Your Store Is Protected. Is The Merchandise Protected Too?

Are your premises protected?

You've installed an alarm system, surveillance cameras and access control so you justly feel protected. These devices will effectively deter burglars who try to enter after business hours, or will catch them in the act. But the small thieves can still eat into your profits.

Shoplifters And Dishonest Employees

With the big professionals neutralized, any losses you still suffer occur in broad daylight. Merchandise is stolen by people who entered your premises legally, through open doors. The Retail Council of Canada found that the average Canadian retailer lost 1.8% of his/her sales to shrinkage in 2000. Shrinkage is the difference between the quantity you bought from your supplier and the quantity that you have available for sale. What's especially troubling is that the recent figures are higher than those for previous years.

In 1998 the figure was 1.5% of sales. In 2000, losses to shoplifters amounted to $3,000,000 per day, with a similar amount lost to theft by employees. Average loss per shoplifting episode was $152, and average per employee theft episode was $609. And keep in mind that these figures are averages: some businesses are more prone to shoplifting and employee theft than others. The shrinkage range ran as high as 5%. With the thin profit margins many firms are experiencing now, these losses might even put some of them out of business. You may be among the many retailers who are losing profits to many small thefts.

Losses due to shoplifting and employee theft are actually much greater than the out of pocket costs. Because of theft, you have to raise prices, making you less competitive. Your service staff is busy watching the suspicious "customers" and aren't offering your honest customers the service they deserve. And if you are locking up expensive items to protect them, you lose sales because honest customers, who would like to touch and handle them, may simply move on to another store. Lowe's Home Improvement Stores found that "since we took faucets out of lockup in EAS stores, there was a 25 percent increase in sales for that product group". Wow! What a difference!

Loss Prevention

To complete your protection, you need a system to help reduce shoplifting and employee theft. Electronic Article Surveillance (EAS) may be the answer to your merchandise shrinkage problem. That's a fancy way to refer to those tags or labels attached to items to make them difficult to steal. Some experts believe that shrinkage can be reduced by 60% with a good EAS system in place. That would pretty well cover losses due to shoplifting and employee theft.

Visible and prominent EAS devices deter potential shoplifters and catch actual thieves before they leave the premises. You can increase sales by leaving high value items on tables and shelves And because the system is passive, your staff is free to serve your honest customers better. An EAS system together with surveillance cameras and an access control system constitute a reliable loss prevention system and can significantly reduce merchandise shrinkage due to shoplifting and employee theft. Theft prevention can pay for itself in a very short time, possibly in as little as one to two years.