How Do You CROSS?

My current job at Forever 21 places a big emphasis on loss prevention as it's up to us the employees to be the face of the company and our product out on the sales floor. In January 2017, as a way to help our store's shrink percentage, I used my experience as a fitting room attendant and corporate loss prevention policy to come up with a program to train employees in proper fitting room procedures, with specific attention to loss prevention techniques. After a few meetings with my managers and using their guidance, I had all the components I felt were necessary when doing a shift in the fitting room. By using these components and placing them in a simple acronym, CROSS, I was able to layout a program that was easy to apply and specific enough to apply to many common situations.

The program was used intensely from January until March, when we would have inventory and receive our shrink percentage. Retail shrinkage is the amount of product that is lost internally and externally and gauges how we are performing in the store in regards to loss prevention. This year our score when down from -1.67% to -.91%. A 45% decrease in losses! This was all due to proper training from managers and great involvement from the employees. This program is still used today in our shrink improvement program and will hopefully help us improve as we continue into the next year.