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Stealing from a NON-PROFIT! (long)
So for the past four years one of the jobs I've held is at a non-profit bookstore. Its purpose is to provide money for student scholarships. We've given away over $250,000 dollars within the past ten years; we've been in operation for forty. We sell textbooks for fine arts courses (and a small number of other non-related courses), as well as general art books, gifts, jewelry, and food (snacky things like sodas, chips, bagels, etc.). I have a number of SC stories, but this is the biggest SC I have known of in my tenure at the shop.
We do a complete physical inventory of everything in the store once a year, and throughout the rest of the year we do physical inventory of each section (the books are divided into sections based on what they are about: photography, Asian art, monographs, etc.) by printing lists of the books that should be there and then locating each book. Occasionally we won't be able to find a book (often they've been mis-shelved by new employees or customers); these are known as "not-founds" and a list of them is kept to compare to the complete yearly physical inventory results in order to determine if a not-found is in the store or has been mistakenly returned or stolen (we check the not-founds on the section sheets against any not-founds on the year-end sheet--if it hasn't been found during the yearly inventory it is not physically in the store).
Two years ago, we noticed an odd phenomenon after concluding our yearly inventory. A number of books were missing from the sale section. After double-checking that they hadn't been mistakenly returned, we concluded that they had been stolen. The odd thing was that they weren't just a random selection of books. All the missing books were over $100 and were classified as "medieval," meaning they were about medieval art and architecture. For anyone unfamiliar with the art-book trade, books over $100 generally fall into one of two categories. Either they are large, fancy books with lots of color plates, or they are small, specialized books of obscure scholarly essays often published overseas. So depending on which type of book it is it wouldn't be hard for someone to smuggle it out of the store.
Last year we noticed the same thing. Multiple "medieval" books that retail for $100 or up were missing, but this time from both the sale section AND the medieval section. The thief was obviously getting braver, as the sale section is the farthest away from the counter/office (where employees are) whereas the medieval section is the second closest to the counter/office. My manager told us to keep an eye on the customers, enforce the no bag rule, etc. but other than that our hands are basically tied due to the layout of the store and the fact that we aren't supposed to accuse anyone of stealing. We have cameras, but they feed to a tiny monitor in the office that isn't taped, meaning unless someone is watching them constantly they don't do much good (as a side note, we're a pretty small operation. Most of the employees are students on workstudy; there are only two full-time salaried staff members and they have to do paperwork, returns, etc. so they can't just sit and watch a monitor all day).
A couple of weeks ago I came into work to find that we had started the cycle of inventorying sections. We work through the store section by section started closest to the register and moving further away. The aisle containing the medieval section had been completed and, surprise!, an expensive book was missing. While we have to wait for yearly inventory to be sure, it's fairly certain that our mystery book thief has resumed his/her operations.
The thing that really gets me about this thief is that we are a NON-PROFIT. ALL profits go to students. This person is literally taking money away from deserving students. I'm not sure if they are reselling the books online (a common practice, we used to have a guy come in and buy huge amounts of sale books to ebay later as an obscure out-of-print book can fetch hundreds of dollars on the resale market) or just creating their own personal collection. Either way, it's a pretty sleazy thing to do in my opinion. After discovering the latest theft my boss posted prominent signs saying "shoplifters will be prosecuted" at the far end of all the aisles, but there's still not much to do other than watch every single customer like a hawk, which realistically isn't going to happen if there is other work to do. I really hope we catch this person before I leave, as I'd really like to give them what for. This is literally the ONLY inventory shrink we have, so obviously most people feel the same way I do.
Shoplifters suck, especially when they're stealing from what is basically a charity.
We do a complete physical inventory of everything in the store once a year, and throughout the rest of the year we do physical inventory of each section (the books are divided into sections based on what they are about: photography, Asian art, monographs, etc.) by printing lists of the books that should be there and then locating each book. Occasionally we won't be able to find a book (often they've been mis-shelved by new employees or customers); these are known as "not-founds" and a list of them is kept to compare to the complete yearly physical inventory results in order to determine if a not-found is in the store or has been mistakenly returned or stolen (we check the not-founds on the section sheets against any not-founds on the year-end sheet--if it hasn't been found during the yearly inventory it is not physically in the store).
Two years ago, we noticed an odd phenomenon after concluding our yearly inventory. A number of books were missing from the sale section. After double-checking that they hadn't been mistakenly returned, we concluded that they had been stolen. The odd thing was that they weren't just a random selection of books. All the missing books were over $100 and were classified as "medieval," meaning they were about medieval art and architecture. For anyone unfamiliar with the art-book trade, books over $100 generally fall into one of two categories. Either they are large, fancy books with lots of color plates, or they are small, specialized books of obscure scholarly essays often published overseas. So depending on which type of book it is it wouldn't be hard for someone to smuggle it out of the store.
Last year we noticed the same thing. Multiple "medieval" books that retail for $100 or up were missing, but this time from both the sale section AND the medieval section. The thief was obviously getting braver, as the sale section is the farthest away from the counter/office (where employees are) whereas the medieval section is the second closest to the counter/office. My manager told us to keep an eye on the customers, enforce the no bag rule, etc. but other than that our hands are basically tied due to the layout of the store and the fact that we aren't supposed to accuse anyone of stealing. We have cameras, but they feed to a tiny monitor in the office that isn't taped, meaning unless someone is watching them constantly they don't do much good (as a side note, we're a pretty small operation. Most of the employees are students on workstudy; there are only two full-time salaried staff members and they have to do paperwork, returns, etc. so they can't just sit and watch a monitor all day).
A couple of weeks ago I came into work to find that we had started the cycle of inventorying sections. We work through the store section by section started closest to the register and moving further away. The aisle containing the medieval section had been completed and, surprise!, an expensive book was missing. While we have to wait for yearly inventory to be sure, it's fairly certain that our mystery book thief has resumed his/her operations.
The thing that really gets me about this thief is that we are a NON-PROFIT. ALL profits go to students. This person is literally taking money away from deserving students. I'm not sure if they are reselling the books online (a common practice, we used to have a guy come in and buy huge amounts of sale books to ebay later as an obscure out-of-print book can fetch hundreds of dollars on the resale market) or just creating their own personal collection. Either way, it's a pretty sleazy thing to do in my opinion. After discovering the latest theft my boss posted prominent signs saying "shoplifters will be prosecuted" at the far end of all the aisles, but there's still not much to do other than watch every single customer like a hawk, which realistically isn't going to happen if there is other work to do. I really hope we catch this person before I leave, as I'd really like to give them what for. This is literally the ONLY inventory shrink we have, so obviously most people feel the same way I do.
Shoplifters suck, especially when they're stealing from what is basically a charity.
I hope you guys catch the theif and give him what-for.
Stealing from a charity is the lowest of the low. Reminds me of the story of the hag who paid for Girl Scout cookies with a counterfeit $100, and was gone with the change and cookies before they discovered it was fake. Or the snob who, coming across a gift-wrapping for charity table, had them wrap 36 individual gifts, then announce that she couldn't afford to give them $1 per giftwrap and flounced away.
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