Retail
Corruption Risks
Examples:
- Compromised staff accept advantage from customers for reservation of high-demand goods without authorisation.
- Frontline staff accept advantages for waiving charges or offering unauthorised discounts to customers.
- Dishonest staff embezzle premiums or gifts for customers.
- Staff tamper sales records to manipulate the staff commission scheme for additional gain.
- Staff abuse staff purchase scheme for resale for profit.
Examples:
- Staff embezzle sales proceeds by not recording or cancelling transactions without authorisation.
- Dishonest staff pocket discount differences by using their credit cards for payment to replace the cash payment by customers.
Examples:
- Staff accept advantage from merchants for providing preferential treatment in allocation of racks/shelves.
- Staff accept advantage from suppliers for lax inspection in quantity and quality of goods received.
- Dishonest staff misappropriate coupons or valuable inventory items for personal gain.
Examples:
- Compromised staff accept advantages from colluded suppliers when awarding contracts.
- Compromised staff leak confidential information (such as tender price information) to the favoured supplier for personal gain.
- Compromised staff accept advantages from suppliers for placing excessive orders or accepting substandard goods.
- Dishonest staff split orders to avoid exceeding procurement threshold or to conceal overpayment.
- Dishonest staff inflate order prices to pocket the price difference.
Examples:
- Personnel staff accept advantages from colluded candidates or colleagues for showing favour in appointments, promotions and transfers.
- Compromised managers or supervisors accept advantages from subordinates for showing favour in the allocation of duties or performance appraisal.
- Staff submit false documents such as overtime work or sick leave certificate to deceive the employer.
Examples:
- Staff provide discounts or promotion offers for friends or relatives without endorsement by higher authority.
- Staff responsible for procurement has a financial interest in a company being considered as the retailer’s supplier or the selected supplier is a close friend or relative of the staff.
- Staff over-socialise with suppliers, e.g., accepting frequent or lavish entertainment or engaging in gambling.
Ethics Training
The Hong Kong Business Ethics Development Centre provides free anti-corruption and ethics training to help retailers build an ethical corporate culture and prevent corruption and fraud. Check out the details of the upcoming webinars on BEDC Channel and enrol now!
Training Objectives
Training Objectives
Training Objectives
Contact us if your company is interested in arranging anti-corruption or ethics training.
The Centre also produced the following animation video for self-learning:

Integrity Training Animation for Tourism - Retail Sector: My Good Partner
Resources
The Hong Kong Business Ethics Development Centre publishes a wide variety of resources* for use by the retail industry as reference and training tools for enhancing ethical management and staff integrity.