Anne Muhia, an aspiring entrepreneur, sparked mixed reactions online after disclosing how she lost her money when she invested in a butchery business.
In a TikTok video, she explained how it only took barely a month for her to lose a whooping Ksh 300,000 she had invested in the business.
At the time, Anne was not conversant with the business and relied on her employees who would later turn out to be thieves.
Here is her story as told by WoK.
In 2020, Anne took over an ongoing butchery business in Hurlingham, Nairobi County, and because she was pregnant at the time, she brought her friend on board to help her oversee the business.
However, just like Anne, her friend did not have any experience in running a butchery and it did not take long before employees noticed it.
It was then that they started taking advantage of the fact that Anne knew little about how the business runs, and started exploiting her.
“I want business owners to understand that retail business carries the biggest risks especially in Inventory Management,” she said in a TikTok video.
While doing the business’ weekly stock-taking processes, Anne noticed some discrepancies but when she would confront the employees, they always had excuses.
However, according to her, the most common excuse at this point was weight loss which the employees referred to as ‘shrinkage’.
The excuses didn’t make sense to Anne, forcing her to conduct her own investigations to understand how her business was not taking shape as she hopes.
She decided to work with a mystery shopper – a market researcher who pretends to be a customer in a business – to find out what really happens.
The mystery shopper would buy items from each of Anne’s three employees while they were on duty.
After a thorough investigation, Anne finally singles out who was stealing stock meant for her business and reported the matter to Kilimani Police Station.
However, when the police arrived at the business’ premises, the rogue employee had already fled the scene.
“If you are probably wondering if your employees are stealing from you, they probably are. Especially if you’re in the retail business,” she warned.
Anne later realized that the employee would open the business at 6 AM, while the opening time is 9AM, to supply restaurants with her stock.
“I found out that he would come early in the morning and supply certain restaurants with chicken. That’s how I lost Ksh 300,000 worth of inventory,” she narrated.
