October is Small Business Month – Week 1

Small business (and especially independent retailers) often face challenges that seem impossible to overcome, but the strong do just that. They face adversity head-on. They overcome the obstacles. 

But there are times when the challenges seem just too great. Take for example the challenges that result in shrinkage.

Since shrinkage is the function of unknown incidents, it seems impossible to go back in time to determine where inventory losses occurred. The larger retailers are able to invest in full-time loss prevention departments. But when you are working with limited resources, that isn’t an option for the small business owner. They must learn from others.

Bottom Line Matters offers small business owners the benefits of the knowledge enjoyed by large retailers. Call it fractional ownership of an expert, the content is created to give the business owner just the bottom line, just what matters to them.

For the month of October, small to mid-sized retailers can subscribe to the paid-for section of the website at a heavily discounted rate on an annual subscription. Using the coupon code “SLMBIZ” you will gain access to articles, videos, podcasts, audits, and weekly talks for a period of 1 year at 50% off. 

Implementing one good idea can easily offset the expense, and you get one year’s worth!

Take for example the story of one business owner in downtown Calgary who had issues with inventory losses. He was able to determine the items lost were of small value and suspected it was straight theft. However, a few of the items were under lock and key so it didn’t make sense – nobody broke in.

Must be an internal theft!

So he introduced a strict bag check policy, but the losses still took place.

The owner contacted us and we walked through the issue. I asked if he checked the void items from the register, and he had not. He didn’t even think that voided items would cause shrink, it just didn’t make sense.

But after looking into it, that is exactly what took place. He had an employee who randomly voided sales from customers who paid cash and left their receipts. Some of the items were the items under lock and key, it really didn’t matter. The customer left with paid for goods and paid in cash.

But the employee voided the sale and stole the cash that was used to pay.

The cash in the register always balanced at the end of the day.

He fired the employee and put in a system whereby all voids require a key flick to finalize the sale. This gave him the opportunity to check out the void, and ask what happened. and losses went down.

Savings at the end of the day far exceeded the price of a membership for loss prevention best practices. 

Bottom Line Matters does not sell anything other than real solutions and best practices experienced by other businesses.

And for the month of Oct for Small Business Month – at 50% for an annual subscription.

Use SMLBIZ coupon code and start plugging the holes now.

Start your subscription today

Hello, I'm Stephen O'Keefe. The information you read here is intended to help businesses answer some of the tough questions about everyday events in the retail environment. After spending over 3 decades in this industry we've seen a lot!

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