Archived Flow-electronics battery shippers

[Gravalpea]

Greetings all! I have been stocking electronics/mmb for about 9+ months now and am having a problem with battery shipper/displays. What on earth am I suppose to do with them?
When I first started, I would just remove the batteries, stock them in the 20+ locations, and destroy the shipper. A few months later, I am a little wiser, and I send the shippers to backstock because I am flow and flow does not/cannot deal with shippers, to that extent. Imagine my surprise when that same shipper comes out the next day on my pull. Now, I have been trained to fill my own pulls and to backstock, so I know the system told the backroom to pull it. What should I do? Should I keep sending it to backstock? Should I pull the product out, stock it, and destroy the shipper? Or should I pull the product out, stock it, and send the shipper to the back empty so the sales floor can find it months later when they ask me if any battery shippers arrived?
Thanks 🙂

 

[see spot save]

I am in my second month working flow/backstock in electronics. What I ended up doing is when pulling autofills I would "pull" the assortment (scan it, key 1, "y" I removed all from location), then as soon as the batch was done I'd re-backstock it. I did this because it had a set date on the pick label. Once that set date passed and nobody pulled it/set it I asked the Plano TL. He scanned it, looked at all the locations, and told me to just push it.

So I pushed it. I kept the shipper around for a few days, I put it in an empty case stock location in MM2. It kept getting knocked into the aisle and I finally got tired of it being in my way and shoved it into the baler.

If someone comes by and wants it, I will either direct them to the Plano TL or tell them that it's now residing in the center of a cardboard bale somewhere.

 

[skullfire316]

In a perfect world, the battery assortment shippers would continue to be back stocked since probably 99% of those shippers are destined for an upcoming sales planners. It's extremely frustrating to set those idiotic electronics sales planners that have 5 shelves of batteries in vendor specific shippers only to find out the shippers have been emptied and tossed. Than we have to attempt to set the batteries up on the shelves only to have them domino because of the stupid package configuration. We try to solve this using fencing but finding the correct length and number of fencing is next to impossible let alone time consuming. We've instructed our dayside backroom team to immediately back stock the shippers when they drop in the CAFs but have yet to get Flow to follow suit.

 

[see spot save]

So I (and the backroom TMs that pull when I'm not there) should continue to pull and backtsock these shippers well past their set date? The one I'm specifically talking about was to be set on Feb. 2nd.

What effect (if any) would this have on inventory? The way I understand it, the system knows those batteries sold, it knows they are in the assortment pack, it puts them in a batch. We pull it and backstock it - the sales floor continues to sell down, and since inventory is always showing a quantity, they never get ordered. Or am I wrong?

Is it better to stock the batteries and just hang on to the empty shipper? Or just perpetually pull and backstock it?

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

You could hit "s" skip option to find other locations.

 

[Logistics princess]

If we HAVE to push out of a shipper, we put all the empty shippers aside till the signing chick can go through them with the plano TL and they decide to pitch them or not.

 

[commiecorvus]

Can't tell you how often I've found a listing on a planogram that called for a shipper only to get shrugs and 'I don't knows'.
Well, the product is sitting there (or tipping over since it wasn't designed to just sit on the shelf), the answer is obvious and it's not like I can order another one.

 

[Gravalpea]

Greetings all! These replies are very informative, and humorous, thanks! 😀

 

[brobley]

What's the difference b/t a battery shipper and a box of batteries, and how should I treat them differently if, say, I'm working Flow Team for Electronics?

 

[see spot save]

This is an example of a shipper. The difference is the product comes in a display rather than just in a box.

The pick label will most likely have a transition or revision date on it.

 

[commiecorvus]

This is an example of a shipper. The difference is the product comes in a display rather than just in a box.

The pick label will most likely have a transition or revision date on it.

And it's probably destined to go on an endcap in Electronics or in Toys someplace.
So please ask before you through it out.

 

[see spot save]

And it's probably destined to go on an endcap in Electronics or in Toys someplace.
So please ask before you through it out.

How long after the revision date should I hold on to it for? At what point can I open the box and push the product?

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

What is interesting is that the same battery has different dpci's. What's with that?

 

[commiecorvus]

And it's probably destined to go on an endcap in Electronics or in Toys someplace.
So please ask before you through it out.

How long after the revision date should I hold on to it for? At what point can I open the box and push the product?

Check with the PTL and Electronics.
If they are on the ball, they should have a good answer for you.

 

[backroomdude]

I have BR trained team members that pull E/E and then work it and backstock it. I hold them 100% responsible for the E/E room. The instructions I give them with battery shippers is, put them in our new release section, write the set date for the endcap on the outside of the box. The week after that set, since by now its been fake tied and never will be set due to clearance on the endcap, we empty the shipper and work out the batteries. The shipper is tossed, and all is well. The Hardlines TL over E/E knows this and we work together on it. Now I will say in our store our battery replenishment sucks, so we flex batteries all over the side caps, check lanes, battery aisle. So they usually dont set those endcaps anyhow due to the fact we need the batteries somewhere else worse.

 

[mrknownothing]

What is interesting is that the same battery has different dpci's. What's with that?

Perhaps for the same reason that identical iTunes cards have different DPCIs?