I was talking with a retailer yesterday who caught a shopper with $60 worth of stolen stock in their bag. The shopper knocked their bag as they were exiting the store and stolen items spilled onto the floor. The shopper was a long term ‘friend’ of the business.
While it could be considered intrusive by shoppers, right now, in the middle of Christmas, would be the time to check shopper bags on exit. Even doing this just at your busiest times could be well worth it.
Every few days I hear of another newsagency being robbed for cash and products that can be turned into cash. Check your insurance cover, make sure that it is right for your situation. Check your security arrangements and make sure that you and your employees are protected. Check your video security system, ensuring that it can caputure images of anyone stealing from you. Make sure your safe is appropriate to your needs.
Following on from my previous post, here are simple steps you can take to cut theft in your newsagency:
135 newsagents responded to the poll on theft and indicated that theft is not a major concern.
On theft by customers, 72.9% said it cost up to $5,000 in the last year while 14.6% said it cost between $5,000 and $10,000.
On theft by employees, 69.1% said they had suffered none in the last year, 20.2% said it has cost up to $5,000 and 8.5% said it had cost between $20,000 and $50,000 in the last year.
55.1% said there had been no increase in theft i the last year.
Click on the image for a more detailed breakdown on employee theft.
My experience working with newsagents on theft is that most don’t know they have suffered until after the event. This could be years. Often, by then, the cost has reached $200,000 or more. Studies in other retail situations show that theft is retail costs between 3% and 5% of sales. My experience in the newsagency channel is that this is an accurate assessment.
The key for newsagents is to manage for measurement of employee and customer theft. Saying there is no time or that it is too hard could be costing your business tens of thousands of dollars a year.
Please click here to take the survey on theft in newsagencies. It will only take a few seconds. I’ll publish the results tomorrow or Wednesday. We have close to 100 responses so far.
Please click here to take the survey on theft in newsagencies. It will only take a few seconds. I’ll publish the results next week.
I have created a three-question survey on customer and employee theft in newsagencies this year compared to last year. I’ll leave this up until Monday afternoon.
To take the survey please click here. It will only take a few seconds.
Every week over the last few months I have taken calls from newsagents facing sizeable theft situations. Talking with someone yesterday I had the idea it would be good to harvest more data about the extent of the two key types of theft in a newsagency. Hence the survey.
The survey software (Survey Monkey) doesn’t track your details, you can respond anonymously and it only allows one response per computer.
Touch Networks has advised that effective immediately, the sale of Blackhawk supplied VISA cards has been suspended due to fraudulent activity. Here is the announcement:
Blackhawk VISA gift cards have been suspended
Due to some recent fraudulent activity Touch Networks has suspended all Blackhawk VISA gift cards until further notice.This means that any VISA gift card that has been sent to you from Blackhawk cannot be activated for sale.
What to do with VISA gift cards:
DO NOT THROW OUT YOUR VISA GIFT CARDS!Touch Networks is working with Blackhawk to find a solution to remove fraudulent risk from both businesses.
Touch Networks will contact Touch Merchants in the next 7 business days to confirm if these VISA gift cards will be re-enabled through your Touch enabled device.
In the meantime, please REMOVE ALL VISA GIFT CARDS ON DISPLAY and place them in a secure location.
Touch Networks sincerely apologises for the inconvenience this is causing your business.
We hope you can appreciate our position and we are using best endeavours to resolve this serious issue ASAP.
If you have any questions regarding this, please email support@touchnetworks.com.au
Retailers too often struggle with cutting the cost of employee and customer theft. They ignore opportunities to block theft and turn their backs on understanding the cost in their business.
Here is best practice advice which, if followed, will reduce the cost of theft in any retail business.
The cost to any retail business of customer and employee theft can be significantly reduced. The keys are retail owner and management engagement, full use of the software and relentless application of a zero tolerance approach.
Here is a suggested THEFT POLICY for employees to read and sign.
Take theft seriously.
News Limited outlets reported last week that retailers in Queensland claim a 70% increase in shoplifting (theft) over the last six years. Russell Zimmermann of the Australian Retailers Association was quoted:
“Retailers end up having to put the cost of theft into their business and it then behooves the public, if they realise there could be theft going on, to alert the retailer.”
Queensland has the third highest rate of shoplifting in Australia, behind NSW ($2.3 billion) and Victoria ($1.9 billion).
While I have not seen the 70% increase reported, I have seen an increase – not only of shoplifting but also fraud by employees. Indeed, tracking employee fraud is something I am often asked for help with by newsagents. Some of these cases are shocking in their magnitude.
Through the newsagency computer systems there are steps newsagents can take to track and protect against theft. My challenge for newsagents today is: what are you doing about managing theft in your business? If it is not part of your management plan it needs to be. Talk to your software provider and get their best practice theft management advice.
From a theft policy to regular spot stock takes to password management to tight cash control, there are steps newsagents often ignore that could save tens of thousands of dollars in business expenses.
This is something completely within our management control.
Newsagents are being called today and have been called over the weekend and asked to print our a Ukash voucher. Some callers say they are from ePay. This is a scam.
There is a good Tumblr site with more about Ukash and related topics such as scams.
I was talking with a newsagent yesterday who has been stolen from for a second time by an employee. They let them off the first time as they believed it was the first time and the person was in a bind. There should be no excuses. The same with customers who steal – ban them and call security or the police if their return.
ePay has suspended access to the UKASH range in response to reported fraudulent activity. Here is the advice from ePay:
Please be advised that we have taken the steps and immediately deactivated the Ukash product to all Australian retailers in light of recent fraudulent activities.
Retailers are being targeted by people claiming to be from epay and instructing them to print Ukash vouchers from their terminals to verify the PIN and/or terminal. It would now seem they have gone a step further. For those wary retailers reluctant to provide the PIN’s over the phone they are instructing them to call a new epay CS number to verify it is epay. They have in turn set-up a number (02 8014 7198) that when called, by all intent and purposes sounds like epay Customer Services. This number is answered by several people stating ‘Welcome to epay how can I help’. THIS IS NOT AN EPAY CUSTOMER SERVICE TEAM!.
While this is being investigated the decision has been taken to protect our retailers first and foremost and the product is now shutoff.
I have been in contact with Crime Stoppers and our phone service provider. I will be speaking to the Police tomorrow and making a formal statement. Please send me any correspondence that you have had with any retailers affected.
Please note that there are several terminal blasts hitting retailers as we speak, as well as a letter that will be sent to all Ukash enabled retailers (attached).
Should you have a store that has been targeted please advise them to contact the local police immediately.
Late yesterday I watched security camera footage at one of my newsagencies from Sunday afternoon when two people stole several hundreds dollars worth of products.
It is always easy to judge what allowed a theft after the event. This is where having the footage is helpful, so that everyone at the shop can learn and hopefully avoid such theft in the future.
The key items stolen were boxes of AFL footy cards. The two people knew what they were doing, where the cards were and when to hit. A few seconds of distraction at the counter is all it took. Once they had what they wanted they were out and away.
Given how they ‘cased’ the shop, I suspect that had we made our use of a security system more obvious they would have not hit us. We have an excellent security system but do not show this off in-store. We don’t have monitors up for shoppers to see in this newsagency.
In another retail business I have all shoppers entering are faced with a screen shooing their face. I am confident that the two who hit us Sunday would have left empty handed had they seen their faces on a screen.
These people who stole from us are scum. The best we can hope for is that the police catch them the courts mete out justice.
Theft is on the rise in newsagencies and other retail businesses. I say this based on information shared with me by newsagents as well as recent reports in the media about increased retail theft.
My experience is that too many newsagents are lazy in some key areas of business management and this can leave theft undetected for too long. Here are the best ways you can combat theft in your newsagency:
The single most important steps to reducing theft are to use your computer system to manage stock and to be diligent in tracking and managing cash. Do this and you will certainly avoid theft.
I know of several newsagency businesses experiencing theft costing more than $100,000 recently where the crime would have been detected much sooner had just some of the measures noted above have been followed. In two cases, just using stock control on cigarettes would have saved each business many thousands of dollars.
Newsagents: theft is manageable in your newsagency. What it costs you in terms of cash and inventory is a commentary on the professionalism and discipline of your management of the business.
Check out this video of someone walking into the reception area of my newsagency software company earlier this week and stealing two snow globes from our reception desk. The video is a lesson in the ease with which some people execute theft. It teaches us something about vigilance.
Untitled from mark fletcher on Vimeo.
They chose their time well as the reception desk was unattended only momentarily.
Stealing snow globes? What’s the world coming to!
Thanks to the efforts of a team leader in one of my newsagency businesses this week we uncovered an employee theft situation early, before it cost us too much. The employee had only been with us for a few weeks. We were lucky to have security camera footage and accompanying newsagency software data to prove the theft.
Any newsagents in Victoria who are approached by someone with newsagency experience looking for work is welcome to call me on 0418 321 338 for a reference check.
I wish we could operate a do not hire register … It would save our channel thousands of dollars a month.
Catching the theft in this instance was assisted by secret tracking tools we use.
Newsagents who do not take care in balancing cash daily, who are lazy with their use of their newsagency software, who do not have a theft policy or who do not act on suspicious invite theft and the consequences which it wreaks on their business.
I have been working with another newsagent this week on an employee theft / fraud issue. It was the lax processes around managing cash which led to the newsagent being hit for at least $50,000. They did not worry about balancing their registers accurately each night, they also did not manage stock on hand. These weaknesses in processes invited the thief to act… and they did.
Check of the story in the Herald Sun yesterday about employee theft.
Newsagents are their own worst enemies sometimes. Here are some very basic rules to help newsagents avoid employee theft.
If the newsagent I was working with balanced their cash daily and tracked cigarette inventory they would have uncovered the problem much sooner.
Cutting the cost of employee theft in a newsagents is straightforward, all it takes is will on the part of the newsagent.
I got to see some chilling video footage on Monday of an employee stealing from the back office of a business run by a newsagent. You can see the employee check that the coast is clear before she reaches for a bundle of $50 notes and stuffs them into her bra. She then grabs $20s and $10s. Of course, with the video evidence there was no doubt a successful conviction.
Too many newsagents say this will not happen to them. They cite employee loyalty, good cash handling processes or that they are in a town where everyone knows everyone else.
We are all at risk and we need to run our businesses accordingly.
Employee theft is real. I estimate that it costs the newsagency channel at least $15 million a year.
When was the last time you reviewed theft management practices in your newsagency? It is something which should be done at least every six months.
Oh, and I don’t mean a soft review, I mean a serious review of business processes, a serious assessment of the employee theft risk you face, from the sales counter through the shop floor and into the back office.
Employee theft can kill a newsagency. It can sneak up and before you know it you are tens of thousands of dollars down, often more. Hundreds of thousands of dollars even. yes, I have seen this happen.
Sometimes it is not only businesses which are broken, marriages, too, suffer. The loss and trauma can be avoided or at least reduced.
Every week I hear of another employee theft situation. Through my software company I am often involved in gathering evidence for police prosecutors.
Here are seven steps which, if followed, will reduce the opportunity of employee theft in your newsagency.
You could also consider talking to your local police. They may have advice which is particularly relevant to your local area.
The more serious and consistent you are in managing the risk of employee theft in your retail business the more likely you are to reduce its impact on your business. The difficulty is that you will never know for sure.
I appreciate that it is difficult being tough in many retail environments, especially family centric businesses. Every newsagency is at risk, whether a family business or not. Treating employee theft as a genuine and high risk is essential if you are to mitigate the risk and protect your business asset.
This list reflects years of experience dealing with employee theft in newsagencies. Don’t be one of those newsagents who says to me I read your advice and thought it would never happen to me.
If you need help, call me. 0418 321 338.
It seems that not a day goes by and I hear about another newsagent hit by employee theft. It feels as if we are in the grip of an epidemic. I have just completed an article on the topic for the next issue of My Business magazine. My next step is to create a new video for newsagents on how to identify, manage and minimise theft.
We have to get this scourge under control.
I first published this advice to the 1,700+ newsagents using the newsagency software from Tower Systems a few weeks ago. I publish it here because of the concerning number of recent thefts in newsagencies.
With sales up and cash in the business up, Christmas time is the time for newsagents to be more vigilant than ever in managing cash. From taking care at the counter in customer interaction to ensuring honesty of employees, now is the time to revisit processes to ensure that the business is protected.
Yes, some of these measures take time. The financial saving from greater vigilance to the business could be considerable. Christmas in retail is a time of higher than usual risk.
Take care. If I can help in any way, please contact me.
I heard from a newsagent yesterday about this scam.
Someone rings indicating that there is an e-pay issue re a $100 Optus (or any telco) recharge unpaid but issued and now used that they will have to charge to your account. They say that if you print another voucher and read out the numbers they can use that one to cancel our bill.
This is a scam. Never print a voucher and give the number over the phone.