Archived Forecast logic

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I understand almost every aspect of why things are done from a corporate level....good or bad. What I don't understand was the December sales forecasts. They were forecasted that way for a reason. MOST stores missed every day in December except the 20-24. There has to be a reason and I can't figure it out. Tax? 2013 allocations? Anyone have any real thoughts? It's way deeper than just misallocating.
 
Same thing happened at my store too. We could afford only 4% loss of sales projections per day in dec, to avoid any cuts in payroll hours. We are cutting hours now.
 
our store must have gotten lucky. There were only two days that we didn't meet our sales goals in dec and one of those was because of a blizzard.
 
Maybe this is the answer. They wanted to guarantee they would have a valid & verifiable excuse for slashing payroll hours.

I don't want this this to turn into a moaning session about seasonal payroll disappearing. It does every year. Nothing new. I'm talking about a very specific forecasting concept for the month of December. If you don't have any reasonable input then don't give any opinion. I see this thread being very useless :/
 
As of Sunday Morning we were down ~250k for the month. so there's no way we're getting back in the black.
 
I don't want this this to turn into a moaning session about seasonal payroll disappearing. It does every year. Nothing new. I'm talking about a very specific forecasting concept for the month of December. If you don't have any reasonable input then don't give any opinion. I see this thread being very useless :/

I am sorry. This year was the first year that numbers were given & needed to carry payroll at my store through December. My leadership never really done that before now.
 
I don't want this this to turn into a moaning session about seasonal payroll disappearing. It does every year. Nothing new. I'm talking about a very specific forecasting concept for the month of December. If you don't have any reasonable input then don't give any opinion. I see this thread being very useless :/

Except it's a valid method for managing hours and reducing expense. No company is that stupid to assume that the THREE DAYS before Christmas are going to be just a casual shopping day.

Also, you ARE aware that the STL can influence (a bit anyways) the payroll in the store when they receive their forecast, right?
 
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Except it's a valid method for managing hours and reducing expense. No company is that stupid to assume that the THREE DAYS before Christmas are going to be just a casual shopping day.

Also, you ARE aware that the STL can influence (a bit anyways) the payroll in the store when they receive their forecast, right?
 
Ha. Yes I understand how the hours are allocated to the store and then the STL piece too. *sigh* Forget I even asked.....
 
Do you still have to make sales forecast to make golden contribution? Someone from my old store told me they would not make golden contribution because of the high forecasting.
 
Do you still have to make sales forecast to make golden contribution? Someone from my old store told me they would not make golden contribution because of the high forecasting.

That is a theory going around. Increase the forecasts, so that fewer stores make golden contribution. The first 4 weeks of December are a mystery......
 
There was a special on TV about how a lot of shoppers were waiting until the last minute to buy presents to try and get the best deals. A lot of retailers were in the same boat that we were because of it. However, I don't get why it would be different this year than in the past, so I don't think it accounts for the whole difference, but maybe part of it.
 
Thanksgiving was early this year, earliest it could ever be, so it spread the shopping season onto more days. Last year the sales were higher because of there being less days to do the shopping. I know my store, for instance, while we were missing sales big time, we were actually forecasted for -4% compared to last year.
 
So I found out we made about 50% over forecast for xmas eve haha. Crazy how we beat sales and almost did another half of it.
 
I know that 50k of my stores 210k of missed forecast for Dec was because of neiman-marcus; the rest however is a big a mystery to me as anyone else. On the subject of the lower hours everyone's getting, I've been told by my TL's it's because of Spot's aggressive expansion into Canada, and the hours are going to the new stores there, or so I'm told....
 
My guess is that with the economy on the "rise" (regardless of if it is or isn't, it's at least somewhat perceived to be so). They up'ed their sales figures to try and meet said perceived demand. I know the distribution side was diffidently pushing alot more this year then last to try and make sure that we where ahead of the game so as to not lose out on sales due to shortage in stores. So my guess is that the forecast has had alot to do with that as well. We don't make money on the distribution side, we just try and save it :D
 
I know that 50k of my stores 210k of missed forecast for Dec was because of neiman-marcus; the rest however is a big a mystery to me as anyone else. On the subject of the lower hours everyone's getting, I've been told by my TL's it's because of Spot's aggressive expansion into Canada, and the hours are going to the new stores there, or so I'm told....

Two years ago the excuse was all the remodeling. This year, it's Canada.

Expanding into Mexico will probably take a few years, so they'll need a way to suck money away from TMs in the meantime.

What excuse will they roll out next year? They're probably working on that question already.
 
So I found out we made about 50% over forecast for xmas eve haha. Crazy how we beat sales and almost did another half of it.

That's practically what my store ended up doing yesterday (and it wasn't even the day after Christmas).

If I had to guess, Neiman Marcus probably was figured into forecasts, and the hype didn't translate into sales.
 
We didn't do great the beginning of the month, but for this week, we are making up for payroll right and left.
 
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