Before February of this year, I had no idea what a bottle service was. I live in New Orleans, but surprisingly enough, I’ve been to 2 bars in my entire life. I’ve never seen the inside of a nightclub and I really don’t have the desire to do so. One of my good friends is a manager at a nightclub down in the French Quarter. She always liked to hear my stories of shoplifters and employee theft cases and we were swapping stories on my birthday after grabbing a late dinner. A thought came to mind so I asked how employee theft in a nightclub was. I was sure that there was a way to steal liquor, or cash but never being inside a club, I was curious.
She told me a story of a bartender who was making extra cash by selling alcohol from the bottle service area to normal patrons. That service, if you don’t know, is where you can buy alcohol by the bottle at a club and they serve it to you with mixers and usually you also get some special treatment, since the markup on the bottle is some unforgivable number. Her bartender would be catering to a VIP table that had their own (or several) bottles of their favorite sprits. As the night progressed and drinks kept flowing, she would begin to sell shots from those bottles to other patrons in the bar and pocket the cash. The VIP guests wouldn’t notice 4-5 missing shots and the bar’s inventory at the end of the night wasn’t impacted. It was a clever scheme and the bartender pocketed a few extra dollar each night. The manager then watched this happen over the next few shifts before she was eventually confronted.
Seemed like a very simple, yet effective way for a dishonest employee to steal sales from the club. I wanted to know more, as this, for whatever reason, piqued my interest. It was an area of investigations I had zero experience in. I had to know how she was eventually caught, especially since there was no impact on the club’s inventory at the end of the night. Well, to my disappointment there was no crafty investigation involved. Her dishonesty was caught by accident. The manager just happened to be watching the bar for a minute and witnessed her take a shot from the bottle service area and bring it to a customer at the end of the bar. Had it not been for that, her actions would have probably never been caught. My theft stories were always better, anyway.
I left dinner feeling like a learned something new. I almost wanted to go to a few nightclubs and order a bottle of my favorite beverage, just to see if I could catch a dishonest bartender. That didn’t happen, but I did walk away with a new perspective on losses I had no idea occurred. I also learned that some people will pay $200 for the same drink I can pay $30 for at the gas station. To each their own, right? It’s all about the VIP experience.
For more information, contact us: Bottle Services, or call 1.770.426.0547
Before February of this year, I had no idea what a bottle service was. I live in New Orleans, but surprisingly enough, I’ve been to 2 bars in my entire life. I’ve never seen the inside of a nightclub and I really don’t have the desire to do so. One of my good friends is a manager at a nightclub down in the French Quarter. She always liked to hear my stories of shoplifters and employee theft cases and we were swapping stories on my birthday after grabbing a late dinner. A thought came to mind so I asked how employee theft in a nightclub was. I was sure that there was a way to steal liquor, or cash but never being inside a club, I was curious.
She told me a story of a bartender who was making extra cash by selling alcohol from the bottle service area to normal patrons. That service, if you don’t know, is where you can buy alcohol by the bottle at a club and they serve it to you with mixers and usually you also get some special treatment, since the markup on the bottle is some unforgivable number. Her bartender would be catering to a VIP table that had their own (or several) bottles of their favorite sprits. As the night progressed and drinks kept flowing, she would begin to sell shots from those bottles to other patrons in the bar and pocket the cash. The VIP guests wouldn’t notice 4-5 missing shots and the bar’s inventory at the end of the night wasn’t impacted. It was a clever scheme and the bartender pocketed a few extra dollar each night. The manager then watched this happen over the next few shifts before she was eventually confronted.
Seemed like a very simple, yet effective way for a dishonest employee to steal sales from the club. I wanted to know more, as this, for whatever reason, piqued my interest. It was an area of investigations I had zero experience in. I had to know how she was eventually caught, especially since there was no impact on the club’s inventory at the end of the night. Well, to my disappointment there was no crafty investigation involved. Her dishonesty was caught by accident. The manager just happened to be watching the bar for a minute and witnessed her take a shot from the bottle service area and bring it to a customer at the end of the bar. Had it not been for that, her actions would have probably never been caught. My theft stories were always better, anyway.
I left dinner feeling like a learned something new. I almost wanted to go to a few nightclubs and order a bottle of my favorite beverage, just to see if I could catch a dishonest bartender. That didn’t happen, but I did walk away with a new perspective on losses I had no idea occurred. I also learned that some people will pay $200 for the same drink I can pay $30 for at the gas station. To each their own, right? It’s all about the VIP experience.
For more information, contact us at Bottle Services, or call 1.770.426.0547
Effective retail theft prevention is comprised of two parts the human connection and the bells and whistles. For a store to really be protected, both parts need to be in tiptop working order, but they also need to work in tandem with each other- picking up where the other leaves off.
The bells and whistles are the literal alarms, tools and anti theft devices used in a retail setting. EAS devices, CCTV, and alarm pedestals are all effective shoplifting counter measures, in their own right. The inherent flaw to all of these tools is that they alone cannot stop or prevent shoplifting.
EAS devices cannot magically affix themselves onto garments or wrap themselves around boxes. An employee must physically complete the task. The same goes for an activated alarm tower. The tower does not transform itself into some shoplifting cage, catching the thief in the act. An employee needs to respond to the alarm, specifically the person who set the alarm off. Without the interaction, the shoplifter gets away free and clear.
The flip side is that an employee can’t be everywhere at once. Having EAS tags deters shoplifters from stealing clothing in a fitting room. Public view cameras can catch and record a facial image of a shoplifter entering a store, which can be used later on as evidence in a court.
So the question is, how do you get both sides working together like a well-oiled machine?
The answer comes down to training- specifically loss prevention training. Hosting or hiring out for loss prevention seminars is the best way to ensure your employees are getting a thorough education. It is an opportunity for your employees to understand not only what they are supposed to be doing, but also understanding why they are doing it.
Employees who are entrusted with more information, such as how and why a process or policy works, will be more likely to complete such tasks with a greater accuracy of completion and compliance.
Loss prevention seminars are therefore an ideal way to help answer those questions. It is one thing to tell an employee that all denim over $50 dollars needs an EAS tag on the bottom left pant leg.
It is a completely different outcome when you explain to this same employee that denim over $50 dollars is one on the highest shrink items in the store. Shoplifter’s who target these items tend to sell them for a profit, so they don’t care about which size they steal. That means a shoplifter will search an entire table for jeans that do not have the tags on them.
Placing the tag in the same spot makes it easier for our cashiers to find the tag to remove them for our actual shoppers, providing better customer service (and increased sales). It is also an obvious spot that we would notice if someone tried to wear a pair of our denim out the door without paying for it.
This more detailed approach is easy to obtain through loss prevention seminars. The outcome will make a very significant impact for your theft reduction processes.
For more information on Loss Prevention Seminars, Loss Prevention Training, or Loss Prevention Workshop contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 – Atlanta Georgia
Visit the Loss Prevention Systems website for more information on Retail Employee Theft and Retail Shoplifting problems and view the Retail Loss Prevention Seminars, Retail Loss Prevention Training and Retail Loss Prevention Workshop we offer to help with your Employee Theft and Shoplifting problems.
Effective retail theft prevention is comprised of two parts the human connection and the bells and whistles. For a store to really be protected, both parts need to be in tiptop working order, but they also need to work in tandem with each other- picking up where the other leaves off.
The bells and whistles are the literal alarms, tools and anti theft devices used in a retail setting. EAS devices, CCTV, and alarm pedestals are all effective shoplifting counter measures, in their own right. The inherent flaw to all of these tools is that they alone cannot stop or prevent shoplifting.
EAS devices cannot magically affix themselves onto garments or wrap themselves around boxes. An employee must physically complete the task. The same goes for an activated alarm tower. The tower does not transform itself into some shoplifting cage, catching the thief in the act. An employee needs to respond to the alarm, specifically the person who set the alarm off. Without the interaction, the shoplifter gets away free and clear.
The flip side is that an employee can’t be everywhere at once. Having EAS tags deters shoplifters from stealing clothing in a fitting room. Public view cameras can catch and record a facial image of a shoplifter entering a store, which can be used later on as evidence in a court.
So the question is, how do you get both sides working together like a well-oiled machine?
The answer comes down to training- specifically loss prevention training. Hosting or hiring out for loss prevention seminars is the best way to ensure your employees are getting a thorough education. It is an opportunity for your employees to understand not only what they are supposed to be doing, but also understanding why they are doing it.
Employees who are entrusted with more information, such as how and why a process or policy works, will be more likely to complete such tasks with a greater accuracy of completion and compliance.
Loss prevention seminars are therefore an ideal way to help answer those questions. It is one thing to tell an employee that all denim over $50 dollars needs an EAS tag on the bottom left pant leg.
It is a completely different outcome when you explain to this same employee that denim over $50 dollars is one on the highest shrink items in the store. Shoplifter’s who target these items tend to sell them for a profit, so they don’t care about which size they steal. That means a shoplifter will search an entire table for jeans that do not have the tags on them.
Placing the tag in the same spot makes it easier for our cashiers to find the tag to remove them for our actual shoppers, providing better customer service (and increased sales). It is also an obvious spot that we would notice if someone tried to wear a pair of our denim out the door without paying for it.
This more detailed approach is easy to obtain through loss prevention seminars. The outcome will make a very significant impact for your theft reduction processes.
For more information on Loss Prevention Seminars, Loss Prevention Training, or Loss Prevention Workshop contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 – Atlanta Georgia
Visit the Loss Prevention Systems website for more information on Retail Employee Theft and Retail Shoplifting problems and view the Retail Loss Prevention Seminars, Retail Loss Prevention Training and Retail Loss Prevention Workshop we offer to help with your Employee Theft and Shoplifting problems.
For many clothing retailer’s, fashion and brand image are a crucial marketing tool designed to entice customers to make purchases with increasing regularity. New fashions are systematically introduced to keep customers interested in the next and new trends and styles. Employees are therefore encouraged to dress the part- wearing the latest trends and hottest new items- turning them into walking billboards of free advertising.
To encourage the employees to wear the store or brand clothing can come from a few different steams. One way is to make a dress code mandate to only wear proprietary branded clothing to work. To achieve this, employees may be given generous employee discounts on their purchases, or they may be given a clothing allowance.
Both are cost effective ways for an employee to dress the part while at work. Sometimes, though, these benefits can be taken advantage of and, if not properly monitored, can cause an opening in your store’s clothing security.
The downside of having employees dress in store clothing is that it makes it harder to spot an employee who is stealing merchandise. Because more products are in the hands of an employee’s personal wardrobe, tracking every item can turn into a daunting task.
Some retailers have turned to requiring all employee purchases to be made with the store’s proprietary credit card. This makes it easier for someone to track all purchases by transaction and sku number in case there is a question. It is, unfortunately not very practical if a store does not have their own credit card.
The next idea would be to sign off on all employee purchases, not only at the time they are rung up, but at the time the purchase leaves the store. This helps to ensure that no additional product finds its way into the bag without being paid for first.
In the case of a clothing allowance, a manger should facilitate the process. The clothing in question should have the price tags removed by the manager and kept for record retention. By having a manager remove the price tags, the employee cannot come back later on and try to refund the clothing for a store credit, cash, etc. Doing so would not only constitute as fraud by the employee, but could seriously jeopardize any contractual relationship between a vendor and the retailer, if the vendor were to find out.
If the allowance is part of a spiff from a specific vendor, the manager will be responsible for ensuring the vendor has the required paperwork submitted and credit is actually obtained. Having manager authorization also helps to make sure that an employee does not try to steal additional merchandise under the guise of a clothing allowance. The employee would not be able to leave and convince an unsuspecting employee that it was ok for them to leave with the product.
With operational controls in place as a form of clothing security, employees who need store clothing as part of their work attire are less likely to be able to cheat the system. Any employee attempting to circumvent the processes should stick out like a sore thumb alerting management to potential theft issues.
Visit the Loss Prevention Store to purchase Checkpoint Tags, a Clothing Alarm, Clothing Security or Clothing Security Tags to put Security Tags on Clothes and an Electronic Article Surveillance or EAS system.
For more information on Checkpoint tags, clothing security, clothing alarm, or clothing security tags how they can work with your Electronic Article Surveillance or EAS system contact us at security tags on clothes or call 1.770.426.0547
For many clothing retailer’s, fashion and brand image are a crucial marketing tool designed to entice customers to make purchases with increasing regularity. New fashions are systematically introduced to keep customers interested in the next and new trends and styles. Employees are therefore encouraged to dress the part- wearing the latest trends and hottest new items- turning them into walking billboards of free advertising.
To encourage the employees to wear the store or brand clothing can come from a few different streams. One way is to make a dress code mandate to only wear proprietary branded clothing to work. To achieve this, employees may be given generous employee discounts on their purchases, or they may be given a clothing allowance.
Both are cost effective ways for an employee to dress the part while at work. Sometimes, though, these benefits can be taken advantage of and, if not properly monitored, can cause an opening in your store’s clothing security.
The downside of having employees dress in store clothing is that it makes it harder to spot an employee who is stealing merchandise. Because more products are in the hands of an employee’s personal wardrobe, tracking every item can turn into a daunting task.
Some retailers have turned to requiring all employee purchases to be made with the store’s proprietary credit card. This makes it easier for someone to track all purchases by transaction and sku number in case there is a question. It is, unfortunately not very practical if a store does not have their own credit card.
The next idea would be to sign off on all employee purchases, not only at the time they are rung up, but at the time the purchase leaves the store. This helps to ensure that no additional product finds its way into the bag without being paid for first.
In the case of a clothing allowance, a manger should facilitate the process. The clothing in question should have the price tags removed by the manager and kept for record retention. By having a manager remove the price tags, the employee cannot come back later on and try to refund the clothing for a store credit, cash, etc. Doing so would not only constitute as fraud by the employee, but could seriously jeopardize any contractual relationship between a vendor and the retailer, if the vendor were to find out.
If the allowance is part of a spiff from a specific vendor, the manager will be responsible for ensuring the vendor has the required paperwork submitted and credit is actually obtained. Having manager authorization also helps to make sure that an employee does not try to steal additional merchandise under the guise of a clothing allowance. The employee would not be able to leave and convince an unsuspecting employee that it was ok for them to leave with the product.
With operational controls in place as a form of clothing security, employees who need store clothing as part of their work attire are less likely to be able to cheat the system. Any employee attempting to circumvent the processes should stick out like a sore thumb alerting management to potential theft issues.
Visit the Loss Prevention Store to purchase Checkpoint Tags, a Clothing Alarm, Clothing Security or Clothing Security Tags to put Security Tags on Clothes and an Electronic Article Surveillance or EAS system.
For more information on Checkpoint tags, clothing security, clothing alarm, or clothing security tags how they can work with your Electronic Article Surveillance or EAS system contact us at security tags on clothes or call 1.770.426.0547
