Perfume Sampling Stinks When It Causes Shortage; Protect Fragrance Bottles From Fraud And Theft With Alpha Keepers

Protect Fragrance-4                                                                                                               WC blog 298
Alpha Keepers-4
Prevent Shoplifting-4
Perfume Sampling Stinks When It Causes Shortage; Protect Fragrance Bottles From Fraud And Theft With Alpha Keepers
     Do you know what stinks? Fragrances, perfumes and body sprays, when they are all mixed together around a perfume counter or a fragrance aisle of a store. Whatever you want to call it, there are few odors worse than this to give someone (me) a headache or nauseated feeling. Sometimes it can be so overwhelming I can almost taste it! If you have ever seen the movie “Elf”, there is a scene where a sales clerk wants the main character Buddy to smell a sample of a perfume. He doesn’t realize what it is and he sprays it in his mouth and makes a horrible face and screams…that’s kinda like me walking through a perfume cloud in a store. Aside from the odors though, there is another problem that retailers cope with in a perfume department. The tester bottles run out and so the customers take the initiative to open a new bottle to bathe in. Where is the problem in this? Well, aside from the nasal nightmare that results from these perfume parties, retailers experience shortage. Opening a new bottle and spraying the contents means that a buyer won’t purchase it (who wants to buy a used bottle of perfume?). That bottle has to be marked out of stock and could result in lost profit. There is an easy fix to the problem, using Alpha Keepers to protect fragrance in your shop.
     If you have ever paid particular attention, perfume bottles tend to come in a large assortment of designs and shapes, all geared to draw consumer attention. You don’t want to do anything that will hinder the attraction of the customer to the bottle design and that is one of the benefits of using Alpha Keepers. They are clear, hard plastic containers that prevent shoplifting but still allow a customer to see the bottle and be drawn to it. The keeper boxes lock so there is no concern over someone taking the merchandise out and sampling the product. The boxes also prevent shoplifting because they are secure and have radio frequency coils built into them. If a shoplifter takes a Keeper that is protecting a fragrance bottle into the area of electronic article surveillance (EAS) antennas, the antennas alert nearby employees to the attempted theft. LED lights flash and a loud alert signal sounds providing staff an opportunity to conduct a receipt check to retrieve the merchandise. Frequently the alarm startles a thief and results in them dropping merchandise and running rather than risking being caught with stolen goods.
          There were many times I would do theft audits and come across partial bottles of perfume (and empty packages too). I pulled the partial bottles and had them marked out of stock and labeled them with a “tester” label and put them back on display. The hope was to minimize additional markdowns due to customers opening more bottles of the same product to sniff. Each time a bottle had to be marked out, the store was impacted by shortage. The only other options to protect fragrance at the time was placing EAS labels on the packages, locking them up in a display case or if the product was in a clamshell package we put them on locking peg hooks. Lock up cases and locking peg hooks required someone with a key to be available to open or unlock the case or hook when a customer wanted to look at an item. This was a poor option because customers had to wait for assistance. If it took too long for an associate to get to the patron, they would leave and a potential sale was lost. Using Alpha Keepers to protect fragrance is a solution I wish I had available to me. I could have used it to prevent shoplifting AND to stop the sampling of merchandise. They are also a sales driver, giving customers the ability to pick up an item, carry it around the store and take it to checkout at their convenience.
     Use vendor supplied testers to give customers a sniff of the perfume they are interested in. Use Alpha Keepers to protect fragrance profit and prevent shoplifting at the same time. Get a whiff of more green in your cash registers!
Get more information on Alpha Keepers, contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 today.

Do you know what stinks? Fragrances, perfumes and body sprays, when they are all mixed together around a perfume counter or a fragrance aisle of a store. Whatever you want to call it, there are few odors worse than this to give someone (me) a headache or nauseated feeling. Sometimes it can be so overwhelming I can almost taste it! If you have ever seen the movie “Elf”, there is a scene where a sales clerk wants the main character Buddy to smell a sample of a perfume. He doesn’t realize what it is and he sprays it in his mouth and makes a horrible face and screams…that’s kinda like me walking through a perfume cloud in a store. Aside from the odors though, there is another problem that retailers cope with in a perfume department. The tester bottles run out and so the customers take the initiative to open a new bottle to bathe in. Where is the problem in this? Well, aside from the nasal nightmare that results from these perfume parties, retailers experience shortage. Opening a new bottle and spraying the contents means that a buyer won’t purchase it (who wants to buy a used bottle of perfume?). That bottle has to be marked out of stock and could result in lost profit. There is an easy fix to the problem, using Alpha Keepers to protect fragrance in your shop.
     

If you have ever paid particular attention, perfume bottles tend to come in a large assortment of designs and shapes, all geared to draw consumer attention. You don’t want to do anything that will hinder the attraction of the customer to the bottle design and that is one of the benefits of using Alpha Keepers. They are clear, hard plastic containers that prevent shoplifting but still allow a customer to see the bottle and be drawn to it. The keeper boxes lock so there is no concern over someone taking the merchandise out and sampling the product. The boxes also prevent shoplifting because they are secure and have radio frequency coils built into them. If a shoplifter takes a Keeper that is protecting a fragrance bottle into the area of electronic article surveillance (EAS) antennas, the antennas alert nearby employees to the attempted theft. LED lights flash and a loud alert signal sounds providing staff an opportunity to conduct a receipt check to retrieve the merchandise. Frequently the alarm startles a thief and results in them dropping merchandise and running rather than risking being caught with stolen goods.
         

There were many times I would do theft audits and come across partial bottles of perfume (and empty packages too). I pulled the partial bottles and had them marked out of stock and labeled them with a “tester” label and put them back on display. The hope was to minimize additional markdowns due to customers opening more bottles of the same product to sniff. Each time a bottle had to be marked out, the store was impacted by shortage. The only other options to protect fragrance at the time was placing EAS labels on the packages, locking them up in a display case or if the product was in a clamshell package we put them on locking peg hooks. Lock up cases and locking peg hooks required someone with a key to be available to open or unlock the case or hook when a customer wanted to look at an item. This was a poor option because customers had to wait for assistance. If it took too long for an associate to get to the patron, they would leave and a potential sale was lost. Using Alpha Keepers to protect fragrance is a solution I wish I had available to me. I could have used it to prevent shoplifting AND to stop the sampling of merchandise. They are also a sales driver, giving customers the ability to pick up an item, carry it around the store and take it to checkout at their convenience.
     

Use vendor supplied testers to give customers a sniff of the perfume they are interested in. Use Alpha Keepers to protect fragrance profit and prevent shoplifting at the same time. Get a whiff of more green in your cash registers!

 

Get more information on Alpha Keepers, contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 today.