Archived How did the 9PM opening go at your store?

[Retail Girl]

Our biggest headache was those damn kids pjs that ended up being on recall when guests got to the register with them.

 

[redeye58]

Slammed in the 1st 3 hrs; alternated between SB & FA; died for the rest of my shift allowing us to restock & clean up the carnage; went home to shower & nap for 11 hrs before returning; got out early on the 2nd half of my split (yay!); coming back in about 13 hrs.
I smelled like burnt coffee & pizzas...
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

 

[Retail Girl]

I had 9 hours between my overnight shift and my day shift (both 7 1/2 hours) and then 12 hours between today's shift and to tomorrow's shift. Everyone in my store has told me that I've probably had it worst for as many hours in as little of a time period. I finally had a meltdown at the start of my meal period this evening. May tomorrow be better with a normal sleep schedule tonight.

 

[flygirl]

They should have had black/white ad with a place that says "item location" and a barcode. I walked and filled that out with the weds overnight sign crew and had 20 copies printed up for team leads and front end .

 

[dutifulTM]

It went okay. Like others, it did end up dying down quite a bit after a few hours... seemed to be picking up slightly by the time I left around 5am.

Most guests I had were wonderful to deal with, especially the couple that were so patient and not out for my blood when my register froze on them, and they ended up having to wait for it to reboot!

The customers, however, that took BF as an opp to challenge the price of every single item they had, on the other hand... :|

Oh, and let's not forget the idiots that tried to do a ticket switch on video games, one of which was CoD: Black Ops II (yeah, as if that's $15) ... whose bright idea was it to put temporary sticker labels on the games, anyways? Bet they would of gotten away with it, too, if they went to any of the newer cashiers instead of me.

 

[Snook]

I didn't work last night, but I went in around 10:30 and it was crazy busy, but the front end was organized. Honestly, it looked worse when I came in to work at 1pm. For me personally, I closed in PFresh so it was SUPER chill; got a lot of cleaning done!

 

[callmedarth]

It went well in our store. I was in electronics. We did have our store on lock down by the police for about 15 minutes while they arrested someone breaking into cars in the parking lot at 10pm.
I wish we had the black and white print out with locations. The one door buster product, the retro phone hand sent... a TM pulled it and replace it with fire logs. I was asked where it was all night.

 

[MrMrIce]

Got to the point where all the cashiers, gstls, cart attendants were able to sit at food ave and talk as everything was zoned and we even went 45mins without a single guest walking into the store.

 

[AmICrazy]

Ours went very well.

I had worked Wednesday night into Thursday morning to do ad set-up. Then I came back at 8:30 Thursday night and worked until 7am. That gave me a great idea where many things were.

While driving to work I noticed that the lots at the mart stores were far worse than ours, but of course they opened before us.

Our line stretched from the cart door all the way down the side of our building behind the grassy area where we normally park extra carts. Our SFT was outside talking to many of the guests about the detail of would happen when they entered the store. In addition the Target hired off-duty police offer drove past and told the crowd there would be no running, pushing, fighting, horseplay, or they would ejected from the store.

After clocking in I found my lunch/break/assignment card then headed down to the service desk for a quick huddle. At the huddle I was given a copy of the schedule (this schedule showed the TMs working with me in soft line), as well as a black and white with locations written on it.

I took my battle station in RTW behind the TV shop to wait for them to let the line in at 9pm.

Seemed like we stayed busy for the first 3 or 4 hours, but then it really died down. During this time they ran the line of guests waiting to pay up and down the aisles through market, cosmetics, and HBA. This meant that the main aisles were kept cleared and that line went through the less gifty areas of the store.

As it started to die down they sent many of the cashiers out to help zone in softlines. This meant my side of the store looked really good.

Then at 4am they brought out a few 4am-noon sale items, but as of 7am I am not sure if we had sold even one of them. I did know of one TM that was going to buy one of the TVs that was part of this special. Also there were still a few other TVs, lots of portable DVD plays left by the fitting rooms.

Things that sold very well in my areas were the $3 Circo Tutus, $3 mens thermals, RE Towels, Threshold Blankets., robes, iPod Docks, and video game systems. Items that did not sell so well included coats/jackets in RTW, portable DVD system, and music systems.

We did have lots of guests trying to get to the free $10 gift card even before 4am or without buying any clothing or home goods.

We were hoping to do $400,000 which is at least 8 times our normal Friday sales number. We were at $230 or slightly more when I left home.

Only had one or two people that had to be kicked out. Also someone found a small bag of POT in electronics.

 

[cihyfthedoor]

We were at $450k when I left at around 5:30pm, our forecast was a tad over $500k. Despite that our CAFs and sales were 2½ times what they normally are for a weekend day (let alone a Friday - 12PM CAF alone was nearly 500 DPCIs!), the backroom was amazingly clean and spic-n-span starting from around 3PM when fresh reinforcements arrived throughout the store to relieve the weary morning troops on the front lines. CAFs were getting pushed, things were backstocked, misc batches were pulled, and yet we were still doing $25k-$30k per hour. I guess we maybe kinda sorta quite possibly ACTUALLY had a good plan in place this year. Can't wait to see what the final number is tomorrow. We only made it to about ¾ of the way to the forecasted number last year, but this year we're owning it.

 

[CaptainRevision]

Only place that was a constant madness was electronics and video games.

But, if you want know if I approve this Thanksgiving working trend? Hell NO!!!

It needs to stop, no more. Holidays are meant to spend time with friends and families! Or by yourself, peacefully for a day.

All retailers (not just Target) need to stop this ridiculous act of killing a holiday!!!

 

[MrMrIce]

Only place that was a madness was electronics and video games.

But, if you want know if I approve this Thanksgiving working trend? Hell NO!!!

It needs to stop, no more. Holidays are meant to spend time with friends and families!

Your store should have done what mines did. Ask for volunteers. Everyone who was scheduled to come in Thanksgiving night actually volunteered.

Wasn't a big deal. Had a nice dinner, relaxed a bit then went to work and got time and half for a couple hours and then dollar extra rest of shift and came home to leftovers.

 

[CaptainRevision]

They could do that, but I don't think many people wants to work on Thanksgiving unless forced.



Even at all the shift differentials, bonus $1 it just $30-40 more pay, which really isn't much to sacrificing holiday, IMO.

I don't get how your store got employees to co-operate on this, willingly.

 

[TargetOldTimer]

They could do that, but I don't think many people wants to work on Thanksgiving unless forced.



Even at all the shift differentials, bonus $1 it just $30-40 more pay, which really isn't much to sacrificing holiday, IMO.

I don't get how your store got employees to co-operate on this, willingly.

Well, it was already a paid holiday, plus if you worked Thursday, it would be at time and a half. Bit more than $30......

 

[CaptainRevision]

Nothing under $100 is worth not spending time with family and friends IMO And I really don't even have a big family/friends circle and I am saying this. I just believe this is a tradition that should NOT be changed for the sake of GREED, which is exactly what all this is about.

 

[TargetOldTimer]

Your store should have done what mines did. Ask for volunteers. Everyone who was scheduled to come in Thanksgiving night actually volunteered.

Wasn't a big deal. Had a nice dinner, relaxed a bit then went to work and got time and half for a couple hours and then dollar extra rest of shift and came home to leftovers.

Our store had a volunteer board. It was filled! I guess thats why I didn't have to work Thursday. In years past I've worked thanksgiving and hosted dinner. I just cook the days before, and lose some sleep to make it happen for my family. But I'm in my 50's, so I guess I don't need as much sleep.. LOL!

I do agree that this Black Friday thing has gotten out of control, but it is what it is. Nothing I say is going to change it and for me, changing jobs is not an option. So I put on my best attitude and try and have a great day. Today was fun, and the guests, for the most part, were great!

 

[Wildfirez]

Somehow my store managed to do $250k in the first three hours with only 14 lanes... Crazy busy

 

[Retail Girl]

My store had no such board for the opening and only preferential people were asked quietly what they preferred to work.

 

[AmICrazy]

Our biggest headache was those damn kids pjs that ended up being on recall when guests got to the register with them.

Ours had been pulled from the convertible before the beginning of the 4-day sale.

 

[lovecats]

We were projected for somewhere around $700,000 and at our huddle at 7:30pm on Fri we had made around $600 with over 90 red cards. Don't know what we ended up with. I was in market which was busy but not insane. In fact, they pulled one tm to work in electronics. Toys, electronics, and seasonal was really busy I know. We walked out at 11:30 after an 11 closing.

 

[Deli Ninja]

I do agree that this Black Friday thing has gotten out of control, but it is what it is. Nothing I say is going to change it and for me, changing jobs is not an option.

You have to know when to say something. Just not saying anything and pretending everything is fine and dandy will encourage Target as a company to continue to follow awful trends like opening at 9pm on Thanksgiving. We have to make our voices heard, but in a reasonable manner.

That said, I think many of us are here to rant, which is one of the purposes of TBR. Yes, this often gives threads a negative tone, but you'll find it anywhere.
What I'm trying to say in the end, I guess, is that silence is not the answer, but definitely don't complain all the time.

 

[BackroomTM]

My store did really well, we were super busy up until like 3am. Died down a bit. They said today that we were #3 in our district. We are the tiniest store layout possible and we beat a bunch of super Targets. We beat our forecast sales by 56k. For our backroom it was definitely the best BF I've had in 6 years i've been with the company.

 

[CaptainRevision]

Greed drives companies to do this. Some employees need the money or getting greedy too. They will want to volunteer. Some of us employees aren't as greedy and don't really care to work on Black Friday as long as we work enough on other days, you know.

The whole Thanksgiving early night opening though challenges some greedy employees whether they want to volunteer or not... It's opening at a family/friends gathering time. A lot of people don't want to work or shop during this time.

 

[redandkhaki]

Greed drives companies to do this. Some employees need the money or getting greedy too. They will want to volunteer. Some of us employees aren't as greedy and don't really care to work on Black Friday as long as we work enough on other days, you know.

The whole Thanksgiving early night opening though challenges some greedy employees whether they want to volunteer or not... It's opening at a family/friends gathering time. A lot of people don't want to work or shop during this time.

are you saying that the people who wanted to open are greedy? I actually love working on black friday and would have been highly disappointed if i couldn't have opened and it had nothing to do with the money. 95% of all of my cashiers wanted to open and/or work a double. I had a bunch of cashiers who were very disappointed that they couldn't open. Just because you don't think it's a great idea doesn't mean other people care about it or are just greedy.

 

[dek067]

are you saying that the people who wanted to open are greedy? I actually love working on black friday and would have been highly disappointed if i couldn't have opened and it had nothing to do with the money. 95% of all of my cashiers wanted to open and/or work a double. I had a bunch of cashiers who were very disappointed that they couldn't open. Just because you don't think it's a great idea doesn't mean other people care about it or are just greedy.

if it had nothing to do with the money, then they would've had just as much fun working on black friday as opposed to black thursday, and other tm who did not get the option could enjoy the day with family. i love working black friday, and i could've worked a double. i would much rather enjoy the day and give thanks for family that i only see during the holidays due to their location/work schedules. target would still be there on friday.