Does any other store has or had their store inventory recently?? Our store is scheduled for next week.
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I made the original post. Shoplifters know to come when the store first open. Our L.P. favorite line is "I didn't see anything so there's nothing I can do." The reason for that is because he is too busy watching us instead of the customers. I've seen people steal tv's,headphones,dvds,and anything else. One customer had the guts to steal a printer out the box with the spider wrap on there,manager to get the printer and was nice enough to put the stolen box back on the shelf.
How many TVs will the store manager mysteriously find after he figures out the inventory is going to be bad. How many times will they decide if they should count the truck or not. I've seen some really shady stuff go down after inventory. We had a half a million dollar loss a few years ago, then the following year we were told we would close if it happened again. Nothing changed. Still saw tvs and bike roll out everyday and we somehow ended up with less the 100,000 loss. Hmmmmmm (Kmart store)
I'm actually kind of nervous, not because of the inventory itself but because of all the shoplifting our store has endured over the past year and how it will affect our individual store's profitability. It's already jeopardized because we aren't "making PAs or credit" as much as the company expects.
A big loss is all the reason to cut more hours and starve the store of necessary resources, which is a vicious circle. Cut hours = less help. Less help = dwindling foot traffic. Dwindling foot traffic = store closures. Store closures = company will eventually cease to exist. You get the idea.
It's so bad that we have many "regulars"...they know we have no LP onsite and that if the police were called, the officer wouldn't have much to go on since all the cameras and footage are 100% remote. The deck is stacked in the shoplifter's favor. There is zero risk--literally--at our store. Other Sears stores may be in the same boat, I don't know.
Carts heaped full of merchandise, (including tool sets and electronics) being taken out of the store a couple of times a week is normal for us.
It will be really interesting indeed once inventory's numbers all come out in the wash.
I've never been particularly impressed by RGIS (the inventory service), but it seems that like pretty much every company lately, they just get worse year after year. At least in years past they managed to bring a large enough crew, but it just kept shrinking. They'd miss entire sections or mistype entire extra digits onto their counts, which made it a pain in the butt to correct later on, though at this point I doubt we'll even have enough staff to correct everything by the deadline.
why don't people steal the entire store as there's no security anymore?
Last year we had almost no sku checks and verifications because we had almost no staff. They cut the hours before and during inventory. Items were just dropped on the floor and ignored instead of trying to find them. Management bragged about how great and accurate our inventory was. This despite the fact that we ended up hundreds of thousands of dollars short. Nobody cared.
I'm pretty sure our store is going to be a disaster. Customers stole soap and tide pods by the boatload. One customer had the guys to ride a bike out the store and managed to get away. Electronic get hit so much it should be a sign that says TAKE ME. You can open a whole clothing store with the clothes that has walked out the door. Jewelry has watches and them fake earrings stolen everyday. People steal one roll of toilet paper out of a 24 pack. Trash bags are always open with who knows how many missing..... Screwed... thanks for reading
Inventory has always been done by an outside source. But it also requires a full staff of store associates and managers for sku checks and verifications. I'm guessing this year, the inventory company's staff will heavily outnumber the number of associates we have available to assist. It's going to be a disaster.
Inventory is done by an outside source (as it is done with every retailer or anyone who has inventory) to have the people at the store do the inventory would be a conflict of interest. Also, every store does an inventory once a year so no red flag as to if you will close. If your inventory is a disaster (you cannot account for lots of merchandise) that could be a reason to close the store.
Dont they still bring in the outside service?
We are scheduled for inventory on Tuesday, how it will go is anyone's guess,since there are virtually no associates in softlines to do it.
What would be your concern with inventory? That is not a red flag. Everything else going on around are the red flags.