Archived Black Friday and Holiday TL Prep

[DevinDeLaSpot]

Howdy all! I am currently a Sales Floor Team Lead over Electronics & Entertainment and Toys/Sporting Goods. With the upcoming holidays in mind, my store's been doing quite a few things to prepare. I was wondering, however, if you all might have any recommendations and/or suggestions for what I might do to best prepare my departments, Team, and/or self for the holidays?

At the moment, I am VERY very lucky to have...
- A specialist who sets our new releases and all Electronics/Entertainment Sales Planners
- An Electronics TM who specifically oversees all flexing of Electronics items and D-Code,
- An Electronics TM who specializes in keeping Video Games 100% with (near) zero outs
- A TM who will be ensuring gift card sidecaps and endcaps are maintained in the near futre
- And a Hardlines TM who typically does most of the large sets of Sales Planners for Sporting Goods and/or Toys (if there are more than, say, three in a week), whom I'm working to develop into a TL (I hope!)

So! Any suggestions for routines and/or processes that I should add to my daily/weekly workload in order to better prepare for the holidays? Have any of you seen something great that a Team Lead in your store has done, perhaps, which you think was a great idea and/or helped you and/or your areas?

As background, I generally 4x4 2 valleys of Toys/Sporting Goods a day, and super-zone ~10 aisles per day in Toys/Sporting Goods, while researching outs/lows and OHs and capacities for all items scanned in those 10 aisles. I also push all d-code for my departments once a week as well, and handle markdowns (SIM) of any product that is not selling. On any given day, I'm generally given 2-4 hours to work on workload/projects, and generally cover up to 1-2 hours of breaks/lunches per day for Electronics/GSTL and/or LOD (generally I am LOD for 1-4 hours at a time once or twice per week).

In short: if I were your Team Lead, what could I do to make your day easier on you/make your day more productive? And/or, do you all have any recommendations for what I could do as a Team Lead to improve day-to-day operations in my areas of my store, while hopefully driving sales as well?

 

[60SecondsRemaining]

For BF;

The vast majority of your product sales are going to be doorbusters. People only come in once so they need to be ready for replenishment.

1) Map out all of your BF salesplans on an adjacency, and also write the EC locations on each individual POG, so that the POG or whatever team setting them can set them quickly.
2) If you are not a riser store, add risers to all of your toy aisles
3) Detrash all BF product, stage it on riser above endcap where it will be for BF.
4) Large amounts of product that won't fit on a riser should be detrashed and palletized, wrapped, and put up in the steel. On BF, they should be dropped and put on the line.

Day of, TM's should replenish items as they sell down from risers until empty. Once an item sells out, continue on to the next riser, continually packing out product until all product is gone. If you keep filling it quickly I promise, you WILL sell all of it.

Day to Day;

Break your department salesplanners out to your TMs. I generally had my MMB TM set all of the entertainment and seasonal planners, one Elec TM owned toys salesplanners, one Elec TM owned Elec salesplanners, and I handled sporting goods. They were responsible for reading the adjacency, mapping out, and coordinating which day to set them. We would set them in assembly line fashion, so for example say all 13 toy endcaps changed, we would empty all 13, and tie and drop all 13 batches. While one person pulled the batches and staged them in front of the endcaps, the other person set all of the endcaps. Once all of the endcaps were set, one person stocked the endcaps while one person took care of any backstock generated. Once the endcaps were stocked, both of us did the trash. We typically set 10-13 endcaps in about 2 hours this way, and it gave my entire team something to own.

Aside from that, just keep your efforts customer facing, which zoning is a big part of.

 

[BlueSide]

Be prepared for the huge workload of entertainment revisions for the 4 day ad and 2 day ad. The amount of moves is insane, and there will be revisions for both ads. So partner with the PPTL to sort that mess out before it happens. Also think of a plan to merchandise all the random NOP shippers of movies you will recieve, because entertainment is a huge seller throughout that week. All of this will be a lot more than your regular MMB revision guy can handle. Also, you need to know the majority of those doorbusters, since most of them fall under your departments, and be aware of the inventory. This means accurate on hand counts and backroom locations. If you have stuff that isn't located, make sure it's staged in a spot where you know you'll find it come Black Thursday set up. Make sure you have enough staff on the floor so that your E&E check ins are worked in a timely manner. Also team up with the BRTL or ETL-LOG to be sure all of these things are being backstocked properly. It's a big deal.

 

[DevinDeLaSpot]

For BF;
1) Map out all of your BF salesplans on an adjacency, and also write the EC locations on each individual POG, so that the POG or whatever team setting them can set them quickly.
2) If you are not a riser store, add risers to all of your toy aisles
3) Detrash all BF product, stage it on riser above endcap where it will be for BF.
4) Large amounts of product that won't fit on a riser should be detrashed and palletized, wrapped, and put up in the steel. On BF, they should be dropped and put on the line.

First of all, thank you for the suggestions!

We are not a risers store unfortunately, and so I'm not-so-certain how risers might best be effectively used, beyond what you recommend above. I know we haven't used them in recent years (though all Toys aisles still have the stickers from risers used in years past!), but we also have a new DTL as of this past quarter, so perhaps we can use them this year? I recall reading something about needing DTL approval to use risers...

To be clear, are you suggesting using risers above endcaps, and storing product for said endcap there? Apologies, I haven't used them before, so the concept is still new to me. =]

 

[DevinDeLaSpot]

Be prepared for the huge workload of entertainment revisions for the 4 day ad and 2 day ad.

.... Also think of a plan to merchandise all the random NOP shippers of movies you will recieve, because entertainment is a huge seller throughout that week.

....Also, you need to know the majority of those doorbusters, since most of them fall under your departments, and be aware of the inventory.

...This means accurate on hand counts and backroom locations. If you have stuff that isn't located, make sure it's staged in a spot where you know you'll find it come Black Thursday set up.

Definitely doing the last few! We'll be doing an empty location audit within the next week or so, and AFAIK the plan is to have those shippers for movies set along the main racetrack between Toys and Baby-360 leading up to the Electronics Boat, and/or to have some lining the racetrack near the checklanes.

Would you suggest I start preemptively researching door-busters now? I'll likely partner with our ETL SF Operations (love having an ETL in that specialized of a role!) on that front, as she oversees Instocks and Backroom.

 

[mrknownothing]

To be clear, are you suggesting using risers above endcaps, and storing product for said endcap there? Apologies, I haven't used them before, so the concept is still new to me. =]

No, that would look ridiculous interfere with the headers. The risers would be in the aisles. If you still have location labels in each aisle, the riser locations should still exist in the system; if not, have your backroom TL or ETL-Log create them.

If you use risers, PLEASE communicate to your store team whether or not the product on the risers is located. If the riser product is unlocated and instocks doesn't know, your OH counts will be FUBAR.

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

Make certain everything is on location & the counts are count. You have a good set, so far. Knowing the ad & what's in stock is your friend. Be ready for the under 10.00 shippers for games & movies in other parts of salesfloor.

 

[tgtguy]

Don't forget to have backup endcap merchandise staged on a tub or flat so when the endcaps get blown they can be replaced easily.

 

[ClearanceMaster]

Since we tape off all the back of the Entertainment aisles for our electronics line we also placed the movie shippers in front of the tape. That way they couldn't duck underneath the tape and the movies were right there. We used risers one year that were unlocated in small appliances/toys. I loved them. The past 2 years we haven't though.

 

[Sushi2Go]

I'd be nice if you hand out a map of where all the BF deals are located around the store and give everyone a copy of the BF ad with DPCI for each item. My store doesn't do this which gets me totally lost.

Also, make sure people who are in Electronics have a higher priority for mydevices. Last year, I was opening in Electronics with no mydevice/pda while there are people in softlines with a couple just doing go backs/zoning. Like come on!

 

[HairyToothpick]

Also, make sure people who are in Electronics have a higher priority for mydevices. Last year, I was opening in Electronics with no mydevice/pda while there are people in softlines with a couple just doing go backs/zoning. Like come on!

Last year at our store the leadership assigned and handed out all walkies and PDAs. It seemed to help out quite a bit. I've been told we are doing the same this year as well.

 

[jenna]

I'd be nice if you hand out a map of where all the BF deals are located around the store and give everyone a copy of the BF ad with DPCI for each item. My store doesn't do this which gets me totally lost.

Also, make sure people who are in Electronics have a higher priority for mydevices. Last year, I was opening in Electronics with no mydevice/pda while there are people in softlines with a couple just doing go backs/zoning. Like come on!

This. aka make sure your key players know where all the pallets and shippers of product are dropped in the store.

Sometimes the movie shippers are place in softlines, and the video game shippers/consoles are also in another area of the store. Ours were in Girls' and Mens' clothing last year.

Toy shippers are usually placed around the store, too. Think those were in Boys, last year.

We had Beats Headphones in Market.

 

[LadyCynide]

I'd be nice if you hand out a map of where all the BF deals are located around the store and give everyone a copy of the BF ad with DPCI for each item. My store doesn't do this which gets me totally lost.

Also, make sure people who are in Electronics have a higher priority for mydevices. Last year, I was opening in Electronics with no mydevice/pda while there are people in softlines with a couple just doing go backs/zoning. Like come on!

We actually had printed pamphlets listing the deals and a map of their location last year. I assumed all stores had this.

 

[jenna]

We actually had printed pamphlets listing the deals and a map of their location last year. I assumed all stores had this.

They do, but the maps are not always clear, and tm's don't always get a chance to walk/look them over before the craziness starts.