Archived New Hardlines Team Member. Questions!

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Hi. Today was my first day of on the job training. As you might've guessed, it was hard. Especially when I didn't have a PDA system seeing as there were not enough available. I was assigned in Marketing. I basically had to stock and help guests find certain items. As I was doing all this some questions came up that I couldn't find anyone to have them answer for me. So here are the questions. I apologize in advance if these questions come across as vacuous and silly. 1. When you see any items and you can't find the accurate aisles to put them in, where do you put them? Do you take them back in the backroom where storage is? Stick 'em in another cart? 2. How does a PDA work? I know what purposes it serves but how do you go about using it? Like what buttons should I be weary of and all that? 3. What's a good way of memorizing where everything is besides walking around the store? (Which I've done.) 4. What's a good way of speeding things up? 5. Is there a particular time limit that needs to be set when it comes to restocking a cart full of things? 6. Do defective products go in the Guest Services area?
 
1. If you don't know where an item goes, scan it using one of the many handy price scanners littering the store. It will give you an aisle number as well as the location within that aisle. Do not just take it to the backroom, people in the backroom are very touchy about anybody making their stockroom a dumping ground, particularly something from repush/gobacks. Don't overstock things either or you'll piss off the ctl. On occasion you'll have items that require numbers, these you can put back in guest services where you found them, but inform someone in charge that they are there. Those can be extremely difficult for someone that is still learning the store.

2. One morning when you go in ask your trainer to show you how to use the pda. For the most part the only functions you will be using are nop and upcs. Nop will function similar to the price scanners, but will include any other locations in the store. UPCS will tell you the actual price of an item based on any sales going on.

3. Memorizing the store only lasts until plano resets something so walking the store often or just stick to one area for a week or two to get a feel for it will help immensely. If you can pull a few shifts with the instocks team every week, you'll end up knowing the store a lot better than you might like.

4. Same as 3. Walk the store and try and own an area.

5. This varies but you can ask the person that set you to the task what they feel a good time to aim for is based on what is in the cart.

6. This may vary by store. At mine, anything defective that you find on the floor will go to a tote in guest services marked as defective. If for some reason you're pushing things with the truck team, anything broken that you acquire will go to wherever they keep their defect tub. If anything is leaking, chemicals juice, milk, etc, double bag it and zip tie it.

If you need anything in more detail then don't be afraid to ask your trainer questions, that is very much what we are there for. If your trainer isn't available than the person that gives you your daily task can be asked to explain things or to team you up with someone that can. Also when in market FIFO, first in first out, old product in the front new in the back and you'll have a consumables team lead on your side. Happy hunting.
 
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Welcome to The Break Room!

1. Use your PDA. If you don't have a PDA, use the price scanners. As Jack said, they'll give you the aisle and location schematic. If an item scans as invalid or not on file (or anything else to that effect), give it to the service desk so they can take care of it. The only items you should put in the backroom are overstock and items that have no sales floor locations but are still "active" in the system (as opposed to discontinued or clearance).

2. In this situation, your best bet is to use Item Search. The apps that Jack mentioned are in RF Apps and they're faster, but Item Search gives you all the info you need in one place.

3. You're not expected to memorize where items are located. It helps to know where commonly asked-about items can be found, but you're not required to know everything. As Jack suggested, walk through departments to get a feel for which areas items may be located in. If you have a PDA, use Item Search to find the item. If you don't have one, ask on the walkie.

4. Practice. The more you do it, the better you'll know your areas, and the faster you'll get.

5. Ask your TL or the LOD.

6. Generally, yes. At my store, logistics defectives are handled by our receiving/reverse logistics TM in the backroom, but anything else should go to the service desk for processing.
 
Thanks everyone! Now I have another question. When you're ordered to do your go-backs as you're stocking back the items from the cart, do you also do zoning in the aisles you're returning or do you just re-stock the items?
 
Thanks everyone! Now I have another question. When you're ordered to do your go-backs as you're stocking back the items from the cart, do you also do zoning in the aisles you're returning or do you just re-stock the items?

I would think they prefer that you focus on getting the re-shop (every store has a different name for it) done, but when I work re-shop, I try to "face" the items I'm re-shopping and sometimes touch up the area around them, depending on how much time I have.
 
Ah, okay, this makes sense, thanks. Now another question that I forgot to ask earlier: After you're done re-stocking your items from your cart, what then? Go back to zoning or do you return the empty cart to guest services? Also, speaking of guest services, that's another thing I wanna bring up. Whenever I submit any carts to that department, my carts are usually filled with defective products. I always keep trying to inform whoever is currently working the department but they're usually too busy. Do they sort through them at all?
 
Take all your defectives to gs, don't wait till after the store close. Just gather the defectives up all at once, take to gs by 10pm. Any items that need a dpci, write the dpci on it & give it to gs. Put your Reshop away for your dept while zoning.
 
Ah, okay, thank you. So that brings me to my original question. (Sorry!) Just to be clear: when re-stocking items, you DO zone as well? Which I HAVE been doing, btw. It's just been hard because I ALWAYS find defective products or charge-backs everywhere and it just takes up more space in my cart and thus make the job more convoluted. Ya know what I mean?
 
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What my store tends to do is run through your area when you first get there and just pick out foreign and abandoned. Take everything up to GS, sort it out, and then grab and work your basket of returns. Once that is done we start facing up the aisles and work returns every hour or two. If it's a full basket of returns I focus on getting that cart put up. If it's just a handful of things, I will put it back up as I zone.
 
Ah, okay, thank you. So that brings me to my original question. (Sorry!) Just to be clear: when re-stocking items, you DO zone as well? Which I HAVE been doing, btw. It's just been hard because I ALWAYS find defective products or charge-backs everywhere and it just takes up more space in my cart and thus make the job more convoluted. Ya know what I mean?

From personal experience, find a way to organize your cart. I would always put damaged/defective items, as well as overstock on the bottom of my cart. Re-shop for my own area would go in the child seat area, and re-shop for other areas would go in the main part of the basket. Organization can make everything go a little easier.
 
Lestat, it really depends on your TL. At my store, we focus on zoning our areas until an hour before closing, when we start re-shop. If you finish a task early, ask your TL or LOD what they want you to work on next. They might want you to help push CAFs or zone/re-shop in another area.
 
If you have that much backstock, you might as well just grab a tub and some re-pack boxes from the backroom.

My STL recently decided that overstock is okay and is actually encouraging it. :/ The last time I zoned market, I still managed to pull off at least half a shopping cart of stuff that was either in the wrong spot or overstocked in such a way that it was probably going to fall on someone or cause some other problem. It's ridiculous.
 
we overstock all the time in market and pfresh, my CTL and ETL tell us too, cause most all items sell so fast here. Oh, and not to mention flex, flex, flex anywhere and everywhere, espcially those endcaps and sidecaps. never ever do I have an open space, this keeps us busy all day. On truck days it's difficult to push when you have to put the flexed items back when the out of stock item comes in.
 
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