MEGATHREAD Hang Me (The Softlines Thread)

[Spike]

We must be twins lol. When they made the schedule, I had around 37 hours and was pleasantly surprised (normally I want as many hours as possible but I am in grad school and am trying to finish up my semester). Then the ETL-SF asked me to take an extra full shift next week. Now I'm scheduled for 45-46 hours with only one day off. I should've told her I'd take the shift provided I don't have to do fitting room on Thanksgiving night haha

This is my exact situation! Monday is my only day off this coming week, and was just scheduled for another shift making me at 45. That's not accounting for the fact that I'll probably be there 2-3 hours later Wednesday than scheduled. I'm dreading the phones Thursday -.-

 

[doxiemama]

Well, they took my extra shift away from me. Something about needing to reduce everybody's hours. Helloooo? You have all of these team members you can rely on, who know the store, know what they are supposed to do and show up when scheduled. And you are taking away our hours to give to seasonal help that are hardly out of diapers, don't know their way to the restroom, won't look a guest in the eye and show up sporadically?

 

[sher]

I zoned mens including those stupid haggar 26 pants that all look the same (slim, straight, performance, charcoal, "navy" etc etc) and I feel like some retail version of the ikea effect is taking over me. Ikea effect = people feeling more attached and connected to things they had a role in "creating"/putting together.

I just wanna stay in mens all day to make sure it stays pretty. But... I know it's gonna be a thing of the past soon. *sigh*

 

[RightArm]

How's everybody doing now that Black Friday is over? Has it slowed down any for your stores or are you still working both ends against the middle? And I swear if another guest says "job security" when they see me cleaning up a folded explosion on one of our tables I just might.... just might.... I dunno. I did, however, smile at her and say "actually I have five or six other jobs I do in this store so..." Oye. Some people. It's like they believe we're there to be retail maid service so they can be the biggest slobs ever.... and some of them actually think we ought to be thanking them for wrecking our tables and throwing clothes on the floor because if they didn't do that then Target would have no need to employ us. Seriously? I dream of a non-existent world where guests put things back where they got them from so I can work on the details toward a perfect shopping experience - you know the little things we struggle to get to - like 4x4s everywhere! cleaning the shelves and making sure they're full, getting the research done so that we can actually HAVE their size in stock, making sure counts are correct, signing is correct, fixtures are labeled properly, POGs/Salesplanners/New Product is set, that they can actually find what they're looking for with ease, mannequins and mirrors are cleaned.... *sigh* I know... dream on, RightArm.... dream on...

 

[doxiemama]

I wore the Target Menorah Sweater tonight. It has a battery pack and the candle flames flicker rather colorfully and brightly. I had picked up a light weight red fly away sweater to be as close to brand as possible. I wish my phone video had worked better because it was a riot once it was lit and going. From Target.com :

I was a little surprised at the reaction. A few people thought it was hilarious but the majority did not know what to make of it and avoided eye contact with me, particularly at the registers. I tried to chat them up the way I usually do, but they were clearly not interested. I wonder if the muslim fears are starting to fuel fears of any religious group that doesn't fit the White Conservative Christian archetype which is growing in popularity. I was nice and only wished the guests a Happy Holiday. I think that, based on their faces, if I had wished them a Happy Hanukkah, they may have just fainted on the floor. They looked that uncomfortable. But then there were two ladies who were obvious Jewish and just tickled by the whole thing. I told them our Target was becoming more enlightened and they thought that was a very good idea and said that they would certainly choose Target over other stores if we maintain Holiday Judaica (that's fancy crap to the rest of you). They left the store laughing - a good thing. I only have 8 nights to wear the darned thing so I'm going to live in it this week.

 

[Doglover89]

I wore the Target Menorah Sweater tonight.

You are brave! I live in an area with a fairly large Jewish population but would be afraid to wear anything like this. I wear a Star of David necklace occasionally, but I know some people find it offensive. When I was young, I had friends whose parents really didn't want me to hang around them because I'm Jewish. I've never forgotten that. I hope someday people can learn tolerance, and to judge each other by something other than race/religion/etc.

 

[commiecorvus]

Happy Chanukah @doxiemama and @Doglover89

 

[RightArm]

Haven't seen that sweater in our store but where I'm at I think it'd be worn without a hitch. Not sure what our population spread is in regards to religion but I do know that people are openly accepting of others. If you can't tell, I'm not a native of the area. I have, however, seen the ridiculous two headed sweaters and the group of ones they put in men's with the suggestive wording that suddenly had corporate so worried we weren't allowed to put them on the mannequins even though the VA called for them. And happy Chanuka/Hannukah or Merry Christmas or Happy Kwanzaa to whom it applies. However you celebrate the season or even if you don't hope it's the best ever.

 

[sher]

The target website is being dumb lately. If something is out of stock online and it's something our store doesn't carry, it still shows up as an item that can be picked up at the store (when you click on it, it says 4-7 days which leads me to believe the ship to store isn't in sync properly with the website inventory). The thing is, people see that it's a available for pickup and they come to the store or call. I've had to disappoint so many people about that menorah sweater, I feel so bad every time. The whole thing is annoying and there's 74793847 Christmas sweaters they walk by before they even get to me.

Happy Hannukah, guys!

P.s. I don't think anyone celebrates Kwanzaa lol. I tried to a couple of times when I was younger, but I didn't read the instruction manual in time. I've had guests tell me happy Kwanzaa in the past haha and I'm always caught off guard because I'm expecting to hear something different and my mouth is already forming the words "thanks, you too!!" Then I have to reconfigure what I'm saying haha.

 

[signingminion]

We have a tiny endcap of Hanukkah stuff this year and it kills me. No good stuff, no dog toys. I've been abb honorary Jew fir so many years...It's bad enough we don't carry matzoh but I need more wrap and dreidels....

 

[sher]

My haggar pants zone is no more. Other TMs (and certain TL ahem) couldn't be too bothered with the maintenance despite the color coded tags. I sorta fixed them a couple days ago but the slim pants were too far gone... Medium gray mixed with black mixed charcoal mixed with navy.
ETA: We have enough TMs for it to not fall as far as it did. We're closing up with very little reshop, and openers are often bored.

It's getting harder and harder to care, man.

I zoned baby joy so that the fleece with no feet, fleece with feet, cotton blend with and without feet and multi piece outfits were all separate then the baby tm "fixed" it so outfits and footed things etc are all mixed together. Maybe the VA wants it like that? Idk. The zone I fixed was so bad I couldn't tell where things originally went anyway.

I'm starting to feel unnecessary at Target.

 

[Astyra13]

I swear if anyone flubs up the girls' tables tomorrow while I'm cashering I'm gonna have a hernia.

It was a freaking train wreck and a half. It took almost an hour to get one of the tables with the different character shirts organized, folded and then organized by size. Then there was the shelf that has like, 5-6 shelves....it looked like someone grabbed fistfuls of clothes and just made a giant ball on the top shelf with them. That whole thing alone took an hour and a half, almost two. I was very proud to let my LOD know that it was done and have her walk it; she walked by and asked how I was doing when I was on the third shelf and said "Yeah...it was like that yesterday, too." Like....did someone not zone girls or did it explode that bad?

I got a little ticked off when I came back from my lunch and found one of the shirts unfolded and draped over a bar....not even two inches from the pile. I know Christmas Shopping is very very stressful, but seriously....it's like, two inches from you. You could at least...you know what? Never mind.

All that matters is I got a massive, overflowing cart of reshop done for Girls, zoned it to make it look pretty damn beautiful, JAC got reshopped and zoned beautifully, even with me occasionally knocking bottles of lotion over on accident....and I made my LOD happy.

 

[CrowsFeet]

We have been slammed.

As far as zoning goes, all I have to say is that there are women shopping in the men's department. You all know what that means.

 

[antivibe]

I've had so many questions these past few weeks and I'm finally getting a chance to post them on here!

1. Do you guys know the SAP number for those white hanging dividers that are used to separate reshop on the z-racks?
My team has been begging for me to order more because they all went missing, but I have had no luck finding them.
They're white and have brand names on top; Merona, Xhil, etc.

2. How do you guys organize your reshop? I've noticed that a lot of stores have their own unique systems of sorting reshop in the fitting rooms.
The TL before me grabbed some clear bins off the floor and had the team use them for folded and some shoulder hangs for the hanging. I went to
a store last night that used 3 tier carts for their reshop. My fitting room is tiny, but we are high traffic and always flooding in reshop.

3. Are high-capacities discontinued fixtures? I use them for clearance and for all those puffy winter jackets. We're really low on fixtures and my STL told me to order more.
I couldn't find them on SAP. I've noticed that newer stores don't have high-capacities but instead use convertibles with shoulder hang bars, is this the new HC?

4. Shoes!?!?!?!?!?!?!? I'm not sure if all stores are doing this now, but my store no longer uses label strips in the shoe dept. We treat it like PTM year-round and we're not allowed to have backstock. Anyone in a similar situation? If so, how do you manage this? We've been doing this for a year and it's been a disaster.

I used to keep in touch with 3 SL TLs from my district and we would ask each other questions (needing extra fixtures, signing, part numbers, VA books, etc), but they've all quit or transferred. I have no one now
If you guys are able to answer any of my questions that would be awesome!

 

[Doglover89]

About re-shop: we have the white hanging dividers on two bars in our fitting room. RTW separated by brand, everything else divided by dept. Each department has a couple bins for folded random stuff. RTW has four, everywhere else has two I believe.

Shoes: We do use label strips but it is pretty much like PTM over there. It is ok to backstock; many times we have no choice. We just do the best we can at this point. Boots with boots, girls sneakers together, girls boots together, etc. Especially with our slipper/shoe wall my TL always just tells me flex, flex, flex with no holes.

Cant help with fixture questions. That information is limited to our TL and a few select TMs who handle that stuff.

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

@antivibe, some pictures of the fixtures would help please.

 

[jenna]

Shoes - we use label strips.

The zone is not always the best, but the label strips give you the DPCI (at least) and a small shot at helping a guest find a pair of shoes, and helping people stock and zone.
-
We don't have enough 3 tier carts to use any in the fitting room. We use tubs (that are transferred to shopping carts) and z bars + silver rolling racks.

 

[sher]

We have carts for each dept behind a wall in the fitting room that everything's sorted into. Folded, accessories, gondola junk go into the cart, and hanging stuff goes onto the handle. If we don't have a lot of people working and hanging starts to pile up too much, we put it on a z rack. Rtw is on the silver rack with the separators and the folded is in a cart that isn't behind the wall. We used to have a shelf in the area where the sorted carts are and we'd keep rtw folded there. I liked that better because it wasn't in the way or super visible to guests. And there's less space on a shelf so it forced people to put folded rtw away faster and not let it build up a ton.

I didn't realize there were so many methods to this sorting thing.

Shoes, we have label strips, but everything is flexed. We're not supposed to backstock them, but... That sounds stupid because I've seen shoe wall avalanches. And I think in some cases, it's a bad idea. We're not really back stocking anything and I've been avoiding so many purchases because of it. If there's 847294849394838 of an item on a rack or shelf, I just think I have time to wait for it to go clearance.

 

[mrknownothing]

4. Shoes!?!?!?!?!?!?!? I'm not sure if all stores are doing this now, but my store no longer uses label strips in the shoe dept. We treat it like PTM year-round and we're not allowed to have backstock. Anyone in a similar situation? If so, how do you manage this? We've been doing this for a year and it's been a disaster.

You'd laugh and/or cry if you saw the shoe aisle in my backroom. Maybe it's because we're high-volume with relatively high-ranking softlines sales, but even when the shoe shelves on the sales floor are completely full, we have so much backstock that the entire aisle of SHO1 and SHO2 is almost completely full.

You'd for sure cry if you saw our shoes department. Even with a dedicated zoner every night, it always looks like a tornado ripped through it.

 

[antivibe]

@antivibe, some pictures of the fixtures would help please.

I'm looking for the tags/dividers for z racks. They look like an average door knob sign, but I can't find them on SAP.

 

[antivibe]

You'd laugh and/or cry if you saw the shoe aisle in my backroom. Maybe it's because we're high-volume with relatively high-ranking softlines sales, but even when the shoe shelves on the sales floor are completely full, we have so much backstock that the entire aisle of SHO1 and SHO2 is almost completely full.
You'd for sure cry if you saw our shoes department. Even with a dedicated zoner every night, it always looks like a tornado ripped through it.

My own shoe department makes me cry. I have yet to find a shoe department that makes me feel better about mine.
Our shoe department is treated like MPG and we never reset it and it's obviously missing label strips. We try to keep it organized but it's difficult without strips,
then the flow team just ends pushing shoes anywhere they fit. I can't blame them since we're not allowed to have backstock. Just picture a shoe department where everything is mixed up and missing boxes. My store just pretends that shoes doesn't exist.

 

[CrowsFeet]

My own shoe department makes me cry. I have yet to find a shoe department that makes me feel better about mine.
Our shoe department is treated like MPG and we never reset it and it's obviously missing label strips. We try to keep it organized but it's difficult without strips,
then the flow team just ends pushing shoes anywhere they fit. I can't blame them since we're not allowed to have backstock. Just picture a shoe department where everything is mixed up and missing boxes. My store just pretends that shoes doesn't exist.

Even with strips our shoe dept looks like a war zone half the time. We have been getting so heavily shopped that we don't have time to make sure all the boxes are in the right place. If it is already on the shelf it just gets straightened.

Shoes out on the benches or left on the floor get put back in the right place though. Honestly, half the time I can't tell if our inventory is just off on things or if a guest has moved the box somewhere else.

 

[RightArm]

Geez... missed all this discussion back in December. @antivibe did you ever get the SAP # for the hanging dividers? We have High Capacities in our store as well and one of our TLs mentioned ordering one. I haven't actually seen if they've been discontinued but it does make sense considering we're already moving from the old lift and tilt shelves that weigh a ton to the lighter snub nose shelves that simply go straight in. Right now our RTL is in a snit to get all mannequin stores set to the M1 fixture map. Meaning she wants all the extra racks gone. Okay, fine, but would corporate stop sending a megaton of clothing first plz? I dread when this process is done and they send us a crap load of clothing and we don't have enough fixtures to put them on. There are only so many bars in the backroom and the BRMTLs have a hissy fit if we have anything hanging on them. ><

We have one three tier cart at the fitting room for kids and baby world. They put baby world in the top of the cart and the bottom of the cart and the middle is used for children's folded. There is another cart in the corner with three bins for hoiery/intimates/shoes/and accessories. Our operator is tasked with putting away RTW hanging/folding during her shift and as much of men' and active as she can get to. The TM on shift with her midday takes care of the children's cart and the cart of accessories/shoes/intimates reshop. Evening closers put away all reshop in their assigned areas. We've been coming in to no go backs in the morning between the mid and the closers. It's helped with being able to focus on workload with so few hours.

And speaking of workload. WTH corporate? With this new set of kids I have received two supposedly brand new POGs. One is of the same items on the table that are all discontinued and clearance. Srsly? And don't get me started on the girls' license joined convertible that had salvage on the labels. *sigh* I'm used to them occasionally including clearance on a new set and so I built the thing like they wanted only to find out that an entire section of the clearance was already salvaged out. -_- Wasted time finding the proper shelves only to have to pull them off again and flex hanging. I guess we call that "All in a Day's Work" at Target.

 

[BullseyeBlues]

At my store, because we aren't allowed to backstock any softlines, things get crazy fast, especially considering the actual space for the z, the kids rack, and the folded/accessories metro is barely the size of most closets. (It also has a serious spider problem the ETLs refuse to tell our PMT about. We're talking spiders with a main body about an inch in diameter when mature.) Almost nothing is where it would be on an adjacency despite the best efforts of our softlines team (which includes me because we're so understaffed that I get scheduled in softlines more than my actual workcenter, which is hardlines) because the portion of flow team that handles softline stock can't tell styles apart or just doesn't care about getting it right as much as getting it done. Despite being a low volume store, this leads to usually having a full garment rack, a full z, and a cart of miscellaneous shoes and accessories at the end of the night because there's no space but no backstock allowed. Yet the ETLs always want us to be reshop free. @Patty can attest to this. Plus, even though the store has been open more than a year now, corporate still has yet to send us some of the correct fixtures.

 

[antivibe]

@RightArm I was able to order the dividers! I ended up typing more random things onto SAP. Thanks for answering my other questions!
I bumped into the same problem with the last reset in kids. I took all the clearance off my tables and put them in a cart, only to push that clearance back to the home lol.