Drive up/ Fulfillment Should Be The Same

[targetsinfonian]

Hey so I recently started at target a little over a month ago and so far I enjoy it enough but it's very physically demanding. I recently spent the past week doing nothing but drive up orders for my store; I've done drive up more than anything else and I'm usually doing it alone. Anyway, at my store there are 4 different holding areas for drive up orders so when I have multiple pop ups it can sometimes take a minute to gather everything a guest may have for an order. I've been thinking a lot about this lately and i think there is a case to be made for Drive up and Fulfillment being their own separate department with their own people, that way you can cross train and it all doesn't fall on one person to do drive up for an entire day. I think there needs to be at least 3 people specifically scheduled for Drive Up, 1 person just to prep and 2 people to run the orders out. What do you guys think, how does drive up work at your stores?

 

[seasonaldude]

Welcome to TBR. I think there is a case to be made for making OPU and Driveup its own special department as it could provide better end to end guest service and balancing of the two departments' needs, particular when communication between GS and GM is often poor and at odds.

However, that's not necessarily going to net you more people to run out driveups. Fulfillment hours are based on forecasted units. We can't just shift some of that payroll to driveup because then we won't have enough people to pick that day's orders. Even if we are slow on a particular day, moving someone over to driveup isn't always going to be a top priority. As a fulfillment pacesetter I will sometimes ask someone to help with driveups for a bit if they're getting slammed as that's usually better than taking a salesfloor TM from their area. But, typically I'd much rather send someone out to audit baby food, catch up on Beauty freight, zone seasonal, or the like as that's going to help our productivity and INFs.

Anyway, at my store 2 to 3 people are normally scheduled for driveups at peak times. A SETL will help when needed. And, they can call for backup from the floor if no other guest advocates are available. We only have 1 person at non peak times or if there have been call outs at the front.

 

[Zxy123456]

We always have at least 2 on drive up except maybe the first and last hour of the day. Guest service will help pull orders when not busy. Setl always helps when needed. Our SD helps some times too.

 

[NotCynicalYet]

I don't hate the idea in theory, but from what I've experienced, I need our drive up folks up front so they can help cashier and work the desk, and do other things in front between drive-ups, like cover breaks and return-to-stock. They are a critical, flexible position that the front of store needs, and from the guest's perspective, they need to be dedicated guest advocates to provide them the best service.

 

[DBZ]

We have 2-5 people on DU. We have 1 or 2 people prepping and the others running. I don't think fulfillment should be helping. They have their own job to do.

 

[targetsinfonian]

I don't hate the idea in theory, but from what I've experienced, I need our drive up folks up front so they can help cashier and work the desk, and do other things in front between drive-ups, like cover breaks and return-to-stock. They are a critical, flexible position that the front of store needs, and from the guest's perspective, they need to be dedicated guest advocates to provide them the best service.

I love that idea, giving the drive up people a break from drive up but from what I've experienced Drive up is non-stop all day until the evening and there's never a chance for me to do anything besides drive up. There's maybe been like 2 days total when it wasn't like that but that's just my experience haha

 

[NotCynicalYet]

I love that idea, giving the drive up people a break from drive up but from what I've experienced Drive up is non stop all day until the evening. There's maybe been like 2 days total when it wasn't like that but that's just my experience haha

Are you able to keep it under 2:00 on a typical day?

It's hard to make one drive up like another, because we have to distribute payroll in units of 1 whole person, and changes in volume throw off the coverage so much. It's not like cashiering where you can call a back up. You can back up drive-ups, but it's a lot harder to do. I wonder if your store is just in a spot where there isn't another approach possible.

 

[DBZ]

At my store, there is no in between drive ups most of the time. I mean when there is a blizzard or a superbowl, it's slow, but other than that it's drive up hell. I will go out of a limb and say that it is the most stressful job in the store.

 

[DBZ]

Are you able to keep it under 2:00 on a typical day?

It's hard to make one drive up like another, because we have to distribute payroll in units of 1 whole person, and changes in volume throw off the coverage so much. It's not like cashiering where you can call a back up. You can back up drive-ups, but it's a lot harder to do. I wonder if your store is just in a spot where there isn't another approach possible.

If it isn't under two minutes, you aren't scheduling appropriately and/or you aren't organizing the "on the way" orders well. Backing up Drive Up is easy. If you are saying it is too hard, that is an excuse. You are literally grabbing bags from hold locations and running them out. It takes a small amount of training, but anyone can learn it.

 

[NotCynicalYet]

If it isn't under two minutes, you aren't scheduling appropriately and/or you aren't organizing the "on the way" orders well. Backing up Drive Up is easy. If you are saying it is too hard, that is an excuse. You are literally grabbing bags from hold locations and running them out. It takes a small amount of training, but anyone can learn it.

We're looking to improve the organizing especially, but I would also stress that sometimes there is an excuse, that we're getting boned on payroll and simply cannot cover both the lanes and the drive up adequately (I favor more drive up coverage with them covering lanes at times, rather than pulling cashiers for drive up). That said, I think 2:00 is still doable for my store.

Where are you getting these backups for drive-up? From what pool of team members? We're stretched thin. Sometimes our leadership jumps in and I'm jumping in as the TL a lot during the day.

 

[DBZ]

We have a handful of people on the floor who are fully capable and willing to help backup at GS. They can't always do it because they might be working on a pog or whatever. We have a few more who are GS trained. Those ladies will come take over for a TM at the desk so that person can jump into DU. They helped a lot during the lock downs when half the store was on LOA.

We have 3 three tiers with the plastic DU cards attached. We stage the OTW orders on the 3 tiers and in the 6 wacos we have for staging. If there are 17 people otw - smith is 2 minutes away, bob is 3 minutes, and jane is 4 - they all go on the same 3 tier. Don't have the runner wait for one more order, if there is a guest waiting. You will never get the DU time down if you are walking outside at 2 minutes. I like to stage orders who are without a time, in waco/bin. When they show up, I quickly move them to a 3 tier to be run out. We remove all the stickers so the runner can scan them quickly. No one should need to have to click "remove from hold". You are more likely to miss a bag doing that and it takes as much time as removing the sticker. For large pop ups we might not pull the stickers, but the person who pulled it will run it out or swap devices with the runner.

 

[azure]

My store is like a test store. We were the first store that got the main remodel years ago. Anyways in a few months driveups and pickups will be completely separate from the service desk. Our store is getting a 4 month remodel to completely separate and redo it. We will be trying some new thing and our driveup and pickup area will be at our second entrance while our service desk is at our opposite side entrance. Fulfillment should be on its own it’s getting too big. Driveups and pickups should remain as part of the front end just have a separate category like the service desk does. We got had over 3000 orders at a time and 7 hold areas during q4. We will only have one hold area and it will be designed to always be able to expand. It connects to our back rooms so we will never run out of space. I’m assuming other stores will start doing this as well once they see how it goes for us.

 

[DBZ]

My store is like a test store. We were the first store that got the main remodel years ago. Anyways in a few months driveups and pickups will be completely separate from the service desk. Our store is getting a 4 month remodel to completely separate and redo it. We will be trying some new thing and our driveup and pickup area will be at our second entrance while our service desk is at our opposite side entrance. Fulfillment should be on its own it’s getting too big. Driveups and pickups should remain as part of the front end just have a separate category like the service desk does. We got had over 3000 orders at a time and 7 hold areas during q4. We will only have one hold area and it will be designed to always be able to expand. It connects to our back rooms so we will never run out of space. I’m assuming other stores will start doing this as well once they see how it goes for us.

Wow I would love to visit your store. It must be huge. When you say you had 3000 orders, is that in epick or pick up? We were around 900 in the pick up app on the really hard days (lockdown and Christmas). My store was remodeled last year. Covid was starting as they were finishing. We have one hold area and it is designed to expand and contract as needs arise, but into softlines, not the backroom. I wish we have a drive up/tsc door. That would be awesome.

 

[allnew2]

We have few quite a few people for drive up . I think what works at my store is the fact that flex fill room has its own entrance which leads straight to drive up parking . Away from the entrance of the store .

 

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I would kill to have a tm only door that opens up to DU parking, it would make our lives so much easier

 

[allnew2]

I would kill to have a tm only door that opens up to DU parking, it would make our lives so much easier

Yeah it sure makes life easier . Just to make things clear when I mean flex room I mean it’s just that . It is not guest service it’s a complete separate area . No online orders/pick up orders are at guest service

 

[azure]

Wow I would love to visit your store. It must be huge. When you say you had 3000 orders, is that in epick or pick up? We were around 900 in the pick up app on the really hard days (lockdown and Christmas). My store was remodeled last year. Covid was starting as they were finishing. We have one hold area and it is designed to expand and contract as needs arise, but into softlines, not the backroom. I wish we have a drive up/tsc door. That would be awesome.

Sorry meant to say 2000. The most I saw it at was 2200 but I was not really paying too much attention to how many we had. For driveups however at one point we had 81 that were here and 11 that were on the way. It was hell. Over 200 bags in our prep area (area for bags that were here). It was so hard finding all the bags from all the different hold areas. We were able to prep fast enough with 2 preppers and 2 organizers but finding a black suv was near impossible. When they didn’t do a good car description we would write their last name on a whiteboard and see who waved at us which seemed to work really well. We were extremely fast with prepping and organizing it’s just hard to match all the bags from all the locations. Finding the right car was the hardest part though. We also only had like 50 spots. We literally had people at 50 minute wait times. The 2 preppers could get an order ready in 15 seconds but organization was literally impossible and finding the right car slowed us down a ton. We are way above a AAA+ store. We would be a AAAAA if it kept the same ratio lol. That’s if AAAA and AAAA+ and AAAAA existed. I don’t think we will have a separate door for driveups we will have our own area though just like Starbucks and the service desk just bigger.

 

[Zxy123456]

If it isn't under two minutes, you aren't scheduling appropriately and/or you aren't organizing the "on the way" orders well. Backing up Drive Up is easy. If you are saying it is too hard, that is an excuse. You are literally grabbing bags from hold locations and running them out. It takes a small amount of training, but anyone can learn it.

When you several guests show up with no warning with large orders it’s hard to keep it under 2 minutes. This happens quite a bit.

 

[Ringwraith917]

My store is like a test store. We were the first store that got the main remodel years ago. Anyways in a few months driveups and pickups will be completely separate from the service desk. Our store is getting a 4 month remodel to completely separate and redo it. We will be trying some new thing and our driveup and pickup area will be at our second entrance while our service desk is at our opposite side entrance. Fulfillment should be on its own it’s getting too big. Driveups and pickups should remain as part of the front end just have a separate category like the service desk does. We got had over 3000 orders at a time and 7 hold areas during q4. We will only have one hold area and it will be designed to always be able to expand. It connects to our back rooms so we will never run out of space. I’m assuming other stores will start doing this as well once they see how it goes for us.

Oh that would be AMAZING of they put a OPU desk near backroom space. We have a small front backroom (previously electronics, now stationary. They could totally put another desk there and redo the wall to allow more access to the backroom space, for the opu team.

 

[allnew2]

Anyways in a few months driveups and pickups will be completely separate from the service desk.

My store already has it . Separate entrance And I don’t even have a SFS just opu .

 

[Frontlanegirl]

Too bad Corporate can’t take into account how the weather affects the amount of drive ups. I’ve noticed when it rains we tend to have more drive up orders. Unfortunately, the schedule does not reflect this need.

 

[CosmicFish]

^OMG Same. Everyone around here knows Southern Californians melt in the rain so whenever we do have wet stuff falling from the sky our OPU orders go through the roof. 🙄 There really should be some mechanism for SDs to use to justify more payroll hours when they know some local event will drive an increase in DU orders. Corporate estimates only go so far. The stores are part of individual communities and should be able to respond the community's needs.