Wherein the clearance swamp lives down to its name

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

I tell ya, our buyers really need to be taken out to the back forty and shot.

Sometime in the next couple of weeks, we're going to be getting a corporate full cavity search visit. It's being called a "bounce back" audit. Basically the visiting dignitaries are going to see how good of a job we did cleaning up after the holidays and getting back on routine processes that sometimes get forgotten about during the hustle and bustle of the holidays.

One of the things that will be checked is clearance in the backroom. So today my manager printed out a backroom clearance report--and found it to be several pages long.

PANIC

So guess who got assigned to pull all that shit out of the backroom about an hour before leaving today?

Among the many items on the list: bed sheets. Really really el-cheapo bed sheets. They're not made by any brand anybody would recognize. They're just really cheap, crappy sheet sets in demure packaging.

And the buyer must've ordered the damn things by the boxcar load. It seemed that every truck we had for a while, some of those sheets sets came in. And because the planogram only allowed space for three or four sets of each color and size, the rest of them had to sit in the backroom.

And sit. And sit. And sit. And sit some more because these sheet sets were somehow too cheap and crappy for our already cheap and crappy clientele. And then they all were put on clearance.

I filled up an entire dump bin with those sheets and still had a full section of them left to pull out of backstock. The report was showing quantities of 30, 40, even 50 sets in certain colors and sizes.

And when I finish those tomorrow, I get to start on clearance bath towels, which we also have in absurd quantities in the backroom.

[r2cagle]

Can't you just use several sets of sheets sewn together as a drape in the backroom to hide all that stuff?

Guess it would be against the firecode... oh well. Sorry, that sucks.

[Dave1982]

Irv, just how big IS your back room that you have the space for hundreds of units of bed sheets alone to languish like that????

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Irv, just how big IS your back room that you have the space for hundreds of units of bed sheets alone to languish like that????

From what I know about your store, my backroom is probably significantly bigger than yours. It's two floors full of merchandise and runs along the entire west side of the building.

But it's still one of the smaller backrooms in the company, I think. In some of our stores, the backroom wraps almost completely around the salesfloor.

All the shelving units are divided up into four-foot sections, because the shelves themselves are four feet long. The sections the sheets were in each have four shelves.

It might not sound like a lot of space being taken up, and in the grand scheme of the backroom right now it isn't, but to have that much clearance sitting together in the backroom still shows the buyers overbought on it.

[AriRashkae]

And of course, it's all your fault for not selling it, as opposed to the buyer overestimating demand.

[Dave1982]

From what I know about your store, my backroom is probably significantly bigger than yours. It's two floors full of merchandise and runs along the entire west side of the building.

My back room amounts to little more than a back corridor. It's just wide enough to put a standard pallet on each side and maneuver a third down the middle, and runs the length of the store. Not much. If we had hundreds of units of something on clearance back there, we'd be screwed.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Guess what folks? Those cheap-ass sheet sets are not selling AT ALL. Even on clearance.

On the rare occasions they do sell, they get returned, because the fabric pills the first time it's washed.

So guess what else folks? Corporate decided to do a "stock balance" and have one of the stores in our district transfer all their cheap crappy sheet sets to the swamp! At ten repack totes full of the sheets, along with several boxes of sheet sets, came in on our truck last night.

BTW, the transferring store was the latest one to get remodeled. This is what happens when the company remodels stores--they get rid of all their clearance and send it to stores like mine, so the remodeled stores don't have a bunch of clearance messing up their brand new look.

A coworker and I had to spend close to an hour unpacking that shit and putting it out on the floor.

Oh, and here's the kicker: Some of those sheets aren't even on clearance. Specifically, queen-sized sets in a couple colors. And the sale price on those sheets is lower than the clearance price on the other sheets. I think I need to go hit myself in the head with a sledgehammer until I no longer feel stupid for seeing this.

[AccountingDrone]

you need a local sca group ... i used to buy up cheap sheets and use them to make loaner garb for the chatelaine's office, or use them as muslin slopers for modifying patterns =)

[Magpie]

Irv, can I buy a few sets through you? I need to start getting in the habit of making muslins...