Checking sales of a new wedding magazine, we were surprised to have sold six copies in a week. A 33% sell-through of a wedding title in a week in our demographic is excellent. The same check revealed we have had a copy stolen. That’s not such good news. I know from data I see at my software company that theft, shrinkage the experts call it, costs an average newsagency between 3% and 5% of turnover. While we mainly focus on processes to protect against employee theft, it is valuable to be reminded that customers can and do lift product.
Sure, other magazines are stolen – these are often away from the main traffic area. They are also smaller. This title is big – certainly not something you could slip inside a jacket or into a newspaper.
Maybe we need to frisk customers as they leave.
That could be an interesting condition of entry sign … It is a condition of entry that all customers agree to be frisked upon leaving the store.
A shoplifter was found here thismorning … with meat down his trowsers … no pun intended. People really will steal anything. And ‘conceal’ it by any means.
Meat? Seriously? I hope you have a photo – run a caption competition. The opportunities are endless. It would be funny if theft were not so frustrating and demotivating sometimes.
Mark,
I wonder how many retailers actually prosecute these parasites when they catch them or simply take the easy road of doing little or nothing. Surely thieves sure know and play on this fact.
On the other side of the coin, when I go to the supermarket I am greeted by signs insinuating I am a thief as they want to search my bags on the way out (frisking & cavity searches may come later). I cringe as customers robotically show their bags to disinterested checkout people who barely glance. I wonder how many thieves are showing their stolen goods and laughing because nobody is really looking.
I don’t show my bags and usually they don’t ask. When occasionally one does I refuse and normally they don’t press. On the very rare occasion you encounter one who is over intoxicated with their own perceived power, you ask for the supervisor who on every occasion has said that’s fine have a nice day. Their game, their rules but they never step up to the plate.
As a retailer I know 99.9% of my customers are good honest people who should be treated as such. I do not put up signs saying please don’t read the magazines or we reserve the right to whatever!!.
Yes we do have shrinkage (theft), but when we catch the parasites we should prosecute.
Eventually they will end up in gaol (correctional centre) and punished (rehabilitated).
We need more education – it cures everything. Sorry I get carried away sometimes.
Jarryd – you need a dog.
We have caught and prosecuted our local pram pushing thief by video evidence and let all the local business know who it was. The best part was they had to pay us $6.20 restitution. The police love the video and hope more business in this area install them.
Leon, The more we prosecute the less likely we are to be hit. That’s what the police tell us. We caught someone in our gift shop 2 weeks ago, the video footage helped people with a positive ID, charges have been laid. We’re spreading the story around the centre so we get known as tough nuts.
Jarryd – your story is the best!
Mark
I used to work at Safeway for 4 years and as most of you know those places can be pretty diligent in checking bags, asking to look through your stuff when you walk through the checkout, or employing someone to stand at the entranceway. It still doesn’t stop theives, though. A place like a newsagent could possibly benefit from electronic tagging (they used to use this at Lauren’s old newsagent), but I don’t know that it would be a profitable venture for a small business like yours. Safeway was always diligent in calling the police and pressing charges for the fact that it deters theives. Safeway could probably afford to have shoplifters more than the enwsagents could, but it is in the principle of things. It’s often quite busy at FHN and your staff are all at the register, and with an entrance as wide as yours it’s quite easy for shoplifters to escape. Electronic gates would be a good idea, but may be too costly.
Interesting you mention electronic gates Kim. They are, and should be, highly discouraged in shopping complexes.
I have read a number of articles about shops that installed electronic gates to have more controll over customer entry/exit. All have iterated the same thing … electronic gates drive down customer numbers.
They apear to discourage customers from walking into the store. Wheras an open shopfront is extremely inviting to a potential customer.
Electronic tagging is a good idea. Unfortunatly it has a few downfalls. You cannot place items too close to the gates of they will go off. Tagging every single item in a newsagency would take an unfathomable amount of time. The labour cost alone would be unviable, not to mention the cost of all the labels/tags.
If a newsagency had a high rate of theft for a department with expensive price points (eg batteries, ink, giftware) then it may be worth the effort. But it would depend on the individual newsagency.
I have heard the odd person mention in retail industry articles the prospect of one day having electronic tags or RFID tags in all products from the point of production/packaging. But it would only come if the major retail players demanded it, and still that would be a long time off.
In order to have the electronic tags you have to have the gates to detect them don’t you? I can definatly see how they would be uninviting, especially in a smaller business like a newsagency, but you can also appreciate that this is the way shops are becoming. Once you get into the habit of tagging new stock that is, say over $10 or $20 (depending on what is ‘expensive’ stock to you) retail value, the process doesn’t become overly longer, as you just tag the item as you take it out of the box and put it on the shelf. But it would definatly be more of a fiddly and time consuming process, and probably not be worth the financial expenditure, to install them and start tagging more expensive stock in the first place.
My mistake Kim, when you spoke of “gates” i thought you were refering to electronic entry gates (the type that only allow customers to enter though them, not exit, like the ones you go through as you enter a supermarket).
As for the “gates” that detect electronic tags, there are some very non intrusive ones out there. There are some you would barely notice.
But, like you say, a cost benefit analysis would most likely prove it to be unviable.
We costed the gates approach for a newsagency a few years back and the 6 – 7 cents per item cost for tags was prohibitive for newsagency lines.
I know of a newsagent who brought in an undercover guard one day a month and always caught two or three people. Word soon got around.