Front End Best Practices

As a refresher of some basic Front End best practices here are a few items that you could address immediately with very little additional effort or expense in your store.

Store Owned and Operated ATM’S
Store owned ATM’s offer a great opportunity to bring extra revenue into your business. However, they also represent a theft opportunity if not properly checked. Cash placed into the ATM should be logged and removed from cash on hand and placed into an AR ATM account. The balance of this AR ATM account should be monitored for any excessive growth. The person checking the ATM cash should vary and should be audited periodically by the owner or other key personnel in larger organizations. Failure to monitor cash levels going into the ATM may result in gradual theft over a period of time which can add up to a significant value.

Self-Check Out Registers
Self check out registers offer a great way to serve your customers while reducing labor costs. However, they should be treated the same as store owned ATMs above.

Cash on Hand Registers
You should monitor and maintain your store’s ending cash on hand levels. This can be accomplished through a simple sheet with maximum cash needs in one row by store, a row with actual ending cash on hand and a variance row. If you find excessive cash on hand on certain days of the week, you should adjust your deposit schedule or armored car pickups. By preventing excessive cash on hand at the store you will reduce the risk of robbery, and if one occurs you will reduce your loss. You may ask how reducing cash on hand reduces your chance of robbery. The answer, it reduces word of mouth. It is not uncommon for front office personnel to talk to people on unusual days and state “wow, we had over $100,000 in cash last night.” This statement while innocent may reach the ears of the wrong individual.
Safe Security
This area is very simple but rarely followed-lock you’re safe! Many stores leave the safe unlocked during the day. It sounds simple but laziness sometimes prevails.

Cash in Till Levels
Perform frequent pick-ups on registers during the day to prevent cash buildups in register tills. Many front-end systems will track cash levels and signal necessary pickups.

Unused register Lanes
Any closed registers should have their lanes blocked. This prevents two occurrences, one being extra exits for shoplifters to work their way to the front door. The second issue relates to cash in the till. It is not uncommon for thieves to work their way behind a cashier in an unused lane. The person then reaches in the open till in a split second when tender is exchanging hands between the cashier and the actual customer. By reducing the “grab” you will reduce liability.

Monitor Void Logs and Training Mode Logs
Take time to review logs provided by your front-end system. By reviewing these logs you can prevent the opportunity to get product out of the store or maybe even cash. It is very simple to put a register in training mode and ring customers up and in the end collect the cash. Sometimes personnel may put a sign up on the register, Debit/Credit broken, cash and checks only. By reviewing logs of training ring ups and tender types collected, you can find patterns that may be followed up with camera systems to identify potential problems.

In addition to reviewing the logs themselves review the security of your front-end system. Typically access to “training mode” should be limited to management and not available to all cashiers. This should also be a time to review the availability of the manager key/card and who has access to them. This policy has a tendency to get relaxed over time; access to this card should be reviewed regularly.

Social Media

Digital advancements continue to drive a new approach to shopping, with social media and mobile phones are emerging as key influencers this holiday season, according to Deloitte's 24th Annual Holiday Survey of retail spending and trends.
Social media is growing with almost 20 percent of the consumers planning to use it during their holiday shopping. Consumers in all age groups plan to embrace social media over the holidays. While 52 percent of those who expect to use social media during the shopping process are in the 18-29 year-old age group, 33 percent are in the 30-44 year-old age group and 10 percent are in the 45-60 years-old age group.

The mobile phone is another emerging digital tool for the holidays that is expected to be used by nearly 20 percent of the consumers. Those consumers plan to find store locations, research prices, find product information, get discounts and coupons and read reviews.

Consumers have become much more cautious about their purchasing decisions, and these behaviors could have a lasting effect. As retailers shift gears for a recovery during the holiday season and beyond, they should consider seizing the opportunity to reinvigorate their brand and relevancy to consumers who have embraced a new consumption mindset. That may include new marketing, pricing and promotion strategies that focus on re-engaging the consumer and differentiating a retailer's merchandise and services.

PCI: Past, Present and Future

We are at the end of another year and more stories in the news about data breaches make you think about PCI past, present and future.
PCI past was all about how big companies were hit by hackers or others that stole large amounts of credit card data. “It couldn't happen to us because we are such a small company no one would bother” was the way smaller retailers felt about PCI.
PCI present tells you that is exactly what is happening. There are breaches of small businesses happening every day and these businesses are spending large amounts of hard earned cash to diagnose incidents, cover fines for being non-compliant and the actual losses of the card holders. In a Wall Street Journal article in 2005 over 80% of the data breaches have been small businesses.

PCI future: hopefully all retailers, big and small, are currently PCI compliant. The PCI rules change periodically so it may be wise to review your status with any new rules that become effective. If you are not PCI compliant today or if you are not sure about your software's PCI status please visit: https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/security_standards/vpa/

Gourmet Foods Sales

The current economic times may have hit gourmet food lovers in the pocketbook, but they haven't let it hit their taste buds. Although money may be tight, cravings are very hard to resist.

Gourmet food lovers continue to consume luxury and specialty items. Some things, such as high-end chocolate, seem to be recession-proof. According to a study by the National Association for the Specialty Food Trade and Mintel International more than 50 percent of specialty foods are bought at supermarkets.

Consumers in the western United States are 13 percent more likely to purchase specialty foods than the rest of the country, according to the National Association for the Specialty Food Trade study. And sales of gourmet and specialty foods have been growing faster than the overall industry for the past five years; according to consumer research firm Packaged Facts. Also a recent Harris Poll found that 51 percent of respondents are eating dinner at home more, but 76 percent won't compromise on food quality no matter the price.

Maintenance for your POS

STCR offers a variety of software and hardware maintenance to help protect your investment. With a yearly maintenance agreement, the STCR help desk is available to assist you in resolving system problems 24 hours a day 365 days a year. You can also purchase maintenance for the software programs we sell. Software maintenance allows us to engage the vendors that develop the applications for extended support. This maintenance also entitles you to new versions of the software when they are released.

A yearly hardware maintenance agreement will keep your equipment such as registers, controllers, back-office computers and various peripherals such as printers, monitors, scanners and pin pads up and running. Some of the plans, such as IBM hardware maintenance, include on-site service whereas others are depot maintenance. Depot maintenance involves sending the failing device out for either repair or a replacement that will be shipped back to you.

Carrying these maintenance plans will minimize the downtime you experience when something malfunctions. Increased downtime can lead to lost income when failing elements cause your store to run inefficiently. Allowing these maintenance plans to lapse can also have a negative effect on your bottom line. Not only may there be a waiting period to reinstate your maintenance it can also be very expensive. For example lapsed IBM software maintenance will cost almost three times as much to reinstate as it would for one year of maintenance. With the holiday season upon us it makes good business sense to carry and keep current the maintenance on your POS system.

New WIC CVV

New revisions have been made to the WIC program as per the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food & Nutrition Service. The new revisions now include a program called WIC CVV. WIC CVV stands for WIC Cash Value Vouchers. This program allows participants to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables, frozen fruits and vegetables and some canned goods for their children as well as for themselves. These new items typically were not available before with the normal WIC program. All stores which currently accept WIC must be able to accept the new WIC CVV as well. Unlike a normal WIC transaction, if there is a balance remaining after the voucher(s) has been used, the customer may pay by another tender. If there is an excess balance left on the WIC CVV voucher it will not be given back to the customer.

If your location would like assistance in setting up the new WIC CVV for tendering and reporting purposes, please contact Linda Warke @ (607) 757-0181 for further information.

Price Optimization

Price Optimization seems to be the new buzz word in retail. Price Optimization software helps companies determine the optimal price for a product based on many factors such as gross margin %, competition, private label to national brand gap, demand (price elasticity) and brand linking. Additionally, the software utilizes historical data and predictive algorithms to produce price recommendations. What price should I sell this item for to create the highest gross profit for my company?

Price Optimization programs are driven by proprietary forecasting engines. These engines are based on sophisticated mathematical algorithms originally developed for scientific research and military planning. Airlines began using these solutions in the 1980s to instantly price fares based on variables like booking lead time, flight date and connections, time of day, service class and customer preference. The programs required enormous processing power only available in super computers and primarily used by large companies like airlines that could justify the investment.

With the advances of hardware and the arrival of faster and cheaper servers, companies have been developing software engines to run on these servers while creating an affordable solution for smaller businesses. The results can be churned out in a reasonable amount of time, allowing a merchant to make more informed decisions on their day to day price strategies.

As the programs make their way into the independent grocery industry, grocers are finding that they can increase their bottom line by 1-2% through the use of these tools. By looking at the detailed information the software provides, they’re able to see potential problems with price strategies that had once been hidden in rolled-up data.

Where is the future of this technology? Only time will tell, however with the competitive nature of the landscape, this could be the next tool that will help the independent level the playing field with the competition.