How much do your ‘sweethearts’ cost you?

Most of us will be familiar with spending money (sometimes a little too much!) on our loved ones. But from a business perspective, have you ever considered how much ‘sweethearts’ are costing you on a daily basis?

Sweethearting - a term coined to explain the process of staff members giving away free goods to friends and family at till points, is fast becoming a trend that retailers could really do without. Say, for example, one of your employees gives away goods to the value of £10 a week. That’s £520 a year. Now imagine that happens in each of your ten stores - £5,200. Not to mention the chance that if one employee is doing it successfully, it can quickly spread.

Although often seen by employees as a ‘perk of the job’ such theft may leave retailers feeling frustrated and out of pocket. However, having the right EPoS solution in place can help, as PXtech MD Richard Dorf explained to the Independent last week.

Richard said: “The personal nature of these thefts leaves retailers feeling helpless but having the right technology in place can catch the culprits. By linking each till with CCTV the proprietor can pinpoint the specific “sweetheart” down to an individual transaction. This was once a technology reserved exclusively for the big corporate chains. But these days cheap cameras and efficient but affordable software means anyone can be caught.”

And it’s not just the financial repercussions of theft that have to be considered, but the effect on customer service too. Richard added: “Classic scenario - one restaurant outlet had a store that increased daily turnover by £400 a day (about 20%) by removing staff operating a fraud.  Why? Not because they were necessarily stealing £400 a day, but whilst they were busy working the scam they weren’t looking after customers, upselling or cross- selling.”

Richard’s comments on the topic have appeared in the Blog section of the Independent, which you can read in full here.