MEGATHREAD Hang Me (The Softlines Thread)

NeoDarikona said:
Summer is coming, and if you're a high volume apparel store you will be...hurting.

My store right now is getting decimated in Softlines. Despite the closers being fantastic we still keep ending with 4 to 8 Zs of processed and 10 carts of unprocessed. Our poor SLTLs are about to shoot themselves and the store can't keep up.
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And they wonder why the softlines scores are so low? If you have eight to twelve z-racks of go backs and no one to put them back out on the floor and the guests can't find their size.... we lose sales. And those of you closing with one or two people... either you have a small store or your softlines looks like crap all the time. I know our store is starting to look that way.
 
Ours doesn't entirely look like crap haha. Tables usually get done, some depts are favored so they usually look dope and the ones no one likes (shoes, intimates, infants) are a perpetual mess. We also usually have a ton of reshop lately. We stop reshop early and add it to the br with the others. Le sigh. It was good yesterday, because inventory, but they've called me twice today to come in so I know there are disasters occurring as we type. And the fr has been so busy that it's impossible to keep up with the carts from gs. They constantly call us "soft lines, you now have 3 carts. Can you come get them!?"
 
Our SL reshop is out of control too. Usually there's a down time between Christmas and back to school- not quite as busy- but not this year- and of course we don't have the store staff we have during the holidays. We went from a high volume to not but I don't think anyone told the guests. Our LOD has started sending people home early to save on hours- which makes it worse. We always manage to finish the zone- sometimes it looks great and other times looks meh, .... One of the issues we have is that some of us do complete zones and others do only the outer rows and front tables leaving the center and back rows virtually un zoned. not to mention the idea of putting reshop away as you zone seems to be a foreign concept :mad: As the trainer... it makes me crazy!:confused:
 
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prideinwork said:
Omg!!! I am getting sooo frustrated with softlines. My store softlines dept looks like Walmart clearance section throughout. Is that what we really want the customer to see at Target? I work o/n, bust my butt every night, only to see day tm strolling and sliding hangers to the front of the bar or those black rings on peg hooks... Seriously? So it doesn't matter that the tables are unfolded and so over pushed that logistics can't push what needs to go out? As a customer, I hate seeing such lack of order. I'd rather see gaps than see the mess we have. Forget about shoes. I can't imagine how many sales are lost because things are flexed and nothing is in the spot it should be. When I shop, I expect to find what I'm looking for in the spot it should be. If I wanted to go hunting for the things I needed, I'd go to TJ Maxx or another closeout store. Sorry, but I had to vent.:eek:
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I dont even want to get started with shoes.....I have been traumatized by too many working huddles over there
man-screaming.jpg
 
Dreamwolf31 said:
2 people?
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Its common for us to have 2 in SL- 1 in the fitting room the other on the floor. We started being responsible for the phones all day/everyday about 3 weeks ago. A few years ago I used to have to zone all of SL by myself a lot . So I have my routine down- but our new hires complain constantly about how hard it is to zone with 2 on the floor and 1 in the fitting room.
 
Oh.. ( 1 more then I'm done venting! LOL):p In our shoe department,,, they took down ALL of the label strips on the shelves. The only things that are labeled are the pegs. still scratching my head over that decision! o_O
 
We have no problem keeping up on the carts as our FRO is chained to the FR... we don't have a cordless phone so she/he has to stay in reach of the desk. Most of our FROs don't have any trouble keeping up with the hanging and folding. The problem comes when it comes to putting stuff away. And I am ABSOLUTELY green with envy for those of you who get to keep your re-shop in the BR. Ours is clustered to one side of the FR and pretty much making it impossible to shop the area if you wanted to. And then if there is a CAF in the back for SL they push it over and leave it at the FR desk... like we don't have enough crap clustered around the FR? Today when I came in there was literally stacks of boxed diapers all over the floor to one side of the FR.
 
crazysoftlinescloser said:
Oh.. ( 1 more then I'm done venting! LOL):p In our shoe department,,, they took down ALL of the label strips on the shelves. The only things that are labeled are the pegs. still scratching my head over that decision! o_O
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Probably because some asshole in corporate thinks it's a brilliant idea to put the prices on the fricken labels. If the screwballs would QUIT doing that and stick to ONLY putting the sizing and barcode and description we could leave the labels up and flex where needed and not worry about higher priced products accidentally or purposefully finding their way into lower priced areas because the fact is that the guest isn't going to read the tiny print BUT if the label says 19.99 when the shoes are actually 29.99 you can bet your boots they're going to make a fuss.
 
crazysoftlinescloser said:
Dreamwolf31 said:
2 people?
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Its common for us to have 2 in SL- 1 in the fitting room the other on the floor. We started being responsible for the phones all day/everyday about 3 weeks ago. A few years ago I used to have to zone all of SL by myself a lot . So I have my routine down- but our new hires complain constantly about how hard it is to zone with 2 on the floor and 1 in the fitting room.
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I still can't help but shake my head over this one. Would you be kind enough to tell me what your routine is and how many hours you're given to complete it? Because if this works for you... we're sure as heck doing something wrong. >< And believe me... any help/advice is welcome. :)
 
I still can't help but shake my head over this one. Would you be kind enough to tell me what your routine is and how many hours you're given to complete it? Because if this works for you..

I commonly will start at 6 later.... When its just me I start in the worst area first- (infants/girls or shoes) then move on from there.I put reshop out as I go. When Its 2 of us on the floor then we split it front and back. Front= accessories, infants/gondolas and girls. Back = Mens, boys, shoes, and intimates/active .Some nights we will wave zone- 1 person does the reshop for that section while 1 zones- By 9/9:30 we've pretty much zoned everything but shoes and we wave zone that. we do sometimes have to leave reshop
 
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crazysoftlinescloser said:
I still can't help but shake my head over this one. Would you be kind enough to tell me what your routine is and how many hours you're given to complete it? Because if this works for you..

I commonly will start at 6 later.... When its just me I start in the worst area first- (infants/girls or shoes) then move on from there.I put reshop out as I go. When Its 2 of us on the floor then we split it front and back. Front= accessories, infants/gondolas and girls. Back = Mens, boys, shoes, and intimates/active .Some nights we will wave zone- 1 person does the reshop for that section while 1 zones- By 9/9:30 we've pretty much zoned everything but shoes and we wave zone that. we do sometimes have to leave reshop
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I feel I have to ask how you zone now... because there is no way in heck one person could zone 11 departments (girls/ boys/infants/baby world/ men's/active/ hosiery/ intimates/shoes/accessories/ready to wear) in that time frame and do it to "code" (pulling everything forward on shelves in BBW and Shoes and putting all racks in size, color, style order and folding all tables to perfection with items sized from smallest to largest and making sure clearance is clean and organized.... not to mention making sure accessories has something on every peg hook and all sunglasses are moved up and.... the list goes on) unless your store was really small and not very heavily shopped. This is why I asked you what your routine was. I'm just as interested in how you zone as I am in the order in which you zone. ;) Of course, reading what you wrote I'm guessing your SL dept isn't responsible for Baby World (BBW)?

Do you simply fold the tables, pick up the floor, and put reshop away? Do you walk through shoes and just pick up what's on the floor and scattered across the display shelves? Please understand that I am in NO way knocking how you zone. This isn't about that at all. We're just hurting and I'm up for any ideas that'll make our job a little less stressful. Like, what are your shortcuts? I know that something somewhere HAS to give... and we're just trying to make it work is all. :)
 
* I don't get how to copy what you wrote to here...*
I/we do a complete zone that includes all of infants(racks & gondolas :baby items, monitors, food, diapers, etc.all of accessories, girls, boys, mens, shoes, luggage, intimates, activewear. then we have an operator that zones RTW, and if she/he can get to it they do intimates/active. I/we pick up the floor/ rehang, fold all table, zone it to "code" (pulling everything forward on shelves in BBW and Shoes and putting all racks in size, color, style order, finger spaced and folding all tables to acceptable perfection (without board folding- though most of us can do it with out the board. though to be honest not everyone folds the same-( some fold a little wider some a little narrower ) with items sized from smallest to largest and making sure clearance is clean and organized... ( size, style) racks do pegs ( though our etl's aren't as particular- we need to have them picked up, remove rewraps, etc, pulled forward for the most part if there are some that aren't we don't usually catch flack. We do fill empty racks,. pegs,etc. We are no longer classified as a high volume store but were at one time( within 4 yrs)-and are one of the busiest in our area. Most of our team averages 5+ years experience- all in softlines. We all take great pride in the zone- so with our combined efforts ( day and night) we make it work. On rare nights we have cashiers that help with infant racks/gondolas/accessories but most of the time its up to our team to finish up on our own. and then we are asked to help the other areas.we have currently been over run with reshop- but are starting to get ahead- :D I may get there at 6 but the others start earlier- though it seems like things really get "started" at 6 or so- Most times we are pulled for CAFs/backup/etc. Hope this gives you some ideas- :)we did try wave zoning- but can only do it on occasions- we found that there was more socializing than working...:p but wave zoning shoes is a must! Most night we split the zone front/back. We have people that like the back- others prefer front- so that helps too- get someone in the same area repeatedly.. and voila-oh.. the really pisser is if we have 3 people for the floor +operator- they pull our 3rd... b/c we can do it with less.... ( there have been times they've pulled our 2nd.)
 
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We usually break up the floor with 3 people - we have one do men's/active/hosiery/intimates..... one do infants/shoes.... and one do girls/boys/accessories.... then we get together to wave zone BBW (beginning of the night) and RTW (end of the night). And still... we struggle to get it all done by close. We don't have problems with the "socializing" aspect when we wavezone... in fact, sometimes we race each other just for fun but oye... I think part of our problem is because some of our ETL/LODs only know how to say "softlines can you send someone up for guest first" and they never call hardlines. One of our gals ended up at the front for almost an hour before they let her go. The other thing is that more than half of our team are new, so speed isn't there yet. Our zone time is typically 6pm to 10:45 pm.... prior to that any time we have is spent on CAFs and SL GBS... and the ever present "GUEST FIRST!" calls.... (side note: we have cashiers calling off almost EVERY day, sometimes one...sometimes two...is so annoying because we don't have the personnel to replace their shifts). And to top it all off they give us just enough hours where we have to take a lunch and give the FRO lunch too... and while HL has to break electronics they have a cordless phone (we don't) and can do so while they are zoning. So our FRO definitely cannot zone all of RTW though she does as much as she can near the desk without missing the calls.

Ah well... great job to your team. Very impressive. :)
 
Our BBW department looks just like the rest of HL and has 19 aisles? It includes everything from diapers to formula to wipes to pacifiers to car seats to safety gear to bedding to socks and underwear and boppies and monitors and baby hangers and storage options and the JOY clothing and bottles plus a whole lot more.... not to mention the furniture and strollers. Do you have "gondolas" in hardlines? Not sure what the term means...
 
We call that area baby care, infant hardlines, and/or infant/baby gondolas.
 
sigma7 said:
We call that area baby care, infant hardlines, and/or infant/baby gondolas.
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Usually called infant hardlines in our store and part of the reason they send TMs through SL for training. We actually train our TMs to do both SL and HL due to the areas we have to zone. Then once they're trained on our side they get shifted to HL or wherever... though we're all "salesfloor" now apparently. :) What is a gondola? Is it the shelf space from one end to the other in HL?
 
Funny how different stores call areas different things- BBW in other stores is apparently what we call infants which includes the racks, and the hardlines portion of infants- which we call gondolas. This area includes the k6-k21 bedding, onsies et al,, socks/ shoes, toddler underwear etc , toys, care seats, formula wipes/bath stuff and diapers strollers, bouncers, cribs, etc and JOY has its own wall in our infant rack dept. It( gondolas) is the only hard lines part we have. ( unless you consider luggage....)We do have a cordless phone we can use. Our schedules are just short of the 5 hour mark for all but 1 -2/shift. Hl people rarely come to sl and have said they are "scared " of the carpet. LOL:cool:. As previously mentioned we typically do not get help to finish- @right arm- I'm curious about the way you break up the zone- we have found that infants/girls are hard shopped so do them first.- but Mens/boys /shoes can go quick- b/c neither is typically shopped hard. Shoes is of course- but we wave that. Not having someone able to do RTW would be horrible. LOD typically calls zone by 10:30- unless we are blessed with hours. As for back u p we are always called- but
our tl/etls/gstls are wise to those that do not respond- and will refer to the grid and start calling . If we still have CAFS after 7 the LOD's tend take em.
 
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It wouldn't even help if they referred to the grid in my store. There's only 3-4 people for them to choose from all together.
 

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