Inventory Control Job Description and Responsibilities
Functions included in an inventory control job description can vary based upon the work environment.
By Kelsey Seidler
What does a typical inventory control job description entail? Whether the specific title is inventory control clerk, specialist, manager, or coordinator, this vital position is usually responsible for ensuring an accurate and adequate quantity of product in a given organization.
In a nutshell, this person manages the inflow and outflow of product through the organization. Inventory control work is often performed in a distribution center environment, but this job can be found in regular retail and corporate office environments as well.
Each inventory control job description may involve different types of essential functions. Required job tasks often depend on the specific work environment and the employee’s level of experience… Read the full article.
Wrestling with Total Loss
By Stuart Strome, Ph.D.
In 2017, Adrian Beck, professor in the criminology department at the University of Leicester, published a piece in Security Journal outlining a new conceptual typology regarding loss. Beck argues that “shrink” is an antiquated term that lacks a clear definition in the retail industry. [Editor’s Note: Beck published a piece on the same topic with LP Magazine in November 2016.]
Beck’s piece suggests that, in lieu of the traditional “buckets” into which losses were traditionally placed—employee/internal theft; customer/external theft; administrative/paperwork error; and vendor/supplier fraud—we should instead focus on what he called “total loss,” or “events and outcomes that negatively impact retail profitability and make no positive, identifiable and intrinsic contribution to generating income.”
Within the store and supply chain, loss is categorized as either “unknown” or “known”, the latter of which is separated into “malicious” or “non-malicious” loss. Malicious loss (which is essentially intentional loss) is the result of weaknesses in systems… Read the full article.
What to Do about OOS in Retail
OOS in retail causes significant problems for the shopper, the retailer, and the manufacturer.
By Colin Peacock
In the mature and highly competitive retail sector, ensuring that the right product is on the right shelf at the right time is critical. Yet the problem of shelf out-of-stocks (OOS) remains as stubborn as ever. Could the loss prevention team be the key to unlocking this new sales opportunity?
This post explores the problem of OOS in retail, investigates the relationship between this problem and loss, share some new ideas for loss prevention teams to consider, and identifies three next steps any team could take to help improve on-shelf availability (OSA). The article draws heavily on two studies on the scale and nature of the out-of-stock problem in Europe: Optimal Shelf Availability: Increasing Shopper Satisfaction at the Moment of Truth by ECR Europe in partnership with Roland Berger; and Retail Stockouts: A Worldwide Examination of Extent, Causes, and Consumer Responses by Thomas W. Gruen, Daniel Corsten, and Sundar Bharadwaj… Read the full article.
EyeOnLP: Predictive Analytics and RILA Student Mentorship Program [VIDEO]
By EyeOnLP Contributors
According to the most recent data, the US retail industry loses nearly $60 billion annually due to shrinkage. As part of an increased focus on monitoring shrinkage loss, the University of Texas Master of Science in Business Analytics (MSBA) program partnered with 7-Eleven to better understand how fraudulent activity relates to inventory loss.
Over the course of four months, students in the UT MSBA program worked closely with asset protection professionals at 7-Eleven to fully understand the organization’s business model and develop hypotheses about how analytics might be used to identify fraudulent activity… Read the full article and watch the video.
The Reinvention of Retail Stock Management
Retail stock management in the 21st century is a nuanced discipline.
By John Wilson
Everyone knows that the first rule of managing inventory shrink is being able to measure it. This means distinguishing between known and unknown loss and between malicious and non-malicious reasons for stock not being where it should be. And in an industry where loss prevention practitioners are increasingly more commercially minded, it means solving the conundrum of stock availability versus non-availability in a world of perpetual inventory.
Add in another distinguishing layer of retail stock management. Between the physical and online space (the so-called bricks versus clicks), the ever-diminishing timelines between placing an order and it arriving at the customer’s specified location (the home, the office, or another retailer for click and collect), and the possibilities of pinpointing stock on its return journey (the so-called reverse logistics model), you have all the ingredients for a parallel universe where nothing is quite what it seems… Read the full article.
