Lowes Foods Reduces Total Retail Loss with Zebra Prescriptive Analytics

Fraud and Non-compliance: Voiding the Voids
Lowes Foods has already seen many notable successes and wins with the help of the Workcloud Actionable Intelligence Sales Module. The module unlocks granular-level analysis of individual functions like voids, which can be due to a mistaken charge or used to hide theft. Lowes Foods began monitoring all voids, particularly at self-checkout where the attendants were required to keep a log of all voids they performed. Incidents of both fraud and non-compliance were uncovered via this Workcloud Actionable Intelligence-powered scrutiny, and appropriate action was taken.

Ultimately, Lowes Foods was able to reduce voids by 76% over the  course of a year. In the words of Lowes Foods’ Director of Store Operations, “that’s 76% less opportunities that I have a customer standing in line, waiting on someone to fix a void.” This examination and review of voids is ongoing.

Fraud: The Kool-Aid Bandit
Workcloud Actionable Intelligence also helped Lowes Foods detect fraudulent transactions at self-checkout (SCO) stations. Upon deployment, it alerted AP to several smaller size transactions, all with the same debit card, at the same store and for the same item–a single packet of Kool-Aid mix. CCTV footage showed a customer approach the SCO with a full cart, scan the Kool-Aid, and then simply bag other items and leave the store after paying pennies. The 

“Kool-Aid Bandit,” as he was dubbed, was apprehended the next time he entered his local store and was forced to pay restitution of more than $1,000. The Workcloud Actionable Intelligence solution provided Lowes Foods with tools that it can now use to detect and eliminate self-checkout fraud across the entire organisation.

Non-compliance: Avocados From Nowhere
Lowes Foods configured the Workcloud Actionable Intelligence Sales Module to watch for non-compliance as well. In one memorable incident, a cashier accidentally entered the PLU code for avocados (4046) as the customer’s quantity of purchase–or 4,046 avocados worth more than $8,000. The cashier caught his mistake–but he made an even more serious one trying to correct it. Instead of voiding the avocados, he refunded them as a grocery return. This had two major consequences:

1. The store’s grocery department was billed more than $8,000 for the refund.
2. The store’s produce department saw 4,046 avocados removed from its inventory sheet. The replenishment system saw this as a shortage and placed an order for another full stock of avocados, which created additional costs.

The Workcloud Actionable Intelligence Sales Module sent a full description of the mistake to Lowes Foods AP, which intervened to reverse the false refund and cancel the avocado replenishment. Identifying this incident also made AP question why its POS system would even allow such a large purchase when none of its stores carried anywhere near this amount of avocados. Ultimately, Lowes did not suffer any financial losses from the incident due to the Workcloud Actionable Intelligence solution in place, and permanent action was taken to mitigate future risk from questionable POS functions like large rings.

Fraud: High Steaks
To mitigate the loss of meat products, the Workcloud Actionable Intelligence Customer Success team helped Lowes Foods AP set up an algorithm that flags meat purchases at self-checkout that are priced suspiciously low. The algorithm analysed purchases and soon alerted AP to an employee with a large number of these low-value meat purchases. An investigation and interview led to the employee confessing to stealing hundreds of dollars’ worth of steaks. He would attach miniscule price tags to the meat and pay for it at self-checkout, allowing him to purchase expensive cuts for a fraction of their original costs. He was terminated and forced to pay restitution. Lowes Foods AP now has another, similar algorithm deployed to identify those stealing expensive items using price tags from bakery items. Altogether, these patterns continue to mitigate significant risk.

Non-compliance: It’s Five o’Clock Somewhere
Like many retailers, Lowes Foods is not permitted to sell alcohol before a certain time of the day. The problem was that some online orders must be fulfilled before this time, and some contain alcohol. Should a full-service in-store shopper scan alcohol before 7 a.m., the register invalidates the scan. It is then on the shopper to track the purchase and add the alcohol back to the order later in the day.

Unfortunately, many shoppers were not catching these error messages and continued to scan the rest of their customers’ orders, resulting in alcohol leaving the store for free. Many of these incidents accumulated to a loss of thousands of dollars for Lowes Foods.

After being made aware of this occurrence, Lowes Foods AP worked with the Workcloud Actionable Intelligence Customer Success team to create an algorithm that flags transactions whenever alcohol is scanned before allowed hours. This alert empowers AP to quickly and easily verify whether proper protocol was followed and intervene  as necessary. 

Forward Focusing
Lowes Foods has seen a significant drop in fraud and non-compliance incidents since deploying the Workcloud Actionable Intelligence solution due to increased accountability and awareness. The company continues to leverage the Workcloud Actionable Intelligence Sales Module to reduce risk and identify new ways to improve the customer experience into the future.