You’ve worked hard to turn your retail dreams into a reality. Whether you’re in the jewelry, clothing, hardware or any other business, you can’t afford property losses. Every theft, no matter how seemingly minor, effects your bottom line. And when you’re a small business owner, you understand the major impact that every little loss has.

Even though you might be on-site every day, or at the very least have a trusted manager who is present, you can’t always prevent theft – and the losses that result. This is where a security guard comes into the picture. Hiring a guard for your small business may seem like an added expense that you can’t support. But, in reality, it’s more likely that you can’t afford to not hire a professional guard.

While you might not have a multi-million dollar inventory for your mom-and-pop shop, that doesn’t mean your business doesn’t deserve protection. Why do retail stores need security guards? Take a look at some of the most common reasons why small business owners use this vital service.

Shoplifting and Loss

The most obvious reason for hiring a security guard is to protect yourself, and your business, from financial losses due to theft. Shoplifting costs you money. But it isn’t always easy to control. In 2016 alone shoplifting packed a more than $48 billion punch to U.S. retail stores as a whole, according to the National Retail Federation.

The external shrink rate (losses due to shoplifting and other outside factors) is climbing, reaching 36.5% in 2017. Hiring a security guard for your small business helps to cut these losses and reduce the shrink rate in a few different ways. Understanding the benefits of a guard can cut your losses, increasing your profits and giving you back the money that’s rightfully yours.

The Guard’s Talents

You’re a business owner, not a security guard. That means you have a set of talents and experience that you bring to your retail store. If your skill-set doesn’t include spotting and stopping loss prevention, you need to hire someone who does have this knowledge. A trained guard has the expertise to identify a shoplifter before you, or one of your employees, might. This provides a layer of protection that you might not be able to offer your business on your own.

Not only can a security guard spot a shoplifter before the average person could, but they also know what to do next. Ask yourself if you’re comfortable confronting a shoplifter in your store. If the answer is either. “No” or, “I’m not sure what I would do,” you need a guard.

Employee Theft

Customers might not know whether you have a security system in place or not. But your employees do. And if they know that no one is watching them, especially when you’re off-site, your store becomes an easy target. More about Executive Protection Certification

Trusting employees is something that every small business owner wants. Your business is your baby and you want everyone to care for it just like you do. The small retail store setting is a prime place to bring employees together, creating a tight-knit environment where everyone trusts each other. Even though this is the ideal, it doesn’t always happen.

Employee theft accounts for 30% of inventory shrinkage across American retail stores. A security guard provides you with an easy way to stop this type of theft. Your employees are much less likely to pocket a product they don’t want to pay for or take home inventory they think you won’t miss if they know that a guard is constantly watching them.