Retail Security in the Busy Holiday Period “The average shrink percentage in the retail industry is about 2% of sales. While that may not sound like a lot, consider that shrinkage cost retailers more than $49 billion in losses in 2016, according to the National Retail Security Survey on retail theft. So if your retail store did $1M in sales with 50% gross margins, your shrinkage at just 2% cost you $10,000 - that's significant.” (The Balence, 2017).
As the holiday season approaches, retail stores have an increased volume of traffic, and unfortunately with this increase of customers there is also an increase in inventory shrinkage. Retail Security becomes more challenging and retailers should be aware of both the internal and the external threats to their retail business, from the elimination of shoplifting to the reduction of internal errors or shrinkage (loss of product).
There are multiple reasons why security is harder in the winter months, from the reduced daylight hours providing more opportunity for crime, to hockey on the TV in your store, to seasonal staff being unaware of policies or practises.
Retail stores are normally concerned with additional staff for the busier periods but sometimes fail to address the security issues which come with the season. Keeping your store secure requires forward planning and consideration; to help you out, here’s a few tips to simplify the process.
Minimizing Internal Theft
An age old problem in the retail industry is employee theft, and this can sometimes be made worse by having new seasonal employees. While retail owners don’t want to suspect their employees are stealing, having solid processes in place to reduce and prevent theft is important. When hiring new employees, be sure to take the steps to screen them properly, from background checks to drug screens and references to make sure you have the best people working for you. If you want to learn more about internal theft check out our blog.
Communicating Policies
The communication of your store’s policies is vital to retail security and enforcing them is equally important with consequences for not following them. Your store should have policies for employee purchases and returns, accessing valuable inventory, restocking, handling damaged or returned products, authorizing customer discounts and ensuring data entry is accurate.
Controlling Access to Your Inventory
Inventory counts can be changed easily, meaning that no one may even notice that a product is gone. Limiting the access to your retail inventory system should be a very selective process, choosing which employees have access and their level of access.
Ensuring that all employees with access are both trustworthy and aptly trained to use the inventory system to eliminate any errors in data entry, and having unique logins which they do not share with each other will help track any discrepancies.
Monitor Valuables
Another factor for preventing loss is managed access to your valuable goods, limited your employee access to certain areas secure areas can keep a tighter lock on your inventory.
Implementing Sonitrol Access Management gives you the flexibility assigning different levels of access to staff. Employees who are not authorized to open or close the store or access secure areas will not be allowed to do so when the security system is live.
Installing a Verified Security System
An integrated Sonitrol verified CCTV security system will track your key processes from cash transactions, to closing tills to receiving or shipping. Employees are significantly less likely to commit theft when they know they are being watched. If there is an outside threat, our expert team of security specialists monitor and inform the authorities in real time. Our CCTV systems can be integrated with you Point of Sale Registers and automatically identify unusual transactions, incorrect transactions, fraudulent transactions identifying employee and transaction with video evidence.
With an array of features from early detection, to access control, to comprehensive coverage, Sonitrol systems make it easy for your unique security needs to be met.
Sonitrol known for being the best commercial alarms, and we are a leading provider of retail security systems in North America. To learn more about retail security click the below button for our free ebook, or contact us to discuss your security needs.
We hope you have a safe and profitable holiday season!
