I Hear Those Post Voids Ringing

The holidays are a time of giving.  Presents are wrapped in beautiful paper and the excitement is seen both in the person receiving the gift and the person giving.  During this busy holiday season, your store’s merchandise is often the present that is given in this situation.  However, sometimes this present is in the form of merchandise being passed across the register for an employee’s friend or family member.  Sweethearting and passing items can be a way that employees are causing you a loss at the register.  Never fear, Aspect can help!!!!

Just Passing Thru:

Catching someone in the act of sweet-hearting or passing items is often tough and with so many companies using video at the registers, the bad associates try to make everything look right to the eye in the sky.  Line voids are a great way for them to do this since it looks like things are being rung up and a manager doesn’t have to be called over. You may find cases where people with an entire cart full of merchandise decides after making their way through the turnstiles decide that they only want the $1.99 item in the cart.  The funny thing is, all the items in their cart still make their way into your store bags and out the front door.  You are left with a transaction showing line voids of 20 items.  So, catch these people “hooking up” their friends by looking for transactions where the number and dollar amounts of the voided items are really high and the transaction total is really small.  Look for associates with more of these high risk transactions or just link to the video of the transaction to find out what really happened. 

Time after Time (here is my weekly placement of a song that is sure to get stuck in your head the rest of the day):

Also, if you have duration as a data element, you might want to look at transactions with long durations but small item counts or transaction amounts.  The Generic Transaction Summary can help highlight these cases where the associate is pretending to ring up the items for the sake of the camera or other people around. I would definitely be wondering what kind of extreme couponing was going on to get a whole cart load of items for $4.99!

Null and Void:

When looking at post voids, it is often helpful to look at reports that will show Post Voids that occurred more than “X” transactions after the sale or Post Voids more than “X” minutes after the sale. Look for associates that have a high percentage of post voids of cash sales.  A lot of customers will be asking for gift receipts and dishonest associates will often use this as an opportunity to use these for post voids.  One way to track this is by looking for associates with more applied voids where cash was tendered and be suspicious if they do not have a corresponding number of applied voids with other tenders.  You can also track which associate is issuing more reprint or gift receipts than their peers.

Transaction voids are another area of concern to watch for.  These are typically transactions in which the associate will void the entire transaction prior to its completion.  In some cases this can be done when the associate sees that the customer is paying with cash.  For example, if they know the total will be $100.50, they can void the transaction, take the money and their register will actually be over fifty cents after they are able to take the $100 in cash for themselves.

Suspended transactions are also of interest if associates can suspend a sale.  This is often done after their friend has already left with the merchandise.  You will want to look for a large number of suspends, especially if there is not a corresponding number of resumed transactions. Transaction cancels can also be done to give the appearance that merchandise has been rung and passed off to someone or to allow the associate to pocket the incoming payment for the purchase.  

While we are taught to help our friends when they are in need, this does not mean to help them steal. With the official kick off of the Holiday season underway, the pressure we all feel during the next month intensifies and the pressure associates will feel from their friends will also increase.  Again, we are hoping that these tips can ease some of that pressure by helping you prevent some of your associates from using their position to increase their popularity among friends in need of holiday shopping discounts.  Maybe these friends will give them the hook up when they are in need of a new job!

The Return of the Blog!

Greetings!  After a long break, I am pleased to find myself back in front of my computer writing another Aspect holiday blog entry.  As many of you know, much has changed in the Aspect world since the 2012 InterACT conference.  Our family has grown!  Aspect Loss Prevention is now a member of the Verisk Crime Analytics family which makes the APIS product our sister. Feel free to be humming the Sister Sledge “We are Family” song right now.

As in many blended families there are some adjustments being made, but the opportunity to grow together is something we are very excited about. CargoNet is another one of our sister products so here is the link to some of their holiday tips as well:

 http://s891.t.en25.com/e/es?s=891&e=58334&elq=a0de48326b3047419b666229a463cdc4. 

So with all of that being said, welcome to the APIS and other Verisk Crime Analytics users that may be new to our blog this year. Once again, I will be updating each week with some helpful reminders and tips for the Holiday season. 

Why Not Have Black Friday in July?

The opening of stores earlier and earlier appears to be the trend again this year. A recent story posted on Nov. 16^th even mentioned a woman and her daughter lining up for some great deals (only 168 hours before the sales open).  While opening the stores early and later closing hours can be very beneficial to your store’s bottom line, it will take some adjustments in your Aspect EliteLP system to make sure all of your indicators are correct. This is an Administration function, so check in with your corporate team to make sure you holiday store hours are correct.

Now Hiring

To handle all the extended hours, many of you will be hiring extra help.  However remember, these seasonal and temporary associates can hurt more than they help. This particular group of employees is a higher risk than the associates who know they will still have a job after the holidays. Make sure you get started by creating an Associate Group to monitor this group of employees separately from other associates. Often your HRIS system will assist you in creating this group based on hire date or status (Seasonal/Temporary).  If you have questions on this, have your system administrator call into the Aspect office and we can assist in the creation of these groups.  This group is now available to run specific queries.

Must Have, Must Steal

What are your stores’ must have items or promotions this upcoming Black Friday?  Use Aspect to flag the important or high risk SKUs!  With the exponential increase in sales, the item table can become huge.  If there are items that you are looking at on a regular basis, consider adding them to the Special SKU table.  Your generic or “junk” SKUs should always be there but you may want to add the season’s hot items special promotional items or things you just know that people are going to steal. Watch for those employees who have employee purchases including these SKUs.  They may be moving themselves to the front of the long line outside the door by stashing the items in the warmth of the store beforehand and purchasing them later.

Pop Up Stores

With lots of available real estate, pop up stores continue to be popular during the holidays. There are different risks for these sites and different metrics should be used. Make this analysis easier by building them into a store group. This way you can easily track those specific locations during the holiday rush.

Relax and Go To Your Happy Place

 

Don’t get overwhelmed!!  Remember AutoMIND alerts might be triggered simply due to the higher volume of the holidays.  Adjust your thresholds as business picks up so that you aren’t flooded with alerts just because of the increase in transactions. This is one of those times where the “new associate” and “temp store” groups will come in handy!

So again, by following a few simple tips, we are hoping that any stuffing that is occurring during the Thanksgiving weekend is of turkeys and empty stomachs, not employees or thieves pockets!