COMMENTARY | Once November rolls around, my husband's officially on notice: all bets are off, my holiday shopping officially begins and I have a license to hunt for bargains with abandon. So began a trip to the mall today, where I fully intended to purchase a pair of special sneakers for Kid No. 3, the pink ones that light up, and which she's had her heart set on for months.
Unfortunately, all I grabbed was an empty box. I asked a nearby cashier about it; once she finished checking her text messages, she answered, "They've been stolen" and shook the empty sneaker box for emphasis.
'Tis the season for theft, which also makes it a great time to talk about loss prevention.
I asked someone in the know: what's there to be done about it?
Steven May, president and CEO of LP Innovations, notes plenty. Even the smallest retail establishments can learn something from his advice.
"Most retailers go into the black and turn profitable due to the significant increase in traffic and sales at this time of year." There's another side to this recipe for success. "There's also more inventory, cash on hand and full-time and holiday help. These can also contribute to increases in employee and external theft," says May.
Often, he says, retailers are in reactive mode, responding to the loss after it occurs. To keep it from happening in the first place, it's essential to promote loss prevention education in the workplace.
"In order to preserve any profit that's being made, education and awareness of effective loss prevention practices is essential," May explains.
You might think the larger companies have the advantage here since they're more likely able to make the investment in high-tech loss prevention solutions.
"It's important that a business has a loss prevention strategy in place," he maintains. That doesn't necessarily always mean cameras and wailing alarms and product tags. Sometimes, low tech works best.
Believe it or not, employees who are aware of your customers are often the best deterrents to theft and product loss. Ergo, the employee I encountered who had to finish her text message before looking up at me may have been a symptom of the problem that causes theft to occur in the first place.
Here's the big question, though: How much investment are retailers going to make in the training up of temporary holiday help? Is the potential for loss prevention worth the cost of training them to keep goods (and inventory) from walking out the door?
Absolutely. Consider those sparkly light-up children's sneakers I wanted to purchase, but couldn't, because they walked out of the shoe department without anyone noticing a thing. The shoes cost around $50; how much would it have cost to train employees to keep it from happening in the first place?
In his company's blog, May provides great tips for maximizing the potential of employee training. It's important to communicate to all of your employees - even temporary holiday help - that it's essential that they are trained in loss prevention techniques, to know what works best, and what's most effective. The investment in their training doesn't have to be complicated or even expensive, but it's one of the best moves retailers can make.
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