Beverage Dynamics is the largest national business magazine devoted exclusively to the needs of off-premise beverage alcohol retailers, from single liquor stores to big box chains, through coverage of the latest trends in wine, beer and spirits.
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/485350
74 Beverage Dynamics • March/April 2015 www.beveragedynamics.com Store Security ployee's work station, which was not monitored by the POS report- ing system," Alford says. "Again, it was discovered by accident." Alford adds that the best recommendation for cash theft deter- rence is to fi nd an exception monitoring system that captures the information from your POS system and provides the business owner with reports and "fl ags" that are easy to read and set standards for performance. MISTAKES TO AVOID According to Carpentier, there are three common mistakes retailers make that lead to theft. First, not having enough control in place can defi nitely lead to a higher amount of theft. "If a retailer is not on top of their inventory, they will not be able to locate a problem until the theft is out of control," Carpentier says. The second is not having enough cameras in their store. A good surveillance system has every area covered, including all registers and every offi ce. Lastly, unfortu- nately, don't trust anyone. OTHER TECHNIQUES HE SAYS TO EMPLOY INCLUDE: • Proper merchandising of high-value items in a visible location not near the exit or hidden among the chaos of a store. • Making a verbal and eye contact connection with customers is a major deterrent to would-be shoplifters, so it's important for employ- ees to be vigilant on this front. • Monitoring receiving doors and other discreet access points, which can be safe havens for theft and deviant employees. • Take advantage of specialty theft deterrence devices, which are not used often enough to protect high-value liquor products. It may sound elementary, but Alford says lock your back doors and control the keys. "Employees cannot take product as easily out the front door," Alford says. "But if the back doors are not locked or the keys are freely given to them, I can promise you, at some point, you will lose inventory." Keep stock rooms clean and organized so you can easily see if something is amiss, like cans or bottle missing from cases. And for the large dollar items, create a security area that is cordoned off or can be locked up. Finally, ensure that you are actually getting all of the merchandise that you are paying for. Check in your vendors and count the product inside the cases. Have a receiver that controls the receiving process and ensures that everything on the invoice is actually brought into the store by the vendor. "Some small businesses 'trust' their long-time vendors so they just do a cursory check of the product being delivered. Well these same business owners also trust their good customers," Alford says. "But would they allow a customer to push a shopping cart of beer, wine and liquor to the registers and tell the cashier the dollar amount of product in the shopping cart and pay for that amount? Of course not. So why do we then allow vendors to tell us how much we owe them without verifying the product?" BD Electronic article surveillance (EAS) system tags, from Checkpoint Systems, which works in tandem with the company's EAS system located at the store's exit. Best Practices While there is never a "one size fi ts all" approach to deterring theft, these approaches have proven successful: • Installing EAS systems at the front of the store near the entrance and arming high-risk, select merchandise with a "tag" creates a deterrent. The product, if passed through the system, will set off an alarm and the retail employees can react to the incident based on the store policy. "This approach is time tested and has saved retailers billions of dollars in loss due to the deterrent factor pre- sented to shoplifters," Sell says. "Sometimes the tag is hidden and other products carry the tag in plain view on packaging. In normal transactions, the tag is deactivated at the POS to eliminate the alarm event for all paying customers." • Special sensors attached to the product, such as a "safer" which is a plastic box where the product is encased with a locking device, can help retailers monitor and deter theft. The sensor is deactivated at the POS by associates. Many of these devices are used for liquor, integrating a bottle cap design to prevent dispensing in the store and theft of the bottle itself. • Video surveillance is a popular tool used across all of retail for purposes beyond loss prevention. "The eye in the sky has many val- ues to retail from observing in/out traffi c to recording events for fu- ture investigation," Sell says. "There is also a visual deterrent value for shoppers when they feel that they are being watched." "This (EAS systems) approach is time tested and has saved retailers billions of dollars in loss due to the deterrent factor presented to shoplifters..." — Steve Sell, Director of Marketing, Tyco Integrated Security