New digital tool kit for independents, Myda Cloud is helping shop owners stamp out staff theft in their stores.

The free software works with your phone and your EPoS to identify trends across stock levels, sales and. In short, it claims to help spot the things the eye can easily miss.

The company is already in place in selected Spar and Londis stores in the UK. Discussing one of the benefits for the shopkeepers, company founder Senthuran Sampanthar told RN: “One of the biggest challenge store owners can face is around preventing theft. Our system not only monitors the stock you put in versus the stock that gets sold, but it also looks at the trends to find discrepancies at the till as well. The system is IOT enabled and allows owners and managers to stay connected to the business from anywhere, anytime. The software can notify you of unusual behaviours by staff. For example, when a member of staff’s till revenues are out of line  for what should be expected on that shift or a behaviour of a staff member is unusual."

Asked for an example, Sampanthar responded: “In one instance a shop staff member was selling coffee but not putting it through the till, he was even using his own cups so that the number of the store’s used in the day levelled with the sales data. Our software identified the discrepancy and led to the scheme being discovered when it was otherwise going un-noticed.”

Research from 2016 showed that staff theft costs shop owners eleven times more than external theft.

Aside from shrinking shrinkage myda cloud also allows stores to launch their own loyalty programmes, connect in store offers to online promotion and track customer buying habits. "

“We find that a lot of retailers want to use stock, sales and promotions data to their advantage but don’t know how to, that’s why we send people out to stores to help. Whether you are a corner shop, a supermarket or a market stall we want to give you enterprise experience and access to insights and tools to be able to compete with the likes of Amazon and other online giants,” said the founder.