Archived How do we get product?

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FlowChick

FlowChick

Expect The Unexpected
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I notice lots of empty shelves at my store. I've noticed in my area, there is some product that's been out for months. I know right now is when everything is reset and things are phased out but how does the process work?

Does in stocks order what we need? Or does it just come based on sales?

At my former job I not only ordered the product but stocked it. I knew full well how much of something we should be receiving as well as what we were getting at is automatically ordered.

It was as simple as, scan the barcode, see the number total in the store as well as how much back stock, and enter in how many I needed, single or cases.

Granted it was just a gas station. So it was clearly a smaller store. But the difference was, when there was a product that was out of stock at the distribution center, an email was sent to us, and we all knew. Not just the leads. I was a lead myself.

What is Target planning on doing to fix this problem? Sometimes I feel like working in corporate. It's literally 5 miles away from me...But do I really want to at this point in the game.
 
I remember our TL talking about that! So it's true? Why are they striking?
 
Their not striking. They (their workers union) have just cut back the workforce they send to the ports by like 75%. It's all about contract negotiations.
 
Well clearly it's a big issues so what are they planning on doing. Is corporate just not listening to their stores? Or is it the leads not listening to the tms? Communication is totally fucked.
 
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This really has little to do with Target. This is happening at every retailer that has product coming through the ports. The issue is the suppliers of the product.
 
FlowChick said:
I notice lots of empty shelves at my store. I've noticed in my area, there is some product that's been out for months. I know right now is when everything is reset and things are phased out but how does the process work?

Does in stocks order what we need? Or does it just come based on sales?

At my former job I not only ordered the product but stocked it. I knew full well how much of something we should be receiving as well as what we were getting at is automatically ordered.

It was as simple as, scan the barcode, see the number total in the store as well as how much back stock, and enter in how many I needed, single or cases.

Granted it was just a gas station. So it was clearly a smaller store. But the difference was, when there was a product that was out of stock at the distribution center, an email was sent to us, and we all knew. Not just the leads. I was a lead myself.

What is Target planning on doing to fix this problem? Sometimes I feel like working in corporate. It's literally 5 miles away from me...But do I really want to at this point in the game.
Click to expand...
instocks and they encourage other work stations to scan outs. they'll put a grey circle if its been ordered and we're waiting on a shipment. there are a lot of shelf space we get paid for that we can't keep in stock. i can't keep an end cap active that looks like shit. our vendor is cool, but his peeps are awful.
 
POGguy said:
There is a port slowdown on the west coast right now. Not a total strike but damn close. That's the main reason for the empty shelves.
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So that's why my store has so many instocks opps! The ETLs would say "we have a lot of instocks opps" and use that to push CIHYFS on EVERY GUEST but would never tell us why we aren't getting the freaking product. I've seen grey dots on a certain picture frame for a month now.
 
I tell the the STL everytime he asks why its empty. "Get me the damn product."

Yeah the port won't talk to the workers, so they have slowed things to a crawl. A standoff. Workers still get paid but the port gets the flak.
 
The process of ordering GM is automated. There is a Database called the accumulator. It keeps track of how much product we have in the backroom, on the shelves, and compares it to the POS system. Once a product reaches a threshold (50% ) it sends a message to the DC, prints a label if the product is available, and the DC puts it on the next truck. If the product isn't at the DC the message sits in a Que until the product arrives. If the product is discontinued a message is still sent - but the software determines to send it to you based on historical sale data. If the algorithm believes your store has a high probability of selling the discontinued product you will get a lot of it. The lower the probability the less you'll receive.

Clothes are based on the POS. You'll get shipments based on sales and potential sales since hanging clothes aren't back stocked.

Produce, ice, meat are ordered manually - some stores.

Flaws- location accuracy, not pushing to the piece, over pushing product, bad zone, manual overide at DC to clear their inventory, and strikes.

The DC is notified by vendors about delays in orders and the DC has a message board to rely that message to Logs. Not all Logs know or care about reading it as it is not their concern what we get.

Fixing it - give stores more hours to run an efficient process.
 
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I have always said that Spot will send lots of things we don't need on the truck and a little of the things we do need. Perfect example, I live and work in the South we we just don't get that much snow here...( we may get a couple inches a couple times per winter ).Spot decided last year in Oct to send us sleds, snow shovels etc etc .They sent us pallets and pallets of them....never sold until they went clearance and even then they sold very slowly
 
tgtguy said:
I have always said that Spot will send lots of things we don't need on the truck and a little of the things we do need. Perfect example, I live and work in the South we we just don't get that much snow here...( we may get a couple inches a couple times per winter ).Spot decided last year in Oct to send us sleds, snow shovels etc etc .They sent us pallets and pallets of them....never sold until they went clearance and even then they sold very slowly
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And here in Michigan, in the middle of winter, we have no ice scrapers, and very few shovels. Go figure.
 
POGguy said:
If your like my store you have swim suits though. The high this week was 12 degrees.
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Some stores keep swimsuits year around. At my current T, we have the floor space for it so we might as well have a small selection. At my last store (a really small LV) we were about a block away from the YMCA and had a few indoor water parks that were popular vacation spots.
 
Does anyone know what "stand alone outs" do? My STL keeps telling everyone to scan outs everyday. The newer people Don't what he is talking about.
 
Outs are part of Instocks I believe. You scan an empty shelf space to see if there is any product in the backroom. If there is, you request a pull on the device and it gets sent to the backroom and someone eventually fills that space with the product. (These are the priority pulls you see if you ever do pulls). If there is no product, you put a grey dot where the label is.
 
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Does that include when it says we have 4 on hand (but obviously none are there) and none in backroom?
 
Stand Alone Outs - creates an EXF fill for the capacity of the item scanned. You scan a bunch of things under SAO then once you are done scanning an area/department you hit the create batch button and it generates a batch if anything you scanned has a back room location.

Grey dots are only put up when the system shows 0 OHs, not just when the shelf is empty.
 
Amaazingdude said:
Does anyone know what "stand alone outs" do? My STL keeps telling everyone to scan outs everyday. The newer people Don't what he is talking about.
Click to expand...

It looks for things in the back without changing counts and is not attached to a task list. So one must be careful to watch your scanning area and not make the batches to large. And outs will pull to capacity so if the capacity is 250, and you only need 4 but you in hands is 350, you are going to have a lot of backstock.
 
Also Stand Alone Outs will force it to the floor until it reaches capacity. IE, will be pulled if backstocked or will be sent to the floor if it comes in off the truck.
 
POGguy said:
If your like my store you have swim suits though. The high this week was 12 degrees.
Click to expand...

Spring break is in 2-3 months depending on the school. That and other tropical vacations is the reason. And apparently, these people take their children on these types of vacations. I've seena few people buy to use them as inspiration to workout and get it tight by summer.
 
sher said:
Spring break is in 2-3 months depending on the school. That and other tropical vacations is the reason. And apparently, these people take their children on these types of vacations. I've seena few people buy to use them as inspiration to workout and get it tight by summer.
Click to expand...
so how about we stock the stuff in 1-2 months so we can stock winter stuff a lil more
 
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