Tackle underage sales putting retailers at risk
Serve Legal can support your business with tailored audits, Trading Standards-approved guidance, and expert advice. Have a look and see how we can you!
How Serve Legal can help you
The Risk
Underage sales of age restricted products can lead to prosecution, fines, risk of losing your trading license and damage to your brand reputation. Trading Standards can visit your premises to check you are complying with the law and apply formal enforcement options if there is a breach.
How Serve Legal Help?
We use 18/19 year olds to help companies test the robustness of their 'Think-25' policy, without breaking the law.
Our audits demonstrate to both the authorities and customers that you take underage sales seriously, prove due diligence and proactivity, as well as increasing management focus on legislation and internal compliance policies, which improves staff performance.
Clients can monitor their overall performance via live dashboard technology and access benchmarking data to compare their performance with the average for their sector.
Who We Are
Serve Legal is the market leading provider of compliance auditing services in the UK and ROI and is a trusted provider of revenue protection audit programmes to some of the UK’s largest supermarkets.
Serve Legal has a nationwide community of 18+ auditors who are highly engaged and closely managed to deliver accurate audit results. We are able to fully audit entire retail estates across the UK and Ireland within weeks, as well as providing powerful analysis of audit data to support our clients in identifying and solving operational issues related to loss of revenue.
Our success stories
“We use Serve Legal regularly to carry out tests on our compliance with age restricted sales. This includes tobacco and the recently introduced tobacco display ban. They deliver a reliable and efficient service within agreed deadlines and with very few data errors. They are able to swiftly provide accurate analysis of our data which helps with our training and future testing programs.”
“We have worked with Serve Legal since 2014 and they have significantly helped us to combat illegal broadcasting in the UK and Ireland. Their knowledge, expertise and robust auditing in conjunction with the prompt supply of infringement data has generated over 8,000 leads; which has led to valuable leads for our sales force and investigation team to defend our investment in exclusive sports content. Serve Legal have consistently delivered against agreed KPIs.”
“We have worked with Serve Legal since 2009 and they have helped us to significantly reduce our risk with age-restricted sales. They have played a key role in monitoring our risk across a range of age-restricted products. Their knowledge, speed of service and flexible data provision helps us to sharpen our training and inform our future approach to compliance.”
“The Serve Legal information is extremely useful, informative and well presented. The issues with sites not using ‘Challenge 25’ can now be dealt with the backing of evidence of where they’re failing. I am most pleased with how the surveys are being conducted and appreciate the detailed information provided.”
“Using an independent test purchase service such as Serve Legal demonstrates to the local authorities that I am taking the issue of underage sales seriously. The due diligence provided is invaluable and has played an important role in defending my license in a recent licensing hearing.”
“We have worked with Serve Legal since 2008. The visit reports are always delivered in an accurate and timely manner. The accuracy and consistency of the information provided has allowed us to identify training needs, target resource, protect our business and improve our compliance. I would have no hesitation in recommending Serve Legal to others.”
“We use Serve Legal monthly to conduct test purchases of alcohol, in order to monitor our adherence to our Challenge 25 policy. This is also extended to campaigns of test purchasing on other age-restricted products. The professionalism and flexibility they offer has assisted us in improving our compliance levels, and where required, using targeted activity. The online portal provides easy to read data in a timely fashion for reporting.”
“We have worked with Serve Legal since 2009 and they have helped us to significantly reduce our risk with age restricted sales. They have played a key role in monitoring our risk across a wide range of age restricted products. Their knowledge, speed of service and flexible data provision helps us to sharpen our training and inform our future approach to compliance.”
“Serve Legal was appointed by my company in order that we gain valued feedback from a licensing perspective. The relationship between Serve legal and my business is friendly, professional and feels personal. The feedback we have gained is invaluable to our operation, we have been able to use the data to make changes in our business to ensure a risk free operation. I would highly recommend.”
About us
In early 2006, Ed Heaver and Julian Sargeson were alcohol retailers with a problem. The local authority had decided one of their sites was consistently serving underage people.
Wave after wave of local authority 'stings' resulted in them losing a licence. A conservative estimate put their loss of sales at £25,000 per week.
Unfortunately, Ed and Julian had no way of fighting back. They wanted to check their staff, measure the site performance and demonstrate to the authority they were taking the issue seriously. They couldn't find a company providing a cost-effective service, so they decided to do it themselves.
Our Awards
Don't just take our word for it, see the awards that back up our claims of excellence.
The Golden Grocer Awards 2022 Finalist
Business Initiative of the Year
Growing Business Awards Winner 2022
B2B Business of the Year
Business Champion Awards 2022 Finalist
Business Community Award
Growing Business Awards Winner 2023
Customer Experience and Loyalty Award
Frequently asked questions
The process involves Serve Legal's 18/19-year-old auditors attempting to buy age-restricted products and noting whether or not they are asked for ID. They then provide a report with the results and details of the purchase attempt.
Within 24 hours of visiting a site, the auditor completes their report. Within 48 hours, the report is thoroughly checked and sent automatically to the named client contact(s).
There are no official consequences as the auditor will be over 18, however businesses can set their own internal consequences for staff. Serve Legal audits are designed to help prevent businesses from failing an audit from Trading Standards. The ramifications of a Trading Standards fail can be prosecution, fines, or a review of a bussiness’s license to sell age-restricted products, all of which can have long-term impacts on your reputation and ability to operate.
The frequency of audits may depend on various factors, such as the type of products sold and the business's past performance in age verification. We recommend that businesses conduct regular age verification tests, with the frequency determined by the individual business's risk assessment and compliance requirements.
Start operating confidently when it comes to age-restricted products
Start operating confidently when it comes to age-restricted products
Looking to work for us as one of our mystery shoppers?