Where to Start. . . Or Put your blinders on.

Often when one takes over a store it is a wreck; shelves are empty, backroom full, damages and defects out of control, shelf labeling haphazard, Plan-o-grams not complete. . . well you get the picture.


As the new manager you may be a little bewildered and overloaded.  Everything that you see and touch in the store needs to be fixed, cleaned, filled straightened or just thrown out.  What should you do first?  You should first put your blinders on metaphorically speaking.

If you are like me you don't want to walk by something that is incorrect.  In the situation where you are trying to get a derailed store back on track then you would be wise to stay very task focused.  Fix one thing at a time, get it under control keep it there and move on to the next problem in the store while maintaining the first fix.

In the list of problem above, I think that the first thing that I would approach is a full backroom.  Generally if POGs (Plan o grams) are set a full backroom cannot be emptied.  The store has missed ad sets and the extra merchandise will never go out now because there is a new ad set.  You are going to have to ignore the plan initially, just so that you are able to move the merchandise to the floor.  Fill aisles first and as you are able to get those POGs up to date, excess merchandise should be put in secondary locations, back end caps, stack outs, clip strips etc, until such a time as your inventory begins to get back under control.

That being said you need to have  firm understanding of how the retail replenishment system works in your company.  As you pound out the merchandise your sales will increase and the system may send you all of the stuff that you just put out and sold.  Depending on the system your company has you may have to do A LOT of counts to make sure that your on hands are correct and to get your PIA (Perpetual Inventory Accuracy) back to where it should be.

Remember, you can't sell it from the backroom.  Just emptying the backroom will drive sales and hopefully deliver you more payroll to fix the rest of the problems in your store.

Interview Notes, or it's a small world!

I recently interviewed with a retailer.  When the District manager took my resume and application from me he flipped through it and sort of grunted when he saw something on the application.  Instantly my heart stopped.  But he continued on with the interview, in fact I actually had a good time and learned a lot about the company and the concerns it’s facing.  I'm sitting there thinking that I got this nailed down pretty good.  I've got all the good answers to the standard questions and all is well.  Then comes the hard one, "tell me why you were termed from your last job?"  I first give him the short answer, and he asks me for the long one.  Based on something I said he asked a personal question about my boss.  I'm sweating bullets and not wanting to sound like the typical disgruntled employee or throw rocks at anyone, but I am wondering if I slipped.  After a couple more questions we establish that the interviewer knows the guy who fired me! 

Okay, now I am freaking out (inside of course)  I'm thinking this guy is best buds with the . . . person who termed me so I think as soon as I am through then he will call the old boss, hear all the lies and I am toast with this company.

He tells me "Let me tell you a story about (Former boss)" and goes into this long drawn out description of how they had been pretty close at another employer 3,000 miles away.  He worked for my old boss; he sometimes gave the old boss rides to work when he had car problems, etc.  I'm thinking that next will be that they are godfathers to each other’s kids! 

Long story short the old boss stuck it to the interviewer in much the same weaselly manner as he did to me and he finishes the story with an implied "and I HATE that S.O.B.!"  I smiled with relief and said "It sure is a small world!"

END CAP 101:

In just about every single store that you go into there are end caps of some form or fashion. As a manager this is one of the single largest and easiest areas of the store that you can utilize to improve appearance and to drive sales.   Don’t forget that anytime you change out an end cap you need to clean down all of the fixtures while they are empty.

end capGondola

 

This is the end cap, the section of shelving on the end of a gondola or the regular aisle shelves.  There are many options to end cap building and in some cases you will have no say.  Some retailers give their managers control of the merchandising here and others detail out where every single piece of merchandise goes.   A few pointers:  Traditionally end caps have been single price point single item fixtures used to promote one SKU.  More and more retailers are moving away from that, most retailers expect you to cross merchandise atleast one SKU witht the primary item,  If you choose to put more than one item on an end the other items should be the same price, catagory, line, or price point.The following are some merchandising choices/do’s/don’ts and etc.

What you see above is the basic garden variety end cap, the one I Love. .  Almost.  Single item, single price.  Nice blocked look and well signed (By signing I don’t mean logos, labels etc . I am talking about the sign that tells the customer how much it is.) however, I would have raised the bottom shelf  and inserted a fourth level of product on the base deck , put three layers of product on the bottom shelf and then  with a tight (1/2” -1” gap) inserted the second shelf.  On the top shelf would go two layers of product and then you would probably be very close to the top of the end cap back (See how the merchandise is lower than the back?)   What is the down side to this?  You have a relatively large item if you don’t have a lot of product then the end cap will quickly start to look gap toothed and  will have to be changed quickly.  The Clip strip hanging in the middle and signed is a good idea, so long as the item on it is a direct add-on sale.  (For a DVD player you are going to be looking at Disc cleaning cloths, maybe an extension cord, micro fiber cloths for screen cleaning, or universal remotes)  With a “Side kick” of Duracell batteries hanging off the side I would stay away from batteries.  If you are not careful with cross merchandising it will no longer make sense and start to look like a garage sale.  To build this you would place one stack of merchandise on the base deck four high and use that as your spacer.  Watch the angle on the shelf in the back, if you just flop in there you can damage what looks to be DVD players.  (You want to sell them not shrink them!) Make sure you only have ½” -1” gap between the merchandise and the shelf and then place a stack of three on the new shelf.  Once you have made sure that the level of the merchandise is close to the level of the back of the end cap then you can fill the end with more products.  It is a question of preference as to whether or not to leave the gap in the middle or to center the merchandise leaving a smaller gap on the outsides.  To me I would leave it as it is in the interest of safety, people are less likely to hit the edge of the shelf if there is merchandise out to the edge.

(Note the Printers on the floor!  We will talk later about recovery standards!)

At first glance this one is just looks just AWESOME! However, look at the way it is built, with the exception of the few cases on the bottom in the front, you cannot reach any product unless you are Shaquille O’Neal.  There are no shelves!  Further they have placed that sample table and trash can right in front and if you are standing right in front of the product I’ll bet the price at the top is out of your line of sight.  Essentially there are three and a half cases that can be shopped.  Since they are offering free samples it probably tastes good and those three cases are gone in minutes.  Then what?  People walk off mad because you made an end cap that is little more than warehousing!  The answer here would be to probably add shelves at a decent level maybe every two or three cases vertical and slide the table to the side of the end cap like a wing stack with the trash can beside it.  Further I would try to get a sign at eye level.  I would also put a sign on the table if there was no associate there to encourage people to try it.  With a food product though, I would have someone monitor it.  Both for portion control (3 more cases and I’ll know if I like it!!) and food safety (Who knows what could go in those already opened cans.)

More and more retailers have vendor provided end caps; this one is a very nice example with signage, and sloped shelves that allow the product to automatically fill in.  These are nice looking and easy to maintain.  Notice the wing stack placement, if there is only one facing of product on the shelf then the customer is not seeing it.  If you are hiding merchandise with your wing stacks then you are not merchandising you are warehousing.

It is probably a philosophical point, but I despise these kinds of end caps.  In an effort to force more and more SKU’s in front of customers, retailers are starting to move toward this style of end cap that at my estimate/count houses about 40 SKUs! Not bringing up the clip strip in the middle of the side kick or the edge on green boxes on top stock, this is total garbage.  Where is the statement? What is the theme? What is the price point? This looks like another four foot section out of the gift aisle.  Next to it on the left you can see what appears to be about a half dozen home décor SKU’s.  This is the type of end cap that spawned the idea for the monstrosity you see in this picture.  When you have a single item, brand, price point packaging scheme etc, sure cross merchandise and rack up sales.  This style of 40 random SKU’s doesn’t speak to me.  It probably won’t speak to customers either.  Remember end caps are not permanent and as such should be promotional; the man hours involved in creating, maintaining and switching this beast is probably incredible.  That being said, often these end caps are created at the home office and mandatory.  If that is the case you smile, say yes sir/ Ma’am, build it and drive on.  Given an empty end cap in my store this would be a last resort for example only if I didn’t have the goods for any other option.  By the way, I found more pictures and a how to set on this end so it was actually plan-o-grammed!

Creativity is a plus, however, always be careful to endure the display is safe, applies to ADA laws (at least 36” of aisle width), is shopable and is signed (The Bigger the sign the better!)  Find the signs on these two above. Don’t make customers work too hard to find the price you make them work too hard and they walk.

DUDE! WHERE IS MY MERCHANDISE?  What a waste of primo real estate!  This is a cardinal sin in retailing, never have empty end caps.  Looks like the vacuums over the left shoulder of the centered end cap have the same problem I was talking about with too large an item on an end cap, you sell one and you have a great big hole!

Come on man, it’s just a section of the aisle!  Yeah it is all BBQ sauce, it is outstandingly presented, filled and fronted ,but the only staement it is making is we got a lot of BBQ sauce! It’s just an extension of the condiment aisle.

When you have to put different merchandise on an end cap there are a couple of different ways, the method above is  “striping” or ”ribboning” .  This is where you vertically stripe the merchandise so that everything that is the same SKU is vertically striped up and down.   This presentation is good where you have customers who are walking along and not scanning up and down.  With their eye level at one level they are guaranteed to see every SKU on that end.

 When you are using shelving you start building at the bottom, but when you are building an end cap with peg merchandise you begin at the top.  By starting at the top you can present a level edge at the top of the end cap.  After putting the first peg on, put a single piece of merchandise in place to use as spacing.  At this point put in your top row across the top.  It looks best if they are all the same length and width, but that really doesn’t matter, the important part is that you have enough merchandise to fill each vertical stripe on the end.  (If you know basically how many pieces will fit on a peg and how many pegs will fit vertically in that space you can do the math and figure out how many you need.) Space your columns about one inch or one pegboard hole apart to allow for merchandise to be shopped without pulling it all in the floor. Work your way across the top with one peg and one piece of merchandise until you have filled the top row.  At this point look at the end.  Is the merchandise centered or are there big empty stripes on each end or is merchandise hanging way out in the aisle?  Adjust the row and spacing until there are no gaping holes and there is no overhang.  You may have to substitute different items so that it looks good.  When substitute make sure that you are staying in price point and/or category.  If you are striping Christmas ornaments, don’t go and stripe a row of crescent wrenches!  Allowing for about an inch or one peg hole of space between each presentation of merchandise proceed to the bottom. As you go down each stripe leave one space for spacing and making sure you are putting in the same item as above.   The bottom peg should leave enough room so that it does not touch any other merchandise there.  Some retailers I have worked at have insisted on nothing on the base deck on peg sections, others have said no empty base decks because they are a safety hazard.  Whatever, if your retailer wants stuff there, then leave enough room that your peg merchandise is not “in” it.  Once you are done with your first vertical continue down the end until the whole thing is full.

In this case you are looking at blocking or horizontal striping.  Much the same as the vertical except the merchandise stays the same in horizontal rows instead of vertical columns.   Build your way across each row with one piece of merchandise per peg and then center it, move down and start your next row.  Center each row and make sure that there is not too much or too little space between and on the edges.  This method works really well when you have shelved items on the bottom say and angle grinder, then you can peg an accessory like grinding wheels across the top.  Notice also the way I arranged the items with smaller on top and larger on the bottom, this makes all items equally likely to be seen.  If smaller items are on the bottom and they sell down they can be hidden from view by the large items on the top and decrease your sales for that fixture. Once you have all of it laid out go back and fill ‘er up.

So You Hired a New Employee. Now What?

So you hired a new employee.  Now what?

So you took over a new operation and you needed to hire your first person.  After all the resume review, interview, reference check, drug test, background check, personality profile, and credit check Johnny Q. Cashier is ready to roll, you have yourself a grade A number one “Enthusiastic Beginner” on your hands!

At every company that I have worked at there is some form of “New Hire” packet.  Some are small but most are absolutely insane in size. Normally these include emergency contact info, direct deposit forms, maybe even another copy of the application to fill out!   In many cases you will have to allow 30 minutes to an hour to get a person all ready to roll as far as paperwork is concerned.  Not to mention the time that you will have to spend.  “You are under 18 so your parents have to fill out that section”, “make sure that you put the phone number of the person you want us to contact in case of emergency here and not your number”, “Don’t sign this one until after I have covered the new hire safety with you.”,  Etc. 

While the paperwork is a bureaucrats idea of a perfect Christmas present the ever busy retail manager thinks this is some Rube Goldberg means to make sure that you never hire anyone!  

When you take over a new operation and you are looking at bringing on new bodies make sure that you are using the most up-to-date version of the new hire documents.  If you don’t then you are sure to get a nasty gram from HR about your lack of bureaucratic expertise.

By far the most import document in this pile is going to be the I-9.   The I-9 is a government required document that is the means by which your employee proves that they are allowed to work in this country.  In the past the I-9 was used primarily by immigration, but immigration now falls under DHS, The Department of Homeland Security.  Since 9/11 an already important document has become VERY important.  You don’t want to be the manager who hired the next Mohammed Atta. (One of the 19 9/11 hijackers)

Key to the whole process is the time line, I-9’s are to be completed no later than three days after employment, if a person is to work less than three days then the I-9 is to be completed on the FIRST day of employment.   An employer CANNOT tell the new employee which documents to present as proof.  There is a list of documents on the back of the I-9 and the employee must present one document from list A which proves identity and authorization to work OR one document from list B which provides identity AND one document from list C which proves authorization to work.

Section one of the form is filled out by the employee and sections 2 and if necessary section 3 are filled out by the employer. (Section 3 is for non-citizens who have a temporary work permit that has expired and re-authorization needs to be noted)  Section 3 has to be completed no later than the expiration of their original temporary work authorization.

The Link below will give you a very cool pdf of the I-9 form that you can type in before you print.

 http://www.uscis.gov/files/form/i-9.pdf

The link below will give you instructions on the I-9

http://www.uscis.gov/USCIS/Resources/E3en.pdf

The stages of Employee Development

A manager will quickly learn that their management style is not the same from one employee to the next.  Before I get into the whole Gen-X, Millennial, Gen-Y, and baby boomer issue (another post) I will look at the basic Stages of employee development as laid out by Ken Blanchard back in the mid-late 1990’s.   What is important to recognize here is that you have to CHANGE your style of management from person to person in your team.

D-1 Enthusiastic Beginner (Don’t’ know what they don’t know)

Low consciousness

Low competence

(Unconscious Incompetence)

These employees are excited, fired up and ready to go 1,000 miles an hour with their hair on fire . . . the wrong direction!  How to recognize:  These are usually very new, enthusiastic, curious, and motivated employees who have no idea what to do or how.  As a manager you need to recognize this and adopt a Directing Style of management.   At this stage of the game you need to provide frequent direction, training, instruction, follow-up and re-direction.  Give them bite sized units of work that they can deal with and check back frequently to ensure that they are progressing in the proper manner and provide tons of feedback on how they are doing...

D-2 Disillusioned Learner (Know what they don’t know)

High Consciousness

Low Competence

(Conscious incompetence)

At this stage your employee has been there long enough for the new to wear off.  They have been there long enough to know that there are things they don’t know and that some things they are learning are more difficult than anticipated.  They are still working hard and do not have a lot to show for it. This can lead to frustrations and disillusionment if it is not corrected.  At this stage a manager will apply a coaching style of leadership and continue to provide feedback, and instruction where needed, but most important timely, accurate, meaningful, sincere feedback on their performance and continue to re-direct them to new tasks as needed.

D-3 Capable but Cautious Learner (know they know)

High Consciousness

High Competence

(Conscious Competence)

These are the employees who have done it once or twice and have done it to standard.  They understand that they are capable and that they can perform the work but there is caution because they are unsure if they can replicate their results.  Fear of failure makes them cautious.  Managers need to apply a supportive style of management.  The employees know what to do, stay out of their Kool-aid and provide them with clear positive, recognition of what the D3 employee has done.

D-4 Peak Performer (Don’t know they know)

Low Consciousness

High Competence

(Unconscious Competence)

If you have Michael Jordan on your basketball team he is a D4 employee.  D4 employees are competent, committed and are basically self-managed.  A manger needs to adopt a delegating style at this level just tell them what needs to be done, you let them decide all of the specifics.  While an employee at this level still needs a pat on the back, they will often respond better to higher order praise.  This usually entails an increase in responsibility or autonomy.  Asking them to train others or allowing them to select their job assignments.  These are the ones who are team leaders, head cashier, lead stockers etc.  They are also the ones who are likely to be promoted.

Managers need to recognize that this is not a static ladder of stages, employees can move up and down the ladder.  As a manager, company changes moved me from D-4 to D-2 and maybe even D-1 overnight.  I lost my boss, we were trying to catch up with two years of company change and I was faltering.   What I held to be the tenants of my job were no longer valid.  In a case as a manager where you change procedure and policy there needs to be an understanding that you have effectively made all of your employees D-1 again.  The more drastic and wide sweeping the change the more drastic the shift in the employees competence as they take time to absorb, adjust and master the change..  A relatively minor change is a new smoking policy.  “No employees may smoke within 50ft. of the front door.”  While this is change it will only affect the smokers and it is relatively easy to introduce and enforce, quickly getting everyone back to D-3 or D-4.     Change the means by which employees clock in, their pay to only direct deposit, the way that they process a warehouse shipment, the way that store recovery is done, change out their manager, and change out the way you perform price check s and the pricing structure or your add-ons  and you now have a whole store of new hires.

Pace your change so that you are able to monitor compliance and acceptance, once you have moved your employees up to D-3 or D-4 then you are ready to move on more change without effecting the effectiveness of your operation.   In addition knowing this helps you to understand where you are at.  Even as an experienced manager if you are at a new employer you are a D-1 employee because you are not clear on all of your new employer’s policies and procedures.  Channel all of you excitement and energy into learning the ropes and asking questions.

12 tips to conrol shrink and cash shortages on your front end

First off, you will hear time after time that your people are not your friends, or that being a manager is not a popularity contest.  You will also hear many managers swear up and down that their employees are not thieves.   As usual the truth lies somewhere in the middle.  To borrow from the “Great Communicator” Ronald Regan I like to utilize his “Trust but Verify” method of management.  In this blog you will see time and again follow up, follow up, follow up.   Follow up may well be the most important thing that you do.  However, the optimum results are somewhere in the middle.  You cannot operate with an attitude that all of your people are thieves, yet given the opportunity some of them will rob you blind.  What do you do?   You take away the opportunity, set ground rules and enforce them and follow up on them and they will not have the opportunity to steal.

1.       Cash Drops— in an effort to defuse thoughts that this is about all of your thieving employees and acknowledge that yes some of your theft is going to come from the outside.  Every company that I have worked for has a cash drop policy.  Cash drops are where usually a manager and another employee will sweep through the registers and remove all of the excess cash from the tills and take it to the safe.  Why?  This is so when Bubba Q. Crack-smoker comes through the register buying his new butane torch and he gives you the last $2.99 in his pocket he doesn’t look down and see a register drawer bulging with money.  The goal here is one of eliminating temptation or opportunity.  The manager is taking the drawers back down to their starting level to give the appearance when you look at the drawer that there is little cash there.  By moving money to the safe a smart thief will know that you have more than what is in the drawer, but it will take longer to get to exposing them to greater risk and reducing the attractiveness of you as a target. The added benefit to this is that it will usually cut down on the time it takes to count down a cashier at the end of their shift and if you are making deposits out of the drops then it will reduce the amount of time that it takes to assemble the deposit.

2.       No calculators at the front—Calculators are often used by cashiers who are short changing customers.  During their shift as they short change customers they keep track of the amount on the calculator to ensure that they remove the proper amount of money from the drawer at the end of their shift so they can get their “earnings” and the drawer will balance.

3.       No change on the drawers outside the registers—this is another method used by cashiers to keep track of the money that they have short changed customers.  Usually the method used is one penny per dollar.  So a penny and a nickel on the side of the register will mean the cashier has short changed customers $6.00 and will remove that at the end of the shift.

4.       No extra receipts lying around—receipts left by customers are a goldmine for a key carrying thief.  A receipt gives a fraudulent return credibility.  Often thieves will horde these to allow them to age a day or two and to wait for the opportunity to do the return.

5.       No phone book—this one is tough for a lot of people, employee’s managers, and customers alike will ask for a phone book, the simple truth is a phone book at the front is often used to cultivate addresses and phone numbers for fraudulent returns.  It is not worth it to have this “resource” available to would be thieves.

6.       No cell phone—Cell phones are a distraction for any reason.  Your employees should not be using cell phones in any capacity while they are on the clock unless they are on break in a designated area.  For the purposes of this post, most modern cell phones have the calculator function and can help the cashier to add up the total of the short changing they have done.

7.       No pile of change in the extra change spot in the drawer—a variation on the change by the register method of keeping track of short changing.  I had a problem with this personally when I get on register because as a manager I am usually there because the Shriner bus unloaded and they are all checking out at the same time.  In short I’m in a hurry.  I will ring and when customers give exact change just dump it in the extra change spot so I can quickly shut the drawer and start on the next customer, rather than spending a minute sorting the $.98 all out to the correct bins.  I guess the moral here is that one needs to practice what they preach.  Something I need to work on.

8.       No extra bar codes around the registers—one of my favorite AP videos that I was shown at a training session involved a cashier who had attached a $.25 candy ticket to the inside of her watch band so when she picked up each piece of merchandise and “Scanned” it.  She appeared to anyone who was looking including CCTV that she was scanning all of the customer’s purchases.  In reality she was scanning the $.25 tag every time!  What should have been a $400.00 transaction was like $10.00.  This was an example of sweet hearting at its finest.

9.       Management supervision on the front—this is one that we all buck at some time or another.  Management, being management out of the store and above you decrees that there will always be a manager on the front.  Yeah you have 10,000 things to do, and there are never enough hours to get them done, but the reality is that the single best way to deter theft on your front end is to stand there and watch them.  Look at your larger big box retailers they have a CSS, CSM, or front end manager type whose job it is to do this.  Witnesses will deter theft.  This is something that you need to soul search within yourself and make a decision based on what is going on in your store.  A former district manager of mine spent all say every day at the front end from open to close to monitor front end functions.  Too much you say?  He all but eliminated shrink and in about an eight or nine year period moved from store manager to regional director.  As with most management decisions you have to make choices and prioritize the needs of your location.  He was in a very high shrink location and had been called in to clean it up.  He did and that was what he did to do it.

10.   CCTV coverage—if you are lucky enough to have CCTV (Closed Circuit Television or Video surveillance equipment) in your operation this is a huge asset.  Any time that you think that you have a questionable activity that is or might be happening then you can utilize the CCTV tapes (Well now they tend to be digital and much higher quality) you can frame by frame analyze what is happening in that image.  It is also good to review tapes once a week.  The best method is to look in reports your store will have for all of the non sale transactions as well as discounted transactions (If your store does a great deal of % off transactions this could be too time intensive.)  Using these transaction logs can help you to narrow down transactions where nefarious activity is most likely to happen.

 WAR STORY ALERT!!!  Within a week of my starting my first Store manager job we busted a ring of ten thieves in my store.  I came out of the merchandising end of the business as opposed to operations, but thankfully my DM when I was an assistant had a ground breaking view (In that company at that time) that merchants should also dig into the books.   My behavior reflected my roots and normally I would work with the stock crew from 4 a.m. until noon when they went home, then I would take a “break” by working on my ledgers, verifying markdowns etc.  Having had too many Diet Cokes that morning I had to make a restroom run.  My office was in the front of the store and the restroom was in the back.  On the way back I passed two of my stockers who had done some shopping after their shift and they had a mounded buggy of merchandise.  I remember to this day seeing a comforter set and a cookware set.  I did my business and came right back to the front of the store, maybe an elapsed time of 3 minutes since I had seen the two with the buggy in the back aisles of the store. (Sorry mom, I didn’t wash my hands that time, my sixth sense had kicked in)  My shopping stockers were already gone!  I knew there was no way that they could have checked out so quickly.    After checking at the front as if I was innocently checking to see if they had left yet I went back to my office where the CCTV unit was and saw them pay for one item (of course making sure that they got their employee discount!) and push a loaded buggy out the door un paid for!  No wonder the store’s shrink had been so high before I got there!  I had an in store AP guy who had been making rounds of the store when they “Checked out” so I informed him of what was going down and yanked the journal from the register and the employee discount log so they wouldn’t “disappear”.  WE busted an eventual 10 employees.  Yeah I was a little short for a while, but the existing employees knew I cared and new employees were the additions to make the team stronger.

11.   Void Key—some retailers allow cahiers to have the ability to void the last item that they rang up.  With this capacity a cashier will ring up the most expensive item that the person bought last.  Usually a register will provide the cashier with a running total on the purchase so after ringing the last item and making sure that the customer is paying in cash, they will tell the customer the total of the sale.  While the customer is digging out the cash the cashier will void the last item and later take the cash.  They have just pulled a double whammy.  You have incurred shrink because merchandise left that was not paid for and you have a cashier who has stolen money.

12.   Bob & Lisa (Okay so you really get 13 tips)—Bob and Lisa are acronyms for Bottom of Basket and Look in Side Always.  Taking the focus off of thieving employees we wrap it up here with a look once again at thieving “customers”.  B.O.B. addresses the fact that both cashiers AND customers often forget about merchandise that has been placed under the bottom of the basket.  Make sure that as part of your cashier’s best practices is that they know to look under the basket to see if anything is there.  To help with this some retailers will mount wide angle mirrors across on the next cashier booth to help cashiers see under without falling over the counter.  Cashiers need to be especially cognizant of situations where ad flyers are lining the bottom of the basket to obstruct view.  With L.I.S.A. a common tactic of shoplifters is to pick a large inexpensive item.  They remove the original item and refill the box with smaller more expensive items.  Or taking something like a cooler or luggage and filling it up with other merchandise.  They pay a few dollars to buy the container but can potentially be getting thousands in merchandise.  Cashiers need to be trained to look in poorly sealed boxes to “Make sure everything is there” and coolers, storage plastics, trash cans, and luggage type items to make sure that “Nobody else put anything in there.”  In this manner the cashiers can check to make sure that everything is alright and no additional merchandise is going out the door.

Hopefully these tactics can help you to better manage the shrink on your front end.  With training to yourself, your managers and to your staff, these can be implemented and with follow up will become habit.  In no time you will be turning in shrink numbers that are the envy of the company and your cash shortage issues will all but disappear.

So Why Retail 101?

So why retail 101?  On my first day as a store manager I walked into my new store and met the district manager.  He introduced me to the staff, handed me my keys and left to deal with an emergency at another store.  What now? I didn’t even know the roles that these newly introduced people played.

                At that time I had some experience as an assistant manager, some part-time management experience at UPS and a little leadership experience in the U.S. Navy.  I was pretty confident I could lead this new group of people, but where to start?  What are the most pressing demands of this location?  What are my new bosses “hot buttons”?  I didn’t know.  I was soon to learn that I had told associates too many times when I was an assistant “I don’t know, go ask Wanda.” (Wanda was my store manager at the time.) I quickly came to realize that I was where the buck stopped now!  I needed the answers.  Thankfully, there were other seasoned managers who were willing to give me pointers and direction. 

On my first store visit by district manager he informed me that the issue he was attacking me for was retail 101. . .further he questioned his choice in store managers.  Having completed my B.S. in education I figured it was a business major course.  I was soon to learn that Retail 101 is NOT a specific course it is the school of experience.  It is the truisms that you learn after time in the trenches.  My goal here is to transfer some of my 17 years of retail management experience . . . to pay it forward and help some others in their career goals and success.  In addition, in almost every post game interview of a coach you will hear them mention the “basics” or the “fundamentals” so even the pros focus on the basics.  As either a beginner or a pro, you will often find when you move to a new location that you will have to refocus the store on the basics.  Hopefully I will be able to help you with remembering some of those fundamentals and smooth your road to success.

I look forward to sharing information back and forth with you in the future.