Challenge: Pawn shops are too often prey to customer fraud. A customer presents a false identification, thus misrepresenting themselves to the pawnbroker. That customer is trying to conceal his actual identity in order to pawn a stolen item or to retrieve someone else’s property. They could be using the false ID to support a stolen credit card and purchase something under another person’s identity and credit. The end result is the same; the pawnbroker is left holding the bag. Yet another challenge pawnbrokers too often encounter is store theft. Sometimes it’s one person, and other times, a team. One person causes a distraction while another has the opportunity to walk out with stolen merchandise or remove an item from the shelf and attempt to pawn it back to the store. Often a pawnbroker suspects a customer but, either does not have a surveillance system nor the means to verify his or her suspicions quickly or completely through the software in an automated fashion. Product Fraud usually involves supposedly high value items like watches that are fakes or the mixing and matching of lower value items with genuine higher value pieces such as a real Rolex watch with a fake band or movement piece. The reality is that individuals committing fraud are constantly seeking to find craftier ways to accomplish their goals. What pawn software a pawnbroker uses and what data they have to make informed decisions can be the difference between a struggling business and a successful one.

Solution: A great way to fight customer fraud is to capture customer pictures, fingerprints, and actual scanned images of identification. Store theft is best countered by first ensuring that all items within the store are fully described and have serial numbers entered into the pawn software system thereby preventing someone from picking something up from the floor and pawning or selling it back to the pawnbroker. By ensuring that serial numbers are captured on items software should then be able to identify whether that item is an active pawn or inventory of the store prior to finalizing a transaction. Utilizing a digital surveillance system that superimposes POS data can facilitate rapid retrieval of video that can be used to review activities for specified periods, amounts or employees. Product fraud of high-end watches can now be compared to detailed steps and checklist to be used when examining an item and stolen items can also be communicated through a centralized source. PawnMaster pawn software address these issues and more.

Challenge: We hear it day in and day out. Pawnbrokers too often finding even their best, long-time, trusted workers and family members succumbing to the lure of the money, and valuables in the business. Yes, even managers and family members are among the guilty, mostly because they are so completely trusted that there are no checks and balances. With each indiscretion comes more resolve to grasp an opportunity. It may start with the fudging of a timesheet, or having someone punch in or punch out for them. It could be learning another employee’s password and taking the steps to cover ones tracks by using that employee’s login. Some log into pawn software systems and change settings. Others perform ghost transactions filling out the paperwork for a fictitious customer and pocketing the money. Too frequently, it’s the editing a transaction and changing a Rolex into a Timex or voiding a transaction and walking away with the bounty. More times than not we are told of workers that collaborate with family or a friend to redeem an item at a price well below its value that has recently become available to be pulled into inventory. Another concern is a collaboration on purchasing items in inventory for a greatly reduced price. Other times, items are split, mis-binned, and later taken without a trace. And, of course, there’s the friend or family member that gets an excessive loan in comparison to the value of the item. There exist as many stories as creativity permits. In the end, the pawn shop owner loses. Hundreds of thousands of dollars can be skimmed in one way or another. Here again, what pawn software a pawnbroker uses and what data they have to make informed decisions can be the difference between a struggling business and successful one.

Solution: Having employees login to the system and clock their hours through the pawn software system minimizes tardy activity and prevents punching in by associates. Utilizing a system of checks and balances that is easy to implement and to help you assess the transactions done requires a multi-pronged approach. One key way is to ensure that the integrity of the system is not by-passed because someone knows your login information or that of another employee. Fingerprint technology is the best way to ensure this integrity. Being able to track trends can easily be done by looking at employee activities such as changes of item descriptions, voided transactions or date changes. Using pawn software to review a list of employee activities in sequential order of the day and the duration of the activities can help identify scheduling needs as well as training needs. Limiting the ability to modify the pawn software system prevents you from having computer savvy employees conceal dishonest behavior. Spot checking employee via pawn software to customer historical transactions can shed light on favoritism. Faster ways of conducting inventory facilitate more frequency and less of a chance that employees will hide items, mis-bin them, or even split items and pocket them.

Challenge: “We can’t keep doing this. We know we should be bar coding”. Pawn shop owners often justify not doing things right from the get-go and ultimately regret it. Short-minded pawnbrokers commonly find themselves sitting on inventory longer than necessary and losing the opportunity to have more cash working for them. Many pawn shops have lost substantial opportunities by not fully implementing pawn software manage their inventories. Often pawnbrokers separate inventory items and list them for auction losing the opportunity to sell it faster at the counter. Amidst the chaos that has evolved with growing business they have created environments where employees or customers can take advantage of them. The ramifications of operating a business without properly using the right pawn software can result in the loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. It impacts every aspect of a pawn operation and too often shackles the owner to micromanagement practices, therefore causing a loss of time to manage their business to new levels of success and profitability.

Solution: Sadly enough, pawnbrokers stymie their own growth leaving cash flow to the luck of the draw. Some argue that it’s fine because they can sell forfeited items and make a better return, but in reality, they often sit on merchandise too long and their return suffers. PawnMaster pawn software provides inventory management tools for small operations as well as for large multi-store businesses. Shops that would commonly allocate a week to doing an inventory have reduced the time and accuracy of their inventory to hours. By making use of bar coding and inventory tracking shops have encountered hundreds of thousands of dollars lost. Keeping track of aging and inventory turns can provide more fuel to drive the growth of your operation. With PawnMaster’s Price Guide customers are able to quickly view a history of what they have paid for a specific type of product, how many products they currently have on hand and how quickly these products have been sold. Giving you the highest and lowest amounts paid as well as a median price. Transferring products across stores is automated and loop-holes are closed so that you never have products in limbo.

Challenge: Many pawn shop operators sit by and wait for customers to come to them. They have no real growth objectives in place. They operate their business by the seat of their pants. The logic is often that they have a decent location, therefore people will find them. They have no growing pains because they aren’t making an effort to grow. Others spend good money marketing year in and year out. They may advertise in the yellow pages, on billboards, in neighborhood newspapers, maintain a Website, send out direct mail pieces, co-operative advertising, and yes, even buy radio and television spots. Unfortunately, too many pawn shop operators stop and do nothing more than spend the money. They don’t or can’t use data to understand the demographic characteristics of their customers, and they don’t use those demographics to target their marketing dollars better. Worse yet, they have no idea what return their getting on the marketing efforts. It’s not uncommon to find pawnbrokers that can’t tell a bad customer from a good one. For many it’s all about the deal on the table right now. Customer loyalty is non-existent because little is done to recognize and reward repeat business. Customer relationship management is often ignored in many pawn shop operations. Even proven practices like automatically sending text messages out to remind customers of payments, forfeitures, wanted items, repairs, or layaways is disregarded. Sadly enough, these pawnbrokers stymie their own growth leaving cash flow to the luck of the draw. Some argue that it’s fine because they can sell forfeited items and make a better return, but in reality, they too often sit on merchandise too long and their return suffers. Once more, what pawn software a pawnbroker uses and what data they have to make informed decisions can be the difference between a struggling business and successful one.

Solution: Growing a pawn operation does not require an MBA, having a pawn software system that helps you recognize performance metrics and utilizing that data to make informed decisions is key. Assessing how many transactions you’re doing throughout the day, scheduling patterns, personnel requirements, and ensuring that you are capturing data on what is driving business to you requires attention. Analyzing cost of marketing activities to actual traffic to the store helps to put together a return on investment and to cease non-effective marketing activities. Zeroing in on customer characteristics such as age, ethnicity, sex, and etc. can help you better target to new customers. By putting in place a customer loyalty program that rewards customers for repeat business makes it is easier to keep existing clients and build long-term relationships. Little details like recognizing birthdays, anniversaries and other special events help to forge stronger ties with your customers. Given that pawnbrokers are in the business of selling money it is key to pay special attention to cash flow, forfeitures, and mark-up. PawnMaster pawn software provides you with the means to address all of these areas.

Challenge: Whether a pawn operation is a franchise, a hundred stores, twenty or even just two, it will want to implement efficiencies and standards across all locations. Often, pawn operations set up benchmarks and still struggle with generating real-time consolidated perspectives used as their management key indicators. Many operations will create a central server based environment where they maintain one database for all the stores. Others may choose to buy into the concept of sharing a pawn software product through the Internet. However, the vast majority of multi-store pawn operations still resort to logging in remotely or plain hard copy files faxed or emailed or running from one store to the other. Amongst the computerized operations sharing pawn software from a central location, many find their locations paralyzed when the Internet goes down or bandwidth slows down. In this industry as well as many others, the problem results in lost revenues to the operation and also impacts customer service. In summary, the pawn management software a pawn operation uses and what data reporting they have to make informed decisions can be the difference between a struggling business and successful one.

Solution: Achieving a good flow of data from a multiple store environment or when there is an absentee owner involved can now be optimized via Data Age’s KeyDX online reporting system that works in unison with the PawnMaster pawn software. It is now feasible for you to lose your Internet connection and keep your operation going. When the re-established Internet connection is available again you will find all transactions that have occurred since the drop uploaded to this secure and private web server. KeyDX requires less dedicated IT time and results in faster performance at the store level. Viewing inventory across stores, seeing common customers, locking out bad customers are all benefits of de-centralizing and utilizing KeyDX. By utilizing KeyDX a multi-store operation mitigates the risk of their server going down and bringing all stores to a halt. What’s more KeyDX functions in real-time and management/owners can keep abreast of their operations via remote computers, laptops, smart phones, and iPads.