Archived more ad setup

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Ad setup has always been an opportunity for my store. While we've managed to bring it up to yellow, it's still a work in progress. This morning was ridiculous. We had 5 people scheduled. Not great, but doable with the size of the ad and the regular crew. BUT... our captain, for lack of a better word, had something come up and swapped the shift. OK, fine. The STL said she would see if she could get someone else to help out so we would have 6 tm's. Well... she didn't get anyone. The tm who took the shift, showed up an hour late. And the slowest tm on the crew... was moving in reverse this morning. o.0 really?
G was not pretty at all...Has anyone figured out just why we need double signs? I had a couple of aisles where I put up TPC signs and then had to go back and put As Ad/Sale signs on top, for the same price. Seems to me to be a waste of time and paper.
 
Best practice is for the the the furthest out (or lowest priced with same date) dated sign to to be put up, which is usually the TPC.
The real key to speeding up the process is the sorting process.
If you have somebody good, who knows how adset works and what is a real duplicate, then you wont have as much extra work.
That said, I have learned that of all the projects that Murphys Law applies to, that one that gets it most is adset.
"If it can go wrong it will."
And Asimov's corollary to Murphys Law also applies.
"Murphy was an optimist."
 
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The tm's that do the sorting during the week are good, they have cut down the amount of dupes a lot. We still have quite a few no loc's or products that we don't carry signs that we are trying to scan in anyway in the hopes of bringing our score up.
They usually have the signs by aisle and TPC's on top so those go out first. I'm not sure why they have us putting up both signs when the price is the same. When I've asked I was told the shorter date (ie ad ro's) go on top. I may just have to print out the bp and challenge the SrTL overseeing signing.
Doing the double signs killed my time this morning. Usually, I can have all the signs up and the endcaps done by 10:30 (we start at 6), but this morning, had to ask some one else to do my endcaps and had just gotten to seasonal with my signs.
And on a side note, anyone else have signs that are coming in wrong? I have an endcap that is dunkin donuts and folgers coffee. the dd is on tpc for $8 and the folgers is tpc for $9. My 7x11 came in as TPC "dunkin donuts or folgers coffee $8 each".
 
The tm's that do the sorting during the week are good, they have cut down the amount of dupes a lot. We still have quite a few no loc's or products that we don't carry signs that we are trying to scan in anyway in the hopes of bringing our score up.
They usually have the signs by aisle and TPC's on top so those go out first. I'm not sure why they have us putting up both signs when the price is the same. When I've asked I was told the shorter date (ie ad ro's) go on top. I may just have to print out the bp and challenge the SrTL overseeing signing.
Doing the double signs killed my time this morning. Usually, I can have all the signs up and the endcaps done by 10:30 (we start at 6), but this morning, had to ask some one else to do my endcaps and had just gotten to seasonal with my signs.
And on a side note, anyone else have signs that are coming in wrong? I have an endcap that is dunkin donuts and folgers coffee. the dd is on tpc for $8 and the folgers is tpc for $9. My 7x11 came in as TPC "dunkin donuts or folgers coffee $8 each".

Ok couple things... Your no locs signs need to go to the TLs of each area... Either you don't carry that product or the SP hasn't been set yet... Either way the TL needs to sort it out BEFORE ad set because it is a huge time waster...

Second continue putting the Sales on top of TPCs because that is best practice... Something being on sale will mean that it can be rainchecked and substituted... TPC can't... If you don't put the sale sign up everyone will just leave it there empty because TPC has different rules with that process... I don't see double signs being as much of a time waster as the no locs... In a perfect world you would get the exact amount of signs for what you need, but double signs aren't as terrible as an issue as too little signs and having to print off the ones you need :)
 
Ok couple things... Your no locs signs need to go to the TLs of each area... Either you don't carry that product or the SP hasn't been set yet... Either way the TL needs to sort it out BEFORE ad set because it is a huge time waster...
For G... I'm the one who gets the no loc's/no product lol I make sure these are all sorted out saturday so that they are either in the correct aisle or in a separate batch that can get scanned in so we get the credit

Second continue putting the Sales on top of TPCs because that is best practice... Something being on sale will mean that it can be rainchecked and substituted... TPC can't... If you don't put the sale sign up everyone will just leave it there empty because TPC has different rules with that process... I don't see double signs being as much of a time waster as the no locs... In a perfect world you would get the exact amount of signs for what you need, but double signs aren't as terrible as an issue as too little signs and having to print off the ones you need :)

Very true! It never fails that the printer decides to have issues when I have tons of signs to print
 
Protip - Look at the top right corner of each sign and check the POG number. Any that start with A4xx are ad ros and you can go ahead and assign them to the regular ad ro endcaps.
Protip - Use NOP instead of Item Search.
 
Not sure if this is an option for your store, but this is what we do at ours:

- 1 team member preps signs throughout the week (tear, fold, file, find missing locations). This cuts down on the confusion of having one person pick up where the other left off. Also, it holds one person accountable.

- 3 TM's (the same person who preps, myself, and grocery TM) are scheduled 12a-8a on Sunday for overnight ad set. We split up and set the whole store except softlines. At around 5a-6a one or two TM's and a hardlines TL will come in and help us finish up.

We switched to this overnight set and have nothing but green scores for a year. Since we have the same people doing it every week it cuts down on errors and we're able to spot problems that would probably be overlooked. We're a pretty high-volume SuperTarget so I'm not sure if you have the same amount of signing hours, but maybe it's something you could bring up.
 
I wish we could do overnights for ad set. starting at 6 am turns sense of urgency into complete and utter stress.
We have 2 tm's that prep the ad Wednesday night and friday night/saturday morning. One of those 2 tm's joins us sunday mornings to hang signs and do endcaps. We have a core crew for Sunday mornings, but with hours being so tight there's only 5 for hardlines and to get everything scanned by 8 and up by 10:30 is crazy some weeks. This was one of them.
 
Not sure if its an option at your store but we are ULV at my store and we have Saturday night closets scan the ad in at 10pm when we close and then when we come in at 6am Sunday we just have to put up and walk ends, its helped us come clean on ad by 8 or 9 if its a big ad.
 
Not sure if its an option at your store but we are ULV at my store and we have Saturday night closets scan the ad in at 10pm when we close and then when we come in at 6am Sunday we just have to put up and walk ends, its helped us come clean on ad by 8 or 9 if its a big ad.

hmmm... this might be something we could try. I'll have to bring it up. thanks!
 
Not sure if its an option at your store but we are ULV at my store and we have Saturday night closets scan the ad in at 10pm when we close and then when we come in at 6am Sunday we just have to put up and walk ends, its helped us come clean on ad by 8 or 9 if its a big ad.

I'll just say that if your ETL allows that then go ahead... but if it were my store I would probably hit the ETL who would suggest this! I am totally against scanning all the signs in all at once and then putting them up once they are scanned in... It drives me nuts and is an obvious ploy to get out of some number issues!
 
I'll just say that if your ETL allows that then go ahead... but if it were my store I would probably hit the ETL who would suggest this! I am totally against scanning all the signs in all at once and then putting them up once they are scanned in... It drives me nuts and is an obvious ploy to get out of some number issues!

I hear ya Rock. Unfortunately, due to differing hours of operation, there is no good way to follow best practice. Some stores scan everything in, then hang. Some, like mine, scan and hang as much as we can until about 7, then scan whatever is left, then hang. Some have one person scan everything, then the rest of the team hangs. There are so many variations from what I've learned on here.
If it is an overnight store or one that starts at 4 am, then yes, I would probably agree that it could be a ploy, but stores that are 6 am starts, really have no other options then to scan all at once to meet the 8 am deadline.
 
Not sure if its an option at your store but we are ULV at my store and we have Saturday night closets scan the ad in at 10pm when we close and then when we come in at 6am Sunday we just have to put up and walk ends, its helped us come clean on ad by 8 or 9 if its a big ad.

ULV's have no choice. Our ad team this morning was 5 people. 2 of them left at 9. Thats leaves 3 people to finish hanging, audit ends, and provide sales floor coverage, backup cashier, pull merch from the backroom (no payroll for backroom from 10 am to 1 pm), etc. 6 A.M.'s must scan, then hang. 5 of us had the whole ad scanned by 7. B,C,D, and F were done by 7:30. A and G were HUGE this week. We had the whole ad hung by 11 and ends audited by 1. I know that sounds crazy, but anyone that works in a ULV understands....and so do the DTL's that have a ULV in the district.
 
ULV's have no choice. Our ad team this morning was 5 people. 2 of them left at 9. Thats leaves 3 people to finish hanging, audit ends, and provide sales floor coverage, backup cashier, pull merch from the backroom (no payroll for backroom from 10 am to 1 pm), etc. 6 A.M.'s must scan, then hang. 5 of us had the whole ad scanned by 7. B,C,D, and F were done by 7:30. A and G were HUGE this week. We had the whole ad hung by 11 and ends audited by 1. I know that sounds crazy, but anyone that works in a ULV understands....and so do the DTL's that have a ULV in the district.

I understand completely! 5 of us come in at 6, 4 of us leave at 10:30. Whoever is doing E and F winds up covering electronics, the rest of us cover the sales floor and back ups. Today we had one HL tm come in at 10 and that was it for sales floor coverage. Like I said, we all scan and hang til about 7, and scan the rest then, so everything was scanned by 8. B thru F were done by 10. The SLTL came in at 8 and did the endcaps in A and G for us. A was done at 10:15 and then by the time we had to punch out, all that was left was seasonal and backwall of G, which the hltm did after covering the 1 tm that stays break.
I know each state is different but where I am we HAVE to punch out before we hit 5 hours, usually to be safe we do 4 hours 45 minutes. it stinks! cuz the 3 of us could have knocked out the balance in that time.
 
It was a dollar day for market & chemicals! Massive amt of signs & we didnt have enough folks a scheduled again. You can a peek at the ad on workbench under spefic store ad report & ask your Gstl for a copy.
At my 4am store, my team scans the ad out first & then put it uP. it's not bp, but it does work. Then, you find a boat lot of sp's not done.
 
It was a dollar day for market & chemicals! Massive amt of signs & we didnt have enough folks a scheduled again. You can a peek at the ad on workbench under spefic store ad report & ask your Gstl for a copy.
At my 4am store, my team scans the ad out first & then put it uP. it's not bp, but it does work. Then, you find a boat lot of sp's not done.

I looked at transitions complete that are due this week (3/11) before we started doing scan this morn. SPLR's were 3 of 54. LOL.
 
UGH! I started my spl's for this week last week. I only have 25 hours this week, 4.5 were signing and 6 on a closing shift. There was no way I was gonna be able to do all of market spl's this week. Not counting vendor or bulk spl's. I think I have about 10 left. ewwww. This changing market over once a month is for the birds!
 
Also we were told signing is no longer scored on a corporate level, only at the store level. That should take some of the stress off.

What I find is it is easier to scan when I get to the aisle, before I hang. Because if you're going to take the time to un-band all those signs you might as well hang them right then. Scanning by aisle motivates me to go quicker. Grocery scans after he hangs but I think that is a big waste of time. 99% of the time no 7x11's are sent from corporate for my side so I need to reserve plenty of time to physically scan endcaps.
 
I hear ya Rock. Unfortunately, due to differing hours of operation, there is no good way to follow best practice. Some stores scan everything in, then hang. Some, like mine, scan and hang as much as we can until about 7, then scan whatever is left, then hang. Some have one person scan everything, then the rest of the team hangs. There are so many variations from what I've learned on here.
If it is an overnight store or one that starts at 4 am, then yes, I would probably agree that it could be a ploy, but stores that are 6 am starts, really have no other options then to scan all at once to meet the 8 am deadline.

While yes we are currently on different operations (O/N store) I was in an ULV store with a DECREASE in sales growth every year for over 3 years... We started at 6AM for ad set and had it done by 8AM almost every Sunday (obviously you can't plan for call-ins)... We had the LOD, 1 for SLs, 1 for Electronics, 2 for HLs, and the GSTL and 1 ISTM helped... that is a total of 7 (IS and GSTL broke away early to do their own thing at 7)...

We never scanned ahead of time... our STL would have our heads if she caught us doing that... Even if there were call-ins and we weren't going to be done by 8AM she didn't care... our numbers were supposed to reflect how we did, and if we didn't get done by 8AM then the report shouldn't show that we did! She also made us scan AFTER we put up the signs for an aisle... and you never scanned in signs you didn't use! If you do it the other way around, you would have to force takedown the signs you didn't use (which takes forever)... So really, if you are doing your ad set correctly, scanning after is the fastest way!
 
While yes we are currently on different operations (O/N store) I was in an ULV store with a DECREASE in sales growth every year for over 3 years... We started at 6AM for ad set and had it done by 8AM almost every Sunday (obviously you can't plan for call-ins)... We had the LOD, 1 for SLs, 1 for Electronics, 2 for HLs, and the GSTL and 1 ISTM helped... that is a total of 7 (IS and GSTL broke away early to do their own thing at 7)...

We never scanned ahead of time... our STL would have our heads if she caught us doing that... Even if there were call-ins and we weren't going to be done by 8AM she didn't care... our numbers were supposed to reflect how we did, and if we didn't get done by 8AM then the report shouldn't show that we did! She also made us scan AFTER we put up the signs for an aisle... and you never scanned in signs you didn't use! If you do it the other way around, you would have to force takedown the signs you didn't use (which takes forever)... So really, if you are doing your ad set correctly, scanning after is the fastest way!

Hey Rock Lobster, I apologize, I should've started off by saying that yes our STL and all of our ETLs are on board with this type of setup, I hadn't heard how other ULVs do ad setup and I only wanted to offer up a suggestion in case it sounded like it might work for other 6am stores too. I can see why scanning after hanging has wins though because like you said that way you aren't scanning in and forcing down signs you didn't use. We used to just start scanning when we came in at 6am but often the team would be working on ad (including walking ends, making signs, auditing etc) until 11 or so, this particular method has helped us have everything signed and audited by 8 or 9 on most days. I will talk to our STL about the method that you just mentioned because maybe she isn't aware that this isn't the correct way to do ad setup that we are using at our store.
 
Hey Rock Lobster, I apologize, I should've started off by saying that yes our STL and all of our ETLs are on board with this type of setup, I hadn't heard how other ULVs do ad setup and I only wanted to offer up a suggestion in case it sounded like it might work for other 6am stores too. I can see why scanning after hanging has wins though because like you said that way you aren't scanning in and forcing down signs you didn't use. We used to just start scanning when we came in at 6am but often the team would be working on ad (including walking ends, making signs, auditing etc) until 11 or so, this particular method has helped us have everything signed and audited by 8 or 9 on most days. I will talk to our STL about the method that you just mentioned because maybe she isn't aware that this isn't the correct way to do ad setup that we are using at our store.

I wouldn't get too worried about it... Its a hot button for me (and my past STL) but for most leaders it isn't an issue... My current store is O/N and they scan in all signs at the beginning! It drives me nuts but I am not going to try and change it... They do the signing for us and I can focus on bigger opportunities... I'm sure your store has bigger issues that need attention over the ad set process :)
 
If its well organized by dept or aisle, Scanning in first, makes it no brainer to put up. Plus, it leaves more PDA's for the teams who need them the most.
 
I have one person prepping the ad (3x5's and 3x2's) and that same person does the ad map for soft lines. We do take down on Saturday night with the closing sales floor team. I have two people come in at 4am to start scanning the ad in, and then I have a team of 4 or 5 come in at 6am to start hanging signs. LOD or myself do end caps. Then I have one Team member that has done ad set for years run my ad audits. (not including end caps). We are often done by 8am, depending on the size of the ad.
 
I wouldn't get too worried about it... Its a hot button for me (and my past STL) but for most leaders it isn't an issue... My current store is O/N and they scan in all signs at the beginning! It drives me nuts but I am not going to try and change it... They do the signing for us and I can focus on bigger opportunities... I'm sure your store has bigger issues that need attention over the ad set process :)

I agree! this is an issue for me too. If I didn't have full confidence in the way my ad is prepped I wouldn't be doing it the way that we are.
 
Ad setup has always been an opportunity for my store. While we've managed to bring it up to yellow, it's still a work in progress. This morning was ridiculous. We had 5 people scheduled. Not great, but doable with the size of the ad and the regular crew. BUT... our captain, for lack of a better word, had something come up and swapped the shift. OK, fine. The STL said she would see if she could get someone else to help out so we would have 6 tm's. Well... she didn't get anyone. The tm who took the shift, showed up an hour late. And the slowest tm on the crew... was moving in reverse this morning. o.0 really?
G was not pretty at all...Has anyone figured out just why we need double signs? I had a couple of aisles where I put up TPC signs and then had to go back and put As Ad/Sale signs on top, for the same price. Seems to me to be a waste of time and paper
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your ad prep person should be putting them together. i do the ad prep, start on wed, work from two different piles, and then separate them into the different sign size so they are easier to scan that way. the tpc should always tpc should be on the top of each of the piles. since most the the time the sale price will override the tpc price. but you might want to talk to whom is doing your ad prep, to help set you up for success on sunday.
 
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