Sponsored by We Card.
Preventing minors from purchasing tobacco and vaping products is challenging for most retailers. Employees must have proper training and be confident in handling confrontational situations. QSR sat down with Doug Anderson, president of We Card, to discuss how its training program helps retailers navigate legal requirements and prevent underage sales.
What challenges do employees face when carding customers?
Federal law requires the “carding” of every customer under 30 years old, and the FDA indicates this is an each-and-every time requirement. If you carded a customer in the morning, and they return in the afternoon, they must be carded again.
Carding has its nuances. Examples are “social sourcing,” where adults may buy for minors (we recommend denying this type of purchase). Employees deal with expired IDs, or handling regular customers who are clearly of age, yet still must be carded. These can quickly turn into confrontations, so employees must be trained to handle them with a customer service friendly response.
How does We Card help retailers comply with age-restricted sales laws?
We Card provides a complete suite of training and education resources from in-store training materials or age calculation tools to formal online training at our eLearning Center.
Our training equips retailers with the knowledge and the skills to identify and deny underage purchase attempts while handling any customer confrontations.
Our courses are highly interactive that includes a store manager and assistant manager who guide employees through role playing and put them in front of simulated customer scenarios, ranging from dealing with angry customers to underage individuals presenting invalid IDs, to handling fake IDs, and of-age adults.
The Employee Training Course is fully comprehensive, state-law-specific and covers federal law and FDA requirements. There is also a Refresher Course, a condensed version of the employee training, and a Manager’s Course, which is crucial for managers and covers a wide range of knowledge.
What is the significance of September as We Card Awareness Month?
A key component to maintaining compliance with the laws, is regularly highlighting what it takes to be a “responsible retailer” by showcasing what needs to be done to comply with the law. Every year we emphasize the importance of training because research shows that a trained-and confident employee is best positioned to perform their duties more effectively.
Awareness Month brings both reminders and new techniques and approaches to training and education. Our updated 2025 materials are ready for shipping, and we encourage mystery shopping to measure employee performance. Our ID Check-Up service involves young-looking, 21+ year old shoppers testing if employees are properly carding customers. This provides verification that trained employees are indeed carding. And this regular monitoring helps motivate employees to improve their compliance efforts.
How does We Card stay informed about local issues and needs?
We Card tracks laws and regulations and collaborates with a stakeholder group of more 200 state-level associations, national associations representing retailers and wholesalers and our Manufacturer Advisory Council. This collaborative group help us stay informed about what is happening throughout the country, whether it’s a law change or a training need. Our key stakeholders provide insight and can spot trends at the store level. And, as new issues surface, we work with our stakeholders to develop programs or materials.
We are subject matter experts on responsible retailing, but we also comb through new laws and try to work these into actionable and understandable language that employees can absorb and use daily.
For more information about We Card’s training programs, visit wecard.org.
By Olivia Schuster
