The secret to Retail Success.

[gremcint]

Wanna know how to make money?
Really?
The people in head office don't seem to have this down yet.


Here's what I've learned in my years working retail: Get the product on the shelf.
It's that simple. I joined my store and we didn't sell any tablets at the time, the competitor down the street did. Every day I worked I got asked: do you guys carry the Ipad? we didn't, it took us months to finally get it. Every single of those calls was someone we lost to the competitor.

Get the product on the shelf.

After we finally got the Ipad we were asked for months if we carried macs. Competitor down the road did but us no. We have them now but it took quite a lot of doing. "Apple's very picky and has to approve us" You're a multinational billion dollar company, you fucking make it happen.

Get the product on the shelf.

Now we have 8 or 9 tablets but we only have cases and extra chargers for three of them. and yet we have over 40 different cases for the ipad. I realize we sell more ipads than other brands but it'd be nice to have a couple cases for the Asus tablets or the Acers.

Get the product on the shelf.

It is my job to sell the stuff with the computers and printers but we constantly run out of things we shouldn't like usb cables. Now this time of year I am a little more forgiving because stuff is flying off the shelves but honestly we didn't get enough dudley padlocks?

Get the product on the shelf.

We're going to put this printer on sale for less than half price but we're not going to send you anymore ink even if you are almost out. Fuck you.

Get the product on the shelf.


It really is that simple. I understand things happen like we are completely out of playbooks even though their price just dropped but they've been on sale for the last three weeks, so things like that do happen but honestly:

(all together now)

Get the product on the shelf.

[icmedia]

I'm absolutely, 100%, with you on this; I currently manage a cellphone store and, for the past 2 weeks, I haven't received ANY cellphone shipment. It's hard to make the sales when people come in asking for the phones we feature in our ads, online, and on TV...and I DON'T HAVE ANY.

[gremcint]

I'm betting that corporate is wondering why you aren't selling that many of the popular phones.

[sms001]

So what you're saying here gremcint is that I can't buy product off the shelf in your store if it's not on the shelf?

That makes a wacky kind of sense - I don't foresee a corner office in your future.

[gremcint]

if it makes dollars it can't make sense.

Real life example looking at getting a mini fridge right now and the place with the best selection is Walmart, it's not just that walmart is cheap it's honestly most of the time I can't find what I want anywhere else.

[Solacelawlz]

True Story ^^ If you stock it, They will come!!! =D

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

And then you have my company, run by somebody whose big, bet-the-company merchandising strategy seems to be "Don't get the product on the shelf."

The rule in my company is nothing can hang over the edge of the shelf, unless individual item, by itself, hangs over the shelf. This is strictly enforced by our DM and other corporate visitors. Anything caught hanging over the edge is sent to the backroom for backstocking.

This means in several areas, such as appliances, which is one of the areas I stock, only one of each product can fit on the floor.

I understand wanting to have a neat and tidy salesfloor. THEN CUT DOWN THE PRODUCT ASSORTMENT SO WE CAN GET MORE THAN ONE OF EACH ITEM ON THE SHELF. I've been hearing for years that the buyers plan on doing this, and it never happens.

So you wind up with a bunch of appliances, let's say crock pots, where you only can fit one on the shelf per our presentation rules. Somebody comes along and buys one of the crock pots. It's now out, and probably won't be replenished until the next morning, when the end-of-day pulls out of the backroom are done. Somebody else comes in wanting to buy the same crock pot. They see its empty spot on the shelf and can't find an employee to check the backroom for it, because like every other store we've cut payrolls down to nothing. So that customer leaves and buys a crock pot someplace else.

Then there are the great heaps and piles of clearance we get. The rule in my company regarding that is the same clearance item can't be in multiple spots on the salesfloor. It makes the salesfloor messy and pricing can miss it when doing further markdowns. So it just sits in the backroom and we wind up with no room for the new merchandise pouring in the door.

The pull system is set up to request clearance merchandise as it is marked down. I don't bother to pull those requests any more. I just say I did and move on. Because it's almost always large quantities being requested, and if I pull the stuff all the department specialists will do with it is take it for a ride around the salesfloor and then return it to the backroom and toss a backstock sign on it.

I really don't know how this company stays in business. Any other with management this stupid would've folded up a long time ago.

[Rapscallion]

I really don't know how this company stays in business. Any other with management this stupid would've folded up a long time ago.

A guy at my place summed it up perfectly a few years back after a fairly spectacular fuck up.

"We're bad, but we're the least worst out there."

Rapscallion