At the end of the day, the whole point of running a business is to make a profit. After you have paid your utilities, your suppliers, and your employees you need to have some money left in the bank. Retail stores in particular must have a plan to Prevent Shoplifting or there will be a hidden cost to the bottom line that cannot be seen on any P&L statement. Losing money to paperwork errors, computer errors and even vendor issues is expected and can even be budgeted to an extent. Those losses can be found, corrected, and reconciled.
When people are coming in and stealing the inventory that your store has paid for, you have to find and correct those problems too. It is a double loss to a retail business bank account when a thief steals your products. When the customer comes in to buy those very products, only to find you are out of stock, they leave empty handed and go shop your competitor. There are tools out there designed to help keep merchandise on your shelves, and available for purchase by your honest cash paying customers. My store is a big proponent of Alpha Products for inventory protection. When our store identifies an item that has become a target or just has the potential to become a target, we look at Alpha first.
There are the Keepers, which are clear, secure boxes that enclose the product while still giving complete visibility to the customer. They come in many different sizes, are simple for employees to use, and easy to remove when the product is brought up to be purchased. As far as Preventing Shoplifting, they make the items bulkier, and much harder to conceal. Thieves want to be silent, but try getting out the door with an arm load or bag stuffed full of these boxes, and you are going to make a lot of noise. There are also Spider Wraps, which wrap around large items from fragrance gift sets to electronics. I have used them on boxes of hair regrowth products, electronic toothbrushes, dvd players, and even 15” televisions. These have very strong thin cable lines that secure around the item, and they will alarm if the cable is cut. Both of these tools will cause the Checkpoint System to alarm if there is an attempt to remove them from the store.
These are just two examples of Alpha items that have made a big impact on our shrink numbers. They deter shoplifters and make them choose another retailer that has unprotected inventory instead. We have had problems in the past where we had to put items behind the counter, and put signs out front informing the customer to ask for them at checkout. It does keep the items from being stolen, but it also puts a big dent in sales. People do not want to have to ask a clerk to unlock the items they want to buy. That is as bad as having to ask for a key to the restroom; it is just bad business. When making the choices of how to Prevent Shoplifting, take a look at professional ways to protect your assets.
For more information contact us at Preventshopliftingloss.net or call 1.770.426.0547
At the end of the day, the whole point of running a business is to make a profit. After you have paid your utilities, your suppliers, and your employees you need to have some money left in the bank. Retail stores in particular must have a plan to Prevent Shoplifting or there will be a hidden cost to the bottom line that cannot be seen on any P&L statement. Losing money to paperwork errors, computer errors and even vendor issues is expected and can even be budgeted to an extent. Those losses can be found, corrected, and reconciled.
When people are coming in and stealing the inventory that your store has paid for, you have to find and correct those problems too. It is a double loss to a retail business bank account when a thief steals your products. When the customer comes in to buy those very products, only to find you are out of stock, they leave empty handed and go shop your competitor. There are tools out there designed to help keep merchandise on your shelves, and available for purchase by your honest cash paying customers. My store is a big proponent of Alpha Products for inventory protection. When our store identifies an item that has become a target or just has the potential to become a target, we look at Alpha first.
There are the Keepers, which are clear, secure boxes that enclose the product while still giving complete visibility to the customer. They come in many different sizes, are simple for employees to use, and easy to remove when the product is brought up to be purchased. As far as Preventing Shoplifting, they make the items bulkier, and much harder to conceal. Thieves want to be silent, but try getting out the door with an arm load or bag stuffed full of these boxes, and you are going to make a lot of noise. There are also Spider Wraps, which wrap around large items from fragrance gift sets to electronics. I have used them on boxes of hair regrowth products, electronic toothbrushes, dvd players, and even 15” televisions. These have very strong thin cable lines that secure around the item, and they will alarm if the cable is cut. Both of these tools will cause the Checkpoint System to alarm if there is an attempt to remove them from the store.
These are just two examples of Alpha items that have made a big impact on our shrink numbers. They deter shoplifters and make them choose another retailer that has unprotected inventory instead. We have had problems in the past where we had to put items behind the counter, and put signs out front informing the customer to ask for them at checkout. It does keep the items from being stolen, but it also puts a big dent in sales. People do not want to have to ask a clerk to unlock the items they want to buy. That is as bad as having to ask for a key to the restroom; it is just bad business. When making the choices of how to Prevent Shoplifting, take a look at professional ways to protect your assets.
For more information contact us at Preventshopliftingloss.net or call 1.770.426.0547
