MEGATHREAD Flexible Fulfillment

[Riffraff]

Personally, its the softlines flex orders that drive me insane. "Find unlocated items". Unless im lucky, i end up spending crazy amounts of time walking around the departments fishing through racks, checking go backs at the fitting room, the hanging backstock in the back, the go back bins at the service desk... all for 1 item

 

[RetailWorld]

Personally, its the softlines flex orders that drive me insane. "Find unlocated items". Unless im lucky, i end up spending crazy amounts of time walking around the departments fishing through racks, checking go backs at the fitting room, the hanging backstock in the back, the go back bins at the service desk... all for 1 item

Across multiple stores, this is probably one of the larger issues I hear from team members picking orders.

This should be a huge red flag for the company though. Just think about how difficult it is then for a guest to find stuff? Softlines organization needs an overhaul.

 

[SFSFun]

Yeah I just cannot fathom why they thought that part was a good idea.

Surely the full sized target.com distribution center doesn't have "unlocated" merchandise all over the warehouse. So why not let them take care of softlines and cut down on the crazy waste of time SFS TMs spend looking for it.

Oh yeah, because that would actually make sense and since when does Target do anything that makes sense?

 

[sigma7]

It really helps if your softlines areas are zoned. Most of the time departments are organized in brand blocks. Merona is together, Moss Red is together, Moss black is together, Xhilaration is together, and so on. Sometimes it's weird, like right now how ready to wear grouped all the jean shorts and cutoffs together regardless of brand and there is a cream/white shop on the floorpad. Usually your softlines TM is the go to person. Show them the picture and they can usually find it.

 

[SFSFun]

It really helps if your softlines areas are zoned. Most of the time departments are organized in brand blocks. Merona is together, Moss Red is together, Moss black is together, Xhilaration is together, and so on. Sometimes it's weird, like right now how ready to wear grouped all the jean shorts and cutoffs together regardless of brand and there is a cream/white shop on the floorpad. Usually your softlines TM is the go to person. Show them the picture and they can usually find it.

For guests, that's great!

But for SFS, it still involves searching the general area and that can take time. Plus, our store has had double-digit increases in Softlines sales, resulting in tons of returns and unsorted go-backs from the fitting room to look through. And don't forget the unlocated hanging backstock in the backroom.

 

[Riffraff]

Usually your softlines TM is the go to person. Show them the picture and they can usually find it.

I do this when possible, but I'm in at truck unload hours, and the softlines team members in at that hour are very busy getting things prepared for the pallets upon pallets of repack boxes they're about to have dropped in their lap, so I have to balance my time vs theirs and the respective workloads. There's a couple that know I'm out of my element and will help me on sight if they aren't overloaded as well. On non truck days, I'm usually on my own at these hours though.

 

[Moosechives]

We're still trying to recover from the 15 total pallets of diapers over the last 2 days. Needless to say, we didn't come close to finishing today either. I left with 500+ batch orders for tomorrow too... loooooooool nope.

 

[Leonhart621]

I don't know why but whenever I'm off and not in SFS, there's always something that goes wrong. Sticky tape machine won't work, printer doesn't print out the collates, PDAs won't let you pull anything on the carts.

I'm the only one who hasn't called MySupport *knocks on wood*

 

[SFSFun]

The tape machine falls under the PMT, so let him know asap if it stops working. And I guess we're fucked if it dies on a Friday evening and he has already left for the weekend.

Calling CSC hasn't been so bad for me. It seems like if you call early in the day, you will reach a competent and very helpful American tech. Other TMs have told me that they always get useless help from Target India when calling later in the day.

 

[SnorlaxTM]

The tape machine falls under the PMT, so let him know asap if it stops working. And I guess we're fucked if it dies on a Friday evening and he has already left for the weekend.

Calling CSC hasn't been so bad for me. It seems like if you call early in the day, you will reach a competent and very helpful American tech. Other TMs have told me that they always get useless help from Target India when calling later in the day.

I got connected with "Target India", help wasn't too bad but they had a problem with their mic or something. Felt bad constantly asking them to speak up since I couldn't hear them at all.

Really just not digging this diaper sale. Our store is still kinda new to SFS, we've still got team members who haven't actually had hands on so they're not splitting orders of like four diapers into 2 and 2 so they all fit in the boxes.

 

[Moosechives]

We just split all diaper orders into 1 and slap the label on. Saves a looooooot of boxes lol.

Also we ALWAYS get Target India when we call CSC. They're almost always useless so we usually have them escalate to 2nd level immediately.

 

[konk]

PMT is always on call. Not sure how that would work with OT though.

 

[SFSFun]

We just split all diaper orders into 1 and slap the label on. Saves a looooooot of boxes lol

I wanted to do that! But our TL said no because it would get too messy and cost more to ship. Any tips for convincing him otherwise?

We're getting SCO this fall.
They're putting it right across from Starbucks.
Just kill me now.....

SCO?

 

[Lazy]

I wanted to do that! But our TL said no because it would get too messy and cost more to ship. Any tips for convincing him otherwise?


SCO?

Self check out. I think they posted in the wrong thread

 

[Moosechives]

I wanted to do that! But our TL said no because it would get too messy and cost more to ship. Any tips for convincing him otherwise?

Explain to him the positives outweigh the negatives. Yes, Target will more than likely eat more shipping costs from sending out each individually. What is more important though? Saving a few dollars on shipping or being a lot more efficient with your orders by finishing everything faster, AND/WHILE maintaining a healthy stock on your boxes. Regardless, half the time you're going to have to split it to 2 or 3 to actually fit into a damn box so might as well go the whole way. By not sending out individual diapers, you always run the risk of running out of essential boxes, especially if 1) you don't keep on top of ordering 2) the box distribution center runs into trouble and has order delays and 3) you don't necessarily HAVE the boxes to begin with. Sooooo, in turns of costs (throwing out the stupid "it costs too much to ship" excuse), it turns into, the price per box of collates vs a pallet of boxes and which you value more?

 

[SFSFun]

@Moosechives i think he was more concerned with increased shipping costs due to more containers.

But I'll try it anyways and make sure to stress on supplies. We've already blown through a pallet of 278s and 280s and we would be running low soon if we hadn't started off the week with double the suggested amount of pretty much all supplies.

 

[Moosechives]

I think the point I was trying to make was that it is basically a double edged sword. Either we pay more to ship more individual boxes or we pay more to replenish our own supplies. We get bork'd either way, which is why we chose the way that saves our team in terms of our metrics and our supplies. I like to think that corporate figured they'd be massively screwed over with shipping costs from the start. I don't think he has to worry about costs of shipping unless theres an email or redwire specifically telling us not to do this.

 

[Dekaf]

Does anyone know if there is a specific list of pilot stores for Ship From Store. The pilot page on workbench says 4-6 weeks, yet I haven't received any communication specific to my store yet to proceed with TM/TL training. Thanks!

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

Does anyone know if there is a specific list of pilot stores for Ship From Store. The pilot page on workbench says 4-6 weeks, yet I haven't received any communication specific to my store yet to proceed with TM/TL training. Thanks!

@Moosechives or @SFSFun, We need some help on this.
Here is a link :
http://www.thebreakroom.org/index.php?threads/sfs.11906/

 

[Kroneru]

Workbench>Quick Links>Store Reports>Logistics

There are five links related to SFS with the bottom link being the most informative in my opinion. WTD/MTD/YTD sale figures, top 5 selling and INF quantities and value, and much more. Really elaborate spread sheet that covers the previous three weeks of transactions. A TM from a top performing ESFS location transfered to my store too. Big plus. I won't go into further detail than that about them.

 

[SFSFun]

@Kroneru have you seen the report that shows INFs recently? I think I was called the LOS report. I can't find it on workbench anymore.

 

[SFSFun]

Does anyone know if there is a specific list of pilot stores for Ship From Store. The pilot page on workbench says 4-6 weeks, yet I haven't received any communication specific to my store yet to proceed with TM/TL training. Thanks!

If the ETL-LOG/OPS and the STL don't know about it, the DTL definitely will know.

And it has moved beyond pilot phase at this point, with several hundred stores participating. If spot ever wants to stop, they are going to have to build a new Fulfillment warehouse or two to accommodate.

 

[Moosechives]

@Kroneru have you seen the report that shows INFs recently? I think I was called the LOS report. I can't find it on workbench anymore.

The los report hasn't existed in months because the team that did that report was let go. They finally removed it from store reports just recently.

 

[Kroneru]

@Kroneru have you seen the report that shows INFs recently? I think I was called the LOS report. I can't find it on workbench anymore.

The los report hasn't existed in months because the team that did that report was let go. They finally removed it from store reports just recently.

I don't recall ever knowing or looking at a LOS report to begin with.

So some twit two days ago took two keys off our SFS key set. Following day the entire thing is gone. Person doing SFS today had to constantly call LOD for the workstation door and Elec for their stockroom. As far as I know AP caught who took the first two key though I never asked if they saw who took the entire key ring. The kicker is instead of making them come in and return the two keys asap they waited until the tm's next shift to get them... plus the key ring itself is still gone.

Spoiler

 

[SFSFun]

The los report hasn't existed in months because the team that did that report was let go. They finally removed it from store reports just recently.

Well that sucks. We are looking to move towards keeping a log of all INFs and researching the counts to zero. But it will be kind of hard to enforce if we can't actually see who is canceling random shit and not writing it down.