Archived Black Friday was a "bust" at my store so far...

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So much for the projected sales increase at my store for BF this year. We were busy at midnight, of course, with lines all around the store for about four hours. At 4am the lines were down to nothing and I got to leave one hour early at 4:30am. We were projected to do $750,000 on BF, but unless we pick up later today, I don't see that happening.

(A group of us logistics team members came in at 9PM on Thursday to pull & push the autopulls and to backstock the little bit that was left from Wednesday's overnight truck. Everything was pulled, pushed and backstocked by midnight with the backroom being spotless in all stockrooms and we were ready to go. We started manually dropping CAFs at 12:30 in toys, home and electronics. We had all that under control and the CAFs were being pushed by the sales floor when I left.)

I will update everyone tomorrow on how close we came to our goal. How did your store do?
 
Not great. They also cut most of the team loose early, and theres no way we're making plan. I'm off to sleep!

But I will say that the line pulsing worked like a dream. We couldn't have asked for a more orderly first few hours.
 
Our store was crazy busy the first few hours, then around 4am it was completely dead. We seemed to have things going pretty well, except when the registers decided not to accept credit card transactions....that was a little hairy for a while. We started sending people home early as well, since team members were outnumbering the guests. Would love to have seen the sales info as it dropped off, but guess we won't know til tomorrow since they don't want us checking it out. Good night all and hope everyone survived!
 
Massive amount of people at them beginning (I think we might have actually come close to hitting the stores legal capacity for a little bit there) but then rapid drop off.
Don't know what the final numbers are going to look like but the overall costs may not be worth it.
 
it was similar at our store,dead most of the night,but the parking lot was filling up as I was leaving,think we might make sales as there is a lot of high ticket eloctronics left and still 12 hrs to go,overall the easiest 12 hr black friday shift I have ever worked,off to bed for a while,good night/morning everyone
 
I'm one of the "special" stores that couldn't open at midnight... we opened at 1am, and the lines were wrapped around the building. When we opened the doors it got a wee bit hairy when everyone started grabbing for carriages and tripping over one another. It mellowed, and it turned out the line pulsing worked great! I've actually never seen a Black Friday store opening as good as we had. We had our lines snaking through PFresh; we had a TM at the head of the line, and myself and the other GSTL on directed guests to open lanes. We were busy for about three hours, and then around 4am it died out. It came in spurts for about two to three hours (in that time we had the excess cashiers do zone and reshop) and when I left it started to pick up again. We were about halfway to goal when I left. What I liked about today was our DTL was at our store for the morning rush and was assisting guests, getting carts, etc. It gave me a whole new respect for him (not that I didn't have any to begin with but I digress).

The only part I didn't care for was in order to keep the lines moving we had to stanchion off the entire front end, so if anyone needed to use the restroom (and given there was a huge line out front many had to) we had to unhook the rope every five minutes... but you win some, you lose some! Great day and by far one of the easiest I have ever seen.
 
My store is also forecasted to do a considerable amount in sales today. Since 4am it has been a ghost town compared to previous BF's.. Unless there's a significant mid-day rush there is no way we are making sales
 
Today was the longest day ever. After 4am our store was dead. Nothing really to do put zone and stock manual cafs.
 
After I came back from lunch at 4:45am we were a ghost town. Someone from our district lead or whatever came to our store and expressed her concerns that we might not make sales.

We sold all our big ticket items so unless we get a massive all day rush, we won't get close to our goal. Also, we had 20 red cards with a 75 red card goal, good luck with that.
 
After I came back from lunch at 4:45am we were a ghost town. Someone from our district lead or whatever came to our store and expressed her concerns that we might not make sales.

That's what happens when Target tries to beat a 24 hour store.
 
I don't remember anything like that happening on black friday 2010. If it did, then it was after the ETL's pulled me off a register to assist in electronics.

I'm pretty sure it didn't happen in 2010, but it definitely happened last night. There was a good half an hour where we couldn't process any Master Cards.
 
The line pulsing was the best thing about opening. Likewise, we slowed to a crawl after 4:30 so a lot of folks were cut loose (& they were only too happy to take off! lol). I hope the sales show that this wasn't worth it, in terms of expended payroll & cutting into Thanksgiving. Maybe they'll rethink opening on Thanksgiving next yr. Maybe not.
 
Its looking more and more likely that our store isn't going to make sales, either. Should've just opened at 4am.
 
i think we can all agreed that opening at midnight was a BUST..most guest did not get no sleep so after they got what they wanted they went home to rest. thats why stores were dead by 4am...and it was not just target all retail...my store is located in a heavy traffic area because we have a mall, walmart, bestbuy, sam's and all these other huge retail stores ( black friday traffic jam is horrible in the pass) BUT THIS YEAR i left the store at 430am and just cruise to see if it was just our target store that was dead but nope, all stores were dead...walmart seem like it only had employess cars outside only.it did not seem like a black friday to me MAYBE RETAILERS WILL RETHINK ABOUT OPENING MIDNIGHT ....
 
My store's forecast is around $500,000. We had $200,000 at 6am. The store was dead from about 3am to 8am, then it picked up again and it was busy when I left. Not sure if we'll make our goal, if it stays busy throughout the evening then maybe we will. I'll be interested in seeing the final numbers, but I'm betting we'd do about the same in sales if we had opened at 4am instead.
 
Same in my store. Dead by 4am. All TMs that worked 1145pm or earlier became zombies. Every single one were tired because of the early opening.

Didnt think the store made sales when I left. Hopefully it picked up.

As a backroom TM, we got lucky. Since corporate decided to put everything on the salesfloor, Electronics stockroom was nothing. After 4am, we just decided to drop only Ad items on our manual Cafs.
 
It was busy until I went on my first break at 3:50am and then after that, we were able to do a quick zone in toys and work out pulls/reshop. They started sending cashiers to the floor (because we had more cashiers than lanes) and I got sent back to softlines to do reshop. It felt like a normal Saturday for our store after that. When I left at 7:45, there were just a couple racks of reshop at the fitting room (because the cashiers had worked out all the carts). It might have picked up after 8 again, but I'll have to ask someone. I'm curious to find out if we made sales.
I am rather grateful that I was not asked to do a split shift. :)
 
Mr Steinhoffel please dont stoop so low to be like these "other" retailers again. Meijer and Kmart/sears didnt bend opening at 4 and 5 oclock. I think it would have been better staying at 4 like originally planned.
 
I heard pretty much the same thing at my store; busy until about 4 AM and then died down as other places opened up. Of course by about noon it had become a zoo again! :party:
 
You can't beat wal mart, no matter how hard you try, Target. Unless you yourself turn into a 24 hour store there's no way in hell you are gonna beat wal mart.
 
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