If you are in the retail business of selling wines and liquors, you are probably running a constant defense to protect your inventory. If you think about it, it really just takes losing a bottle or two on a regular basis to start adding up to a major loss. Really, the same goes for bars and nightclubs. If you have someone taking a little at a time, it will start to accrue into a much larger problem. There are many good reasons to utilize bottle locks in either of these types of businesses, but a top one is the chance of an employee with a substance abuse problem. You can put your head in the sand and convince yourself that none of your staff would do such a thing. By the time you figure out you need bottle security; it could already be too late. A proactive approach could save you and your employees a lot of problems in the future.
Let me tell you a short story about a problem I am facing as I write this. I work for a small retail pharmacy. No, my problem has nothing to do with liquor bottle security, but you’ll soon see the relevance. I have recently transferred to a new location, and it has been nothing but bad on top of worse. Then the nightmare happened last week. I was sitting in my office, eating my lunch, and just browsing the cameras. That’s when I saw it: a technician took a pill bottle off the shelf and went into a corner with it. He bent down with the bottle out of view, then stood up and returned it to the shelf. I immediately had a sick feeling. After he left for the day, I went back and performed a cycle count on the bottle, and my fears were confirmed. This is a 500 count bottle, and it was missing 124 pills. We don’t use bottle locks on our pill bottles because most of the strong stuff is secured in safes, but this particular pain medication is not. I made some calls, and I’ve been monitoring this guy (and the bottle) on a daily basis since this happened. Two days after I discovered his crime he worked again and 14 more pills disappeared. The following day he pocketed 7 more, so that’s now 145 stolen I don’t know if he or someone close to him has an addiction, if he’s selling them. It doesn’t matter. The only question in my mind at this point is whether he will go out in handcuffs quietly or kicking and screaming after we interview tomorrow morning. When it’s all over, installing bottle security tools will be my new priority.
The point here is that when an employee starts stealing from you, whether it’s money, pills, or liquor, a little at a time starts adding up. My guy hasn’t just stolen the whole bottle at once because we would catch on to that. If he was opening a vodka bottle and taking drinks from it every day, that would be just as bad though. When you have a business that sells items that have the potential for abuse like that, bottle locks are paramount. If you have a bar, you need to have a plan for liquor bottle security for your storage room and open stock. You need to be doing comparisons of what you are purchasing vs what you are selling. Internal theft makes up the biggest piece of the pie for all business losses. Making the investment into bottle security will pay you back over and over. Take away the temptation and keep your peace of mind and your profits.
For more information on Bottle Locks, contact us or call 1.770.426.0547
