’s ability to commit employee theft without another employee’s knowledge. Compartmentalizing business tasks and rotating employees through those tasks not only trains the employees well, but prevents them from having too much unchecked power.
Large corporations can sometimes absorb some losses, especially if they are small, isolated incidents as is the previous example. However, if you hire only a couple of people, it is really easy for them to cut into your profit—not to mention that you are paying them to steal!
For more information contact us: Internal Theft or call 1.770.426.0547
If you hadn’t realized it yet, the holiday shopping season is here! It’s been here since the day after Halloween it seems. Retailers of all shapes and sizes seem to be putting their holiday selections out at increasingly earlier times as each new year passes with hopes of attracting more sales for that ever important 4th quarter push. We all know the struggle. This time of year means more toys, gadgets and the new and hottest electronics. It’s also usually the peak time for shoplifting. So when you’re setting out those new electronics displays, or putting that new fixture full of car GPS units out this season, make sure you’re also thinking about the ways you can prevent shoplifting in order to boost your store’s sales.
It was just a few months ago that I received the list of new items my company would be carrying for the holiday season. I was quite impressed with our lineup and the deals we will be offereing our customers. Not long after seeing that list, the product started trickling into the stores little by little. We were getting high end headphones, smart watches, Blue-tooth everything and we were just displaying these with no protective features. I immediately began emailing and calling our buying divisions with concerns about potential shrink. I was stonewalled. No one wanted to hear me out and they were content with the open sell concept. Our stores are already equipped with an Alpha Security system, so it would have been no trouble at all to secure some type of protection.
I wasn’t happy at all with this decision. I knew that these items, especially the high end electronics would attract a wide array of shoplifters, especially if word got out that we were the only store in town that didn’t have them locked up. It didn’t take long, either. Stores were reporting 5 and 6 missing a day per store. Thieves were targeting the product faster than the stores could restock the shelves. This would not be good for our 4th quarter. To close the year in the black, we obviously had to sell this product, right? It took about 3 weeks of really hard theft to convince my company’s leadership to invest in a protective tool. For our highest theft electronics, we were able to quickly get Alpha Spider Wraps into our doors.
Of all the retail anti-shoplifting devices out there, the spider wrap is probably one of the most effective tools I have ever used. It doesn’t interfere with the display and it does its job at deterring a would-be thief. As soon as we deployed them to our stores, the theft of our electronics pretty much dried up completely. There was no way a thief could get the device off of the product without attracting the attention of the store staff. Even our buyers agreed that the device worked well enough that they would include this in the cost of any future electronic purchases. In the time it took for our company to react to the theft, we had lost thousands of dollars. While a large company can absorb these losses easily, I often think of smaller stores that don’t know that these products exist. If you are a manager of a smaller store, but are plagued with shoplifting, I urge to start being more pro-active in your approach to protecting your biggest financial investment, your inventory.
For more information, contact us: Prevent Shoplifting, or call 1.770.426.0547
If you hadn’t realized it yet, the holiday shopping season is here! It’s been here since the day after Halloween it seems. Retailers of all shapes and sizes seem to be putting their holiday selections out at increasingly earlier times as each new year passes with hopes of attracting more sales for that ever important 4th quarter push. We all know the struggle. This time of year means more toys, gadgets and the new and hottest electronics. It’s also usually the peak time for shoplifting. So when you’re setting out those new electronics displays, or putting that new fixture full of car GPS units out this season, make sure you’re also thinking about the ways you can prevent shoplifting in order to boost your store’s sales.
It was just a few months ago that I received the list of new items my company would be carrying for the holiday season. I was quite impressed with our lineup and the deals we will be offereing our customers. Not long after seeing that list, the product started trickling into the stores little by little. We were getting high end headphones, smart watches, Blue-tooth everything and we were just displaying these with no protective features. I immediately began emailing and calling our buying divisions with concerns about potential shrink. I was stonewalled. No one wanted to hear me out and they were content with the open sell concept. Our stores are already equipped with an Checkpoint Security system, so it would have been no trouble at all to secure some type of protection.
I wasn’t happy at all with this decision. I knew that these items, especially the high end electronics would attract a wide array of shoplifters, especially if word got out that we were the only store in town that didn’t have them locked up. It didn’t take long, either. Stores were reporting 5 and 6 missing a day per store. Thieves were targeting the product faster than the stores could restock the shelves. This would not be good for our 4th quarter. To close the year in the black, we obviously had to sell this product, right? It took about 3 weeks of really hard theft to convince my company’s leadership to invest in a protective tool. For our highest theft electronics, we were able to quickly get Alpha Spider Wraps into our doors.
Of all the retail anti-shoplifting devices out there, the Spider Wrap is probably one of the most effective tools I have ever used. It doesn’t interfere with the display and it does its job at deterring a would-be thief. As soon as we deployed them to our stores, the theft of our electronics pretty much dried up completely. There was no way a thief could get the device off of the product without attracting the attention of the store staff. Even our buyers agreed that the device worked well enough that they would include this in the cost of any future electronic purchases. In the time it took for our company to react to the theft, we had lost thousands of dollars. While a large company can absorb these losses easily, I often think of smaller stores that don’t know that these products exist. If you are a manager of a smaller store, but are plagued with shoplifting, I urge to start being more pro-active in your approach to protecting your biggest financial investment, your inventory.
For more information, contact us: Prevent Shoplifting, or call 1.770.426.0547
It seems like a single week doesn’t go by that I don’t get asked how to stop shoplifting by at least a half dozen managers. They are usually coming to me, frustrated by the amount of external theft they are seeing and sometimes they feel pretty helpless as they watch their hard earned money and profits walk out of the front door. I know their struggles. I’ve been in their shoes. Before I started my Loss Prevention career I was a store manager for a large retailer for several years. I was, like so many now, bound by corporate directives and store policies when it came to what I could do to protect the merchandise in my store. After all, I was the one seeing it get stolen, not the corporate folks.
The great thing about owning your own business, or working in a small retail operation is the real time decision making that can happen. In my management career in a large corporation, if we wanted to use a type of checkpoint label to secure a product, our corporate office had to first approve the idea, test the idea in a small amount of stores, develop an ROI report, make a recommendation to company management, and then, maybe a year later, we’d see the tags in store. In that time frame, we most likely lost thousands of dollars to theft. If you’re a business owner, or a manager of a smaller company, you can make a decision instantly on ways to secure your merchandise. In the past 10 years, I can recall only one time where I was able to get a decision made overnight for an idea that would help me to stop shoplifting.
It was early on in my LP career and I was investigating a large amount of loss on a several heart rate monitors. It wasn’t localized to one sku, or one store. I had an area that covered 15 stores and all stores were reporting losses upwards of $10,000 each. I did everything in my power to research the losses, since I was convinced the loss was due to theft, but Murphy’s Law intervened around every corner. The stores had recently moved the display units to an area that wasn’t covered by a CCTV camera. Additionally, this was the first time that area of the store had been inventoried in over a year. I had no idea when the losses occurred, and I had no way to review the area for suspicious behavior. At a standstill in my investigation, the losses kept pouring in each week.
With nearly $200k in product loss in a category that had sales of about half that, we had to stop the bleeding. I was able to convince my bosses to test out some different types of checkpoint tags. We used a simple tag printed with the store logo and name that would alarm if the product went through the doors without being de-activated. We deployed them in all of my 15 stores in the hopes of being able to stop the loss. After a few weeks, it was clear that by using an anti-shoplifting device, we could hold onto our product. We were still losing merchandise, but at a much, much slower pace. While we didn’t completely eliminate the theft problem, we were able to slow it down and become profitable in that category. While you will never be able to stop shoplifting altogether, with the appropriate controls in place, you will be able to reduce your exposure to easy losses.
For more information, contact us: Anti-Shoplifting, or call 1.770.426.0547
It seems like a single week doesn’t go by that I don’t get asked how to stop shoplifting by at least a half dozen managers. They are usually coming to me, frustrated by the amount of external theft they are seeing and sometimes they feel pretty helpless as they watch their hard earned money and profits walk out of the front door. I know their struggles. I’ve been in their shoes. Before I started my Loss Prevention career I was a store manager for a large retailer for several years. I was, like so many now, bound by corporate directives and store policies when it came to what I could do to protect the merchandise in my store. After all, I was the one seeing it get stolen, not the corporate folks.
The great thing about owning your own business, or working in a small retail operation is the real time decision making that can happen. In my management career in a large corporation, if we wanted to use a type of Checkpoint Label to secure a product, our corporate office had to first approve the idea, test the idea in a small amount of stores, develop an ROI report, make a recommendation to company management, and then, maybe a year later, we’d see the tags in store. In that time frame, we most likely lost thousands of dollars to theft. If you’re a business owner, or a manager of a smaller company, you can make a decision instantly on ways to secure your merchandise. In the past 10 years, I can recall only one time where I was able to get a decision made overnight for an idea that would help me to stop shoplifting.
It was early on in my LP career and I was investigating a large amount of loss on a several heart rate monitors. It wasn’t localized to one sku, or one store. I had an area that covered 15 stores and all stores were reporting losses upwards of $10,000 each. I did everything in my power to research the losses, since I was convinced the loss was due to theft, but Murphy’s Law intervened around every corner. The stores had recently moved the display units to an area that wasn’t covered by a CCTV camera. Additionally, this was the first time that area of the store had been inventoried in over a year. I had no idea when the losses occurred, and I had no way to review the area for suspicious behavior. At a standstill in my investigation, the losses kept pouring in each week.
With nearly $200k in product loss in a category that had sales of about half that, we had to stop the bleeding. I was able to convince my bosses to test out some different types of Checkpoint Labels. We used a simple Label printed with the store logo and name that would alarm if the product went through the doors without being de-activated. We deployed them in all of my 15 stores in the hopes of being able to stop the loss. After a few weeks, it was clear that by using an anti-shoplifting device, we could hold onto our product. We were still losing merchandise, but at a much, much slower pace. While we didn’t completely eliminate the theft problem, we were able to slow it down and become profitable in that category. While you will never be able to stop shoplifting altogether, with the appropriate controls in place, you will be able to reduce your exposure to easy losses.
For more information, contact us: Anti-Shoplifting, or call 1.770.426.0547
The world of academia is about as cutthroat and competitive as what you can get. Students, especially graduate students will stop at nothing to edge out their competition. They will readily create sabotages to stay at the top of their class. They will even devise elaborate schemes to defeat library theft detection systems to forcibly remove books and reference materials so other students won’t have access to them.
Well, that might be a little bit dramatic. Most students will not go to those extremes to sabotage their fellow classmates, but they might still (intentionally or otherwise) take campus library materials in unauthorized ways.
Using library theft prevention helps maintain an even playing field for all students. There is nothing more frustrating than being behind on a research paper or project, going to the library at the last possible minute and finding the materials needed are gone. It is one thing to have those references checked out by another student, it is completely another to have the materials missing inexplicably.
Checkpoint Systems maintains the integrity of the library’s resources. By tagging books, equipment and reference materials with Checkpoint Systems products, libraries will see the same reduction in losses that retailers will. Some retailers have seen up to an 85 percent reduction in losses solely from the implementation of Checkpoint Systems.
Visit the Loss Prevention Store to purchase Library Theft Detection System devices and your Electronic Article Surveillance or EAS system from Checkpoint Systems to stop inventory losses.
For more information on a Library Theft Detection System, Library Theft Prevention, or a Checkpoint System and how they can work with your Electronic Article Surveillance or EAS system contact us at Retail theft prevention to stop inventory losses in your library or call 1.770.426.0547
While many business owners and employees are aware of the more obvious threat that shoplifting poses to their business, many tend to overlook the more serious threat of employee theft. When it comes to the impact that theft can have on your profitability, internal (or employee theft) can have a much more devastating and damaging effect on your shrink and your bottom line. Employee theft is more threatening because it typically occurs regularly, it is more difficult to identify, and the perpetrators know how to avoid detection better that regular shoplifters. Here are a few ways to stop employee theft before it starts, and after it may have already started.
Auditing; it’s something that employees and business owners do regularly to ensure that various business processes are going according to plan. It is important to be aware of what patterns indicate internal theft. For example, if your business conducts audits accounting for merchandise received at the store, you may catch items missing from the shipment. This could be the cause of theft from vendor or distribution center employees, or possibly from your receiving employee. If a pattern is established, you can follow up by beginning your own investigation of your employees, or by working with leadership at the distribution center or with the vendor to stop the loss.
Open lines of communication are another important way of bringing in tips to stop employee theft. In many situations, other employees are aware of strange behavior that a coworker has been exhibiting, and may even have suspicions of theft. This could be based upon empty, open packaging found in the back room, noticing the employee frequently with new items of clothing that the store sells, and other telling behaviors. You’d be surprised how often employees notice these suspicious behaviors about their fellow co-workers. Often times they just don’t know what to do with the information! Educating employees on what behaviors should be reported, how to report them, and providing anonymous means of reporting are great ways to start bringing in tips and will also deter internal theft. Likewise, offering employee incentives for those honest employees who come forward with information may be just enough to get some employees to speak up when they otherwise feel it would not be worth mentioning anything.
Initiating an investigation is usually a final step after you suspect that employee theft may already be occurring. This step is crucial to end employee theft, recover restitution, and prevent further employee theft from cutting further into your profit. It is important to remember to tread lightly when conducting an employee investigation; you never know which other employees may be involved. Use your best judgment when it comes to asking around. Tell-tale signs of theft include patterns of cash shortage, patterns of merchandise shortage, finding empty packages in backroom areas, and several others.
When I worked for loss prevention at a local retail store, I remember walking the stockroom in search of suspicious activity. I found empty packages of merchandise stashed behind and underneath other merchandise, particularly in one area. I would revisit the area daily, and make note of any new findings. Over time, I discovered that a disgruntled employee was stealing merchandise from that area, and writing graffiti on shelves and merchandise packaging. After interviewing the employee, he admitted to over $700.00 worth of theft; all from finding some empty packaging in the back!
For more information contact us: Stop Employee Theft or call 1.770.426.0547
While many business owners and employees are aware of the more obvious threat that shoplifting poses to their business, many tend to overlook the more serious threat of employee theft. When it comes to the impact that theft can have on your profitability, internal (or employee theft) can have a much more devastating and damaging effect on your shrink and your bottom line. Employee theft is more threatening because it typically occurs regularly, it is more difficult to identify, and the perpetrators know how to avoid detection better than regular shoplifters. Here are a few ways to stop employee theft before it starts, and after it may have already started.
Auditing; it’s something that employees and business owners do regularly to ensure that various business processes are going according to plan. It is important to be aware of what patterns indicate internal theft. For example, if your business conducts audits accounting for merchandise received at the store, you may catch items missing from the shipment. This could be the cause of theft from vendor or distribution center employees, or possibly from your receiving employee. If a pattern is established, you can follow up by beginning your own investigation of your employees, or by working with leadership at the distribution center or with the vendor to stop the loss.
Open lines of communication are another important way of bringing in tips to stop employee theft. In many situations, other employees are aware of strange behavior that a coworker has been exhibiting, and may even have suspicions of theft. This could be based upon empty, open packaging found in the back room, noticing the employee frequently with new items of clothing that the store sells, and other telling behaviors. You’d be surprised how often employees notice these suspicious behaviors about their fellow co-workers. Often times they just don’t know what to do with the information! Educating employees on what behaviors should be reported, how to report them, and providing anonymous means of reporting are great ways to start bringing in tips and will also deter internal theft. Likewise, offering employee incentives for those honest employees who come forward with information may be just enough to get some employees to speak up when they otherwise feel it would not be worth mentioning anything.
Initiating an investigation is usually a final step after you suspect that employee theft may already be occurring. This step is crucial to end employee theft, recover restitution, and prevent further employee theft from cutting further into your profit. It is important to remember to tread lightly when conducting an employee investigation; you never know which other employees may be involved. Use your best judgment when it comes to asking around. Tell-tale signs of theft include patterns of cash shortage, patterns of merchandise shortage, finding empty packages in backroom areas, and several others.
When I worked for loss prevention at a local retail store, I remember walking the stockroom in search of suspicious activity. I found empty packages of merchandise stashed behind and underneath other merchandise, particularly in one area. I would revisit the area daily, and make note of any new findings. Over time, I discovered that a disgruntled employee was stealing merchandise from that area, and writing graffiti on shelves and merchandise packaging. After interviewing the employee, he admitted to over $700.00 worth of theft; all from finding some empty packaging in the back!
For more information contact us at Stop Employee Theft or call 1.770.426.0547
