Part Of The Territory Of Being A Retailer, Dealing With The Nasty Reality Of Theft

BEING A RETAILER SUCKS WHEN SHOPLIFTERS SIPHON-OFF THE PROFIT

LIKE W.C. FIELDS - I'M THE NEW STORE "DICK"

     I think the title of the movie was "The Bank Dick," (meaning detective), and W.C. Fields had the starring role. Today, I've been appointed acting, "Antique Shop Dick," and now my contemporaries and a few sundry adversaries, are having a good laugh at my expense. The "dick" part more so than the store-detective aspect. While we have operated our family business here for the past eleven years, plus, the shoplifting reality is starting to necessitate tighter security. We hate it, and all that it represents, because it means we have finally been out-mustered by the criminal element, in disguise of antique-shopping customers. When you realize your shop has been the hunting ground of a shoplifter, I've got to tell you, (if you don't know from being a retailer yourself), it's even more disheartening than a long, long off-season slowdown. It's the realization, that the whole retail community is suffering the same kind of abuses, and losses, that makes doing business a lot more expensive, and achieving a profit, that much more evasive. I would venture to say, that a very small proportion of shoplifting occurrences are ever registered with police, because it was perpetrated without any witnesses, on video or in person. Most small businesses can't afford the kind of video installations that would be needed to cover the entire retail floor space of their respective shops. Yet, it's probably the expense we will be forced to assume as the cost of doing business in 2015. The other solution, is to just shut up shop, and give shoplifters one less business to target.
     In our former shop in Bracebridge, I caught a group of three teenagers and one adult, stealing our vintage hockey and baseball cards. I estimated that the teenagers themselves, had stolen three hundred dollars worth, and the adult, one hundred and fifty dollars in baseball cards. I considered turning them into police, but gave them the opportunity to make a big purchase. If they would pay for what had been stolen from the shop, I would be able to see my way, to avoid filing a shoplifting report with police. It worked brilliantly, and within several days, I had been paid in full. My additional request, was that none of the foursome, would ever return to our shop. They held up their end of the agreement, and so did I. They hated the fact I had caught them, but I was told by their mates, they respected the way I kept the police out of the mix. They got a lesson, on the cheap, missed getting a police report named in their honor, and I got some money during a slow business week. It was faulty logic on my part, because they did get away with a crime. We needed the money, more than a day in court, spent trying to tie-up convictions. I suppose we saved the taxpayer some coin at the same time.
     One of my favorite shoplifting stories, no kidding, was when I was ripped-off as the store-keeper one particular early-winter afternoon, and was targeted by three teenagers shortly after Suzanne had left me in charge. At the time, she was teaching at Bracebridge high school, and had just left the store after her lunch break. I was a rookie store clerk. One of two males began talking to me, interested in some of the collectables I had been pricing on the sale's counter. He seemed like a nice fellow, and was very polite during our conversation, even pardoning himself, when another customer needed to sneak past where he was standing. The other two were just browsing, and when they left, each one said goodbye to me individually, leading me to believe they weren't of the ilk of shoplifters.
     Shortly after they left the store, I came out from behind the counter to straighten-up some quilts, that had been put back on their stand improperly. It was then, I noticed an empty spot, where one of Suzanne's homemade baby quilts had been hanging. My heart jumped into my mouth, and I ran up the stairs, and outside to see if I could see the threesome, who had obviously taken the item. I went up the street and looked in all the garbage cans along the two blocks I travelled, north and south on upper Manitoba Street. Sometimes thieves just swipe stuff for the thrill of it, then dump it outside the store. I thought as well, that if they saw me coming behind them, they would ditch the stolen merchandise, and run off in different directions. I just wanted Suzanne's quilt back. I greatly feared having to report the theft to her, when she came back after school was over. She had been reminding me, you see, of the importance of vigilance in regard to shoplifting, and I knew I was going to catch crap for losing the thirty dollar quilt. It happened right under my nose. I had been capably distracted, by someone I thought was being sincere and curious, just like all our other customers.
     Suzanne was upset but more so, because of the nasty connotation of theft in general. At the time, in the early 1990's, we were just barely surviving in business, and Suzanne was stocking the shop with a large collection of her own craftwork, in order to make the shop look somewhat full. It hurt our bottom line, because we still had to cover the cost of her materials. We just felt deflated as you might expect of such a situation.
     One winter day, with a cold wind blowing down the Manitoba Street corridor, Suzanne was just leaving the shop, after lunch, and for a few moments, we stood in the doorway, watching the snow spirals coming down off the roof-tops across the road. She couldn't help notice the young mother, pulling a small sleigh in the direction of Memorial Park; and it was her opinion that the teenager was not dressed appropriately for the prevailing weather conditions. She looked at the sleigh, and admitted that, "at least the baby is well covered." She couldn't help but notice that the quilt the baby was wrapped in, looked a lot like the one that had gone missing two weeks earlier. She took off after the girl and her baby, and walked right behind her for two blocks in the heavy, and blowing snow. I didn't hear back from her, until she returned to the store, after classes, and told me the quilt had definitely been ours. She knew the girl and her circumstances, and even recognized one of her friends, that she met up with further down the street. She got close enough to identify the quilt as one she had crafted in her home studio. It made her furious, that the young mother had risked a shoplifting charge, when all she would have had to do, was ask for assistance. Suzanne, as a Family Studies teacher, often helped out her students in this regard, including sewing up their ripped coats, pants and sweaters, and seeing as she knew the young woman, from her class, would have made an arrangement to give her something to ensure the baby was kept warm. And you would likely do the same if you were approached with such an appeal, for some minor but very much needed assistance.
     She didn't confront the girl, and assessed immediately, the child needed the quilt to keep warm, and well, she could always make another quilt for the shop with minimal expense. Suzanne is a hobby sewer and crafter, and she felt good, despite the reality of theft on its own merit, that something positive had resulted, despite the reality a crime had been committed. It would have been a crime to her, and to us as business people, if she had stopped the girl, and insisted the quilt be given back. Well it never would have happened even if the weather had been milder. The child was the innocent victim of a societal woe that affects all of us in so many spin-off ways.
 
     In the historically strange, to the pinnacle of amazing chronicle, of the antique profession, the great authors of the world have found lots to write about in terms of embedded frauds and rogues. I have found very few of these scoundrels in my forty years as an antique dealer, because those who were of this ill-fame, were only professionals in their own opinion, and it didn't matter what they had printed on their business cards. They weren't accepted in my group of associates, that's for sure, because of buying and selling habits we couldn't endorse. As antique dealers often work close together, it's a precarious business for sure, to get involved with someone who is unscrupulous in dealings with the antique community and the public in general. I have side-stepped quite a few of these folks, when they wanted me to join them for major acquisitions, especially when they would let us (me) know there would be false pretenses involved. In other words, there was a plan to rip someone off, for our mutual advantage. Unfortunately, and it would be impossible to deny this, the antique profession has attracted many fraud artists over the centuries, who have participated in horrendous scams and fraudulent activities, that have bilked owners and buyers alike; and never really felt too bad about pocketing the proceeds of their crimes.
     Maybe it's a justice-rendered-gradually sort of thing, as a retribution for all the rogues and scam-artists the industry has harbored at one time or another, that literature has characterized for public consumption over the centuries; but antique dealers today, even if they represent the salt of the earth, and would never think of pocketing an ill-gotten nickel, are having a problem with a growing criminal insurgence. It's not coming from within the profession, as such, but most certainly, coming from beyond. We do get a lot of folks trying to sell us materials, who can't tell us where the items came from, and in these cases, we dispatch them abruptly. We jot down what the items were, that they brought in for us to see, and if they trouble us with their demeanour, we will also make note of their appearance and a car license number, if they have a vehicle. Having been the victim, several times, of major thefts of guitars, we know the precautions we have to take, to help folks get back their own stolen property. We have had a ninety-five percent success rate, getting back these vintage instruments, but losing even five percent cost us many thousands of dollars. So when anyone now tries to sell us valuable instruments, over the counter, we never make any purchases without identification and proof the seller is also the owner. We've had some dandy cases. One that involved an adult son trying to sell his father's vintage instrument collection. Fortunately, for us, we would only agree to sell them on consignment, eventually; but truthfully, we had just planned to hold them in storage for research purposes, to check first with the police, to see if any of the items had possibly been reported stolen. Within several days, we were contacted by family first, and it was determined that every piece of the dozens we had in storage, had been taken by the rogue son, without permission. Happily we were able to get them back to the owner.
     In another case, we arrived to work one morning, to find we had been broken-into, having a major number of instruments and amps removed from the building, adding-up to just under five thousands dollars in losses. We got the word out to all the regional second hand, hock and pawn shops in central Ontario, and it didn't take long to find the perpetrator, who brazenly walked into a shop, and was caught on video trying to pawn it! We got most back, and what we didn't, the court ordered the thief to make appropriate restitution. It made us more upset to know it was someone who had been a regular customer in the early days of the shop here in Gravenhurst.
     A second major heist, happened when a young man came in with a guitar in a case, and pulled a swap, when he found a guitar he liked better. That's right. He gave us the "beater" guitar, and stole a Fender Telecaster, worth approximately $600. The guitar he left us was worth ten bucks, as nothing more than a wall hanging. He was with a female accomplice, and despite an almost immediate recognition the guitar had been stolen, the twosome were able to scramble down the street, probably ducking into shops, and then finally exiting, we think, via the train tracks, heading south. It was a busy summer day, and despite having four civilian searchers and several officers of the Ontario Provincial Police, the twosome managed to get away with their criminal act. It was a big loss to swallow, and it was one of the early doubts we had, about having a retail outlet in the first place. A year before, a couple drunk arses, coming from a local bar, smashed out our front window, but fortunately, nothing had been stolen.
     Son Robert once caught a record thief, having stuffed four albums up under his shirt, giving him a rather obvious "square chested" appearance. He had found the records he wanted, turned his back to Robert, and shoved them underneath his shirt. Although he denied it, and noted that his chest always looked as such, the shoplifter eventually complied with him, and handed the records back. On another occasions, a fellow showed up at the counter to buy two records, and asks that they be placed in a bag. After purchasing these items, he appears to be heading out the front door, but suddenly makes a turn back to the record room, and grabs up another record he had left on top of a pile, placing it with the other records in the bag. He then left the store. He has never returned to the shop, thank goodness. Another young man tucked-up a number of T-Shirts in the same fashion, and when confronted, denied there was anything being concealed. The fact he looked as if he was five months pregnant, seemed irrelevant. He eventually surrendered what was stuffed-up in his sweater, and was simply told to never, ever come back to the shop again. This year, we had a donation box for the Humane Society stolen, but fortunately we caught the offender and the money was eventually returned, to the OSPCA for use at the Bracebridge shelter.
     Earlier this spring, a female customer took a leather jacket from our back room, and it was our own lack of due diligence that allowed her to get away with the theft. She was allowed to take a large shopping bag to the back room, and she found it had ample room to accommodate the leather jacket. We know who took it, but of course, it's impossible to prove without support evidence. She was the only person in the back room that morning, and the leather jacket had been in place when we opened at ten. We were truly disappointed, because it was a customer we had been dealing with since our first year; and had engaged in friendly conversation many times in the past.
     This afternoon, Suzanne, when walking by a selection of her vintage sewing machines, spotted one of her Singer machines was missing what she calls a throat plate. After a half hour's search of the floor space, in an around the unit, we both recognized that someone had taken it for their own machine, obviously missing that component. Or otherwise, simply as an act of vandalism. She remembers on Saturday, a customer telling someone in her group, how she had the very same machine at home, one she had inherited from her mother. You hate like hell thinking this, but could it be that the machine was missing the same plate, and with opportunity prevailing, she took ours to make her's complete. I apologize for getting speculative in this fashion, but you know, it really makes you mad when this kind of criminal act occurs in what we think is a friendly environs. Take the whole machine for gosh sakes. The penalty for getting caught is the same. Now, on the positive side, the chrome plates can be acquired for about fifteen bucks online, and with shipping, we can have it mailed to our place of business for another fifteen. The machine is currently on sale for $65.00. Now that really slims down the profit margin if it sells. It is the market value so we can't increase the price. Fortunately, we can write this off, as part of business costs, but none the less, it's just so damn insulting, that people feel safe enough in this business community, to steal from folks trying to survive in a rather tough economy.
     Suzanne would have gladly sought-out this sewing machine part, for this customer, at a very minor cost, if she had only been asked. She's done the same thing for many of our customers in the past. It's customer service the way we have both known it, in traditional retail sales. Muskoka style. When I left the building a few moments ago, I could hear the stretch of tape, that Suzanne was using to fasten-down all the throat plates of her many vintage sewing machines; to in a small way, make it a little more difficult to slide out from the base of the units. What a waste of time and effort. Necessary however, in the grand scheme, because we have a lot of sewing machines to protect.
     Suzanne and I, and of course our sons, in the vintage music business, enjoy our respective retail enterprises, and would very much hate the idea of surrendering to those who wish to cherry-pick inventory, at our loss. If I have to be the Store Dick, and make a nuisance of myself, being as intrusive in person as I can be in print, then this will be our new reality. It breaks our collective heart, each time we have to deal with one of these missing-in-action incidents. And believe me, it's not just about the money.
     If you have any sewing machine parts laying about, or old Singers that are getting in the way, let us know. We may need some replacement components in the future.
     The incidents of shoplifting are few. I don't know about other businesses in town, but it's certainly not like we're hit once a day, once a week or even once a month. When it does happen however, sometimes in clusters, it just seems so personally insulting, and disrespectful. You temporarily lose perspective that's for sure, and take the loss much more to heart than would be proportional to the amount lost. But we want our customers to know, the bad seeds are a tiny, tiny, tiny percentage of the thousands of nice folks, who come through our store every year. They are the reason we weather the adverse occasions, as they very much represent to us, the goodwill we need to keep our spirits up.
    I know that losing a small piece off a vintage sewing machine, doesn't seem like a big deal. A minor expense to purchase a replacement part. I promised Suzanne, you see, after 25 years of not having a place for a proper sewing room, at home, in which to work, I would help her fashion the retirement business she had planned since the year we were married. She now has a hundred sewing machines spanning the centuries, including those she has in the shop proper (and behind her sales desk where she sews every day; and can use any number of machines to best suit the project she is working on at the time). The sewing machines are kind of special in this way, and this latest act of vandalism was just plain mean to a dedicated sewer who just happens to have an antique business.
     But, we must move on, and prove that the shoplifter, in this case, has won the battle but lost the war!