Archived Sell, Sell, Sell

[ManMythMachine]

Sounds dreamy
I know nothing about stocking trucks, but I'm curious where the problems are on that side of things. Any thoughts on how a more efficient system might work?

I heard they had a test program of putting freight on pallets last year but they ended it. Freight comes in mixed and goes out mixed but what they could do is add the department to the conveyable label and possibly even keep certain departments to the right side of the trailer and certain departments to the left side of the trailer as they build walls, although full pallets of water would have to be balanced.

 

[Abok]

My store is getting the sell talk at every huddle. Active selling is now more important then finishing push in some areas. Softlines is by far the most difficult work center now especially if your store has enhanced work centers like mine. They are crazy if they think a part time, teenager is going to stop what they’re doing every second to ask a guest if they need help and THEN try to sell them something. This is really not realistic.

 

[countingsheep]

We still have last mondays truck on the floor with the last weeks truck but they want us to focus on selling that scarf with that top and jeans. . .kinda doesnt work when it takes me 45mins to dig the scarf tbat works best out of a week of truck push. . .at the fr. . .some days I just cant stop laughing when i clock in

 

[HRZone]

My store is getting the sell talk at every huddle. Active selling is now more important then finishing push in some areas. Softlines is by far the most difficult work center now especially if your store has enhanced work centers like mine. They are crazy if they think a part time, teenager is going to stop what they’re doing every second to ask a guest if they need help and THEN try to sell them something. This is really not realistic.

I hope that isn't your real photo...

Anyways being in softlines is not that bad. Softlines by far gets the most hours in the store. Rather than having plano or price change do things for you, you are getting their hours. Every softlines tm in my store with open availability is getting minimum 25 hours a week. I know asants.

You don't need to upsell every single guest, it's more about acknowledging them and if there is an opportunity making suggestions to add to their basket.

I may take some heat on this but at my store softlines is by far the most talkative group in the store. When market breaks down a produce pallet they aren't talking they are working.

My store at least we are asking our chatty teenage softlines tms to stop being chatty with each other and start being chatty with guest.

 

[phibot]

My store is in a terrible state right now. We're getting 4th quarter amounts of freight, and hours are obviously still slashed. It's creating a vicious cycle of not having people to push -> product not being on the floor -> losing sales -> not having people push.

How big of a deal is it if the STL/HR overspend hours? Right now my store is in freefall without it. This selling idea on top of that is a joke.

 

[HRZone]

How big of a deal is it if the STL/HR overspend hours?

Executives are subject to discipline. Correctives. Final warnings just like a tm.

Missing payroll could be a stern talking to, a write up, an yes if you miss for the year could cost someone their job

 

[countingsheep]

Im curious at what point does one outweigh the other. Like if overspending payroll gets two weeks of trucks caught up vs staying under payroll lets two months of truck build. At what point does one take priority? Or does it only matter which person will get canned for not meeting expectations?

 

[rog the dog]

As @Rock Lobster put so well in the other thread "selling" is not a business strategy.

Target is using selling to cover our defiencies.

"Yeah our store has a crappy zone, the shelves are empty, pallets everywhere but were going to get in your face and sell to you!"

Now dont get me wrong a team member in beauty or apparel who can sell can do wonders for your comp in an area where we make most of our profit but you also need people who are task oriented and sadly that has gone by the way side.

My store has plenty of people in softlines who can smile and talk guest head off but they also stand and talk rather than push truck when there isn't a TL or ETL to hold them accountable

We fired a tm because she wasn't friendly enough, she would clock in push z racks like nobodies business but they instead kept a girl who takes two hours per Z just because she smiles.

The chickens will come home to roost eventually and the company will pay for it.

I don't have as much faith in Cornell as @Rock Lobster to fix it. He may be a bright guy but he doesn't seem to be in touch with the actual problems at stores, which doesn't surprise me. The last time he visited my group they rolled out the red carpet and had ETLs from other stores show up to that store days before to prep for his visit.

Until they get rid of this toxic culture. It will be more of the same

Let's not forget that in addition to it not being a very effective "strategy", the hyper focus on selling on the floor just allows the other areas of the store to do whatever they want because not one person is watching them, and not many care. The entire system makes no sense.

And my store wonders why our last couple steritech visits for starbucks / food ave haven't been the best. It's because everyone over in that workcenter knows the management doesn't give a shit about them so they don't give a shit lol. They show up serve guests and half ass their routines.

 

[HRZone]

And my store wonders why our last couple steritech visits for starbucks / food ave haven't been the best. It's because everyone over in that workcenter knows the management doesn't give a shit about them so they don't give a shit lol.

Yup my favorite steritech violation is when the LOD isn't signing off the logs. Pure laziness.

 

[phibot]

Yup my favorite steritech violation is when the LOD isn't signing off the logs. Pure laziness.

The LOD doesn't sign the logs, but somehow the PMT/grocery TL/Sbux/Food ave TL is the one who gets spoken to. Unreal

 

[SeeingSpot]

I’d be surprised if any sells are being made in the cosmetics department in my store. The women they have working in the morning, eesh. One won’t talk to anyone and the other just gives straight up attitude (she called me stupid this morning because I didn’t hear her ask me a question from 2 aisles over).

 

[sprinklesontop]

I’d be surprised if any sells are being made in the cosmetics department in my store. The women they have working in the morning, eesh. One won’t talk to anyone and the other just gives straight up attitude (she called me stupid this morning because I didn’t hear her ask me a question from 2 aisles over).

Your Leadership clearly needs to rethink their Beauty TMs. Right now, it's the high-profile position in the store. The TMs you described DO NOT represent what we stand for. Coach them "up or out". Next !

 

[Rock Lobster]

I’d be surprised if any sells are being made in the cosmetics department in my store. The women they have working in the morning, eesh. One won’t talk to anyone and the other just gives straight up attitude (she called me stupid this morning because I didn’t hear her ask me a question from 2 aisles over).

It’s ok, even if the TM is making 12 bucks an hour, open to close coverage is 16 hours for most stores. Your beauty TMs would have to “sell” an additional 192 bucks worth of stuff to break even on a sales lift for what they are spending. Again, this means you are convincing a guest to purchase something that they would not have if you didn’t convince them (versus having a few TMs just close by stocking for service but not necessarily selling). Helping a guest find what they wanted is achieved by any TM, a beauty expert selling is additional sales not planned by the consumer.

Now that is just sales breakeven points, but it’s not necessarily profitable at this level. You would need to calculate the profit of the items (generally a 40% margin, minus labor so probably about 25% once it’s stocked and replenished). On this level, you will need to sell 768 bucks worth of cosmetics in a day additional to your normal sales to merit this positions profitability. This is also an opportunity cost, because it is not an increase in payroll for the store, but a reduction in other workcenters. For example, if most of these hours were taken from Flow, you then would have to calculate the average profit 16 hours in flow drives, and off set that before making up the profit, essentially starting in the hole.

So math wise, even if your beauty TMs are good, the financial decision does not make sense. For it to work you will need...

Remove the deficit being caused by robbing other workcenters. If you remove the opportunity cost of robbing flow, and make beauty an additional hour expense for stores, at least you are staring at 0 and not a negative number.

Second, staffing open to close adds a burden to their cost. The ROI is too difficult to overcome when they are staffed in hours where sales are not possible. An 8 hour staffing period cuts this in half and allows an achievable sales and profit goal in most buildings.

Third, it will take a solid year or more to change consumer habits for us to see pay off. Once step one and two are done, you then will need to place us as a place to go for cosmetics advice. This will not be easy, and probably require an investment in their wage to a competitive level (or a commissions structure) to make this position worth it. At first, there will be little return. But once people think Target is the go to beauty place, the drive in sales and profit would pay for this position. This assumes it is possible to steal that in peoples minds from actual beauty retailers, which will be a tough fight.

 

[Leo47]

Had someone ask today why our shelves were so empty. Said she had a bunch of stuff she needed to get but we didn’t have most of it. Condition of our store is just embarassing

 

[Bosch]

Had someone ask today why our shelves were so empty. Said she had a bunch of stuff she needed to get but we didn’t have most of it. Condition of our store is just embarassing

Yep, our floor looks decent but don't dare come in the back.. Or ask where all the shopping carts are..

*in the back is where they all are and they are full of backstock, push, whatever.

 

[Fix It]

If it helps, I’m expected to greet guest and add to the basket while I’m replacing floor tiles. That’s Retail for you.

 

[HRZone]

Now that is just sales breakeven points, but it’s not necessarily profitable at this level. You would need to calculate the profit of the items (generally a 40% margin, minus labor so probably about 25% once it’s stocked and replenished).

Totally true but remember out margins in grocery are less than 3% so you can see how some fool thought beauty was going to make us rich while ignoring the holes it created in the rest of the store.

 

[Times Up]

Had someone ask today why our shelves were so empty. Said she had a bunch of stuff she needed to get but we didn’t have most of it. Condition of our store is just embarassing

At least you know the condition of your store. Other than grabbing a few groceries, I haven't shopped much in mine for a couple weeks.

 

[Formina Sage]

Cornell and his team are pacifying shareholders by coming up with strategies that may or may not be sustainable in the long run for Target and its operations, but make the balance sheet look good and more importantly, look like an effort is being made to run increases (thereby justifying their hefty salaries). This holds true for much of corporate America where CEOs take jobs for the sake of having a [well-paid] CEO job, not necessarily for an interest in the mission of the company and its employees (Michael Pearson of Valeant, anyone?)

This doesn't even begin to tie in political motivations.

 

[Reshop Ninja]

I honestly think this "upselling" crap they're driving is going to be completely foolhardy unless we're far better staffed. As someone who has worked in a business that required this I can say it's absolutely worthless if you don't have enough of the product available that people want to buy. We have pallets, tubs flats and aisles in the backroom full of murchadise that isn't going to the floor because there aren't enough people to push all of it. What's the point of upselling anything if there's nothing on the floor to sell?!

 

[Bosch]

I honestly think this "upselling" crap they're driving is going to be completely foolhardy unless we're far better staffed. As someone who has worked in a business that required this I can say it's absolutely worthless if you don't have enough of the product available that people want to buy. We have pallets, tubs flats and aisles in the backroom full of murchadise that isn't going to the floor because there aren't enough people to push all of it. What's the point of upselling anything if there's nothing on the floor to sell?!

Well when shitty leaders got promoted cause they could bullshit this is what you get after 10+ years of that, and their ideas won't fix it. Cause you still have the bad leadership in place who will beg borrow and steal payroll for what they need over what the store really needs to make themselves look good so you sell all you want. You won't actually be selling anything other than the lie that you are a salesmen while you halfass the list of 50 other things they want at that given moment.

 

[phibot]

This is all amusing. I remember a year ago, everyone was thinking "E2E is cool, but what's the catch?"

Now we know

 

[Bosch]

Had someone ask today why our shelves were so empty. Said she had a bunch of stuff she needed to get but we didn’t have most of it. Condition of our store is just embarassing

Yep, our floor looks decent but don't dare come in the back.. Or ask where all the shopping carts are..

*in the back is where they all are and they are full of backstock, push, whatever.

I posted the above on Wednesday and now yes a couple days later I can see where its really starting to empty out.. Cosmetics, Hair care and shoes are horrible.. The amount of shoes I had to INF today was criminal.. I actually sent a text to my TL who I won't see until next Tuesday explaining it was so bad.. The LOD didn't even act surprised when I told them, she just told me "I know you look, but there are to many places to look."

 

[timelord78]

Our store has been doing terrible lately. Just got a new STL. Had the TL meeting about how we are supposed to step back and observe and lead. Haven't done anything but act like highly paid TMs since. She's had all ETLs and TLs pushing truck or doing tasks. No time for planning or reviews. And certainly no time to focus on electronics and beauty selling. She gave me the hours to set my POGs and revisions minus the softlines workload but didn't schedule anyone for SPLs. I was told "we will get you some help." Later that turned into "well you had people under hardlines for three shifts for SPLs." Well you could have told me or put them under POG where I'd see it. Our new direction is that we must be green in all metrics all the time regardless of callins, backup, truck size, etc without adding any hours. Half the team is ready to walk out. Oh and we just started using the Move app which has totally messed up POG. We were told we can't tie anything until we are done setting it and we have 15 minutes to pull it before it drops into an auto batch. So after I set a POG I have to scan everything and match DPCIs to restock it, then tie it.Talk about a waste of time. End of rant.

 

[Bosch]

Our store has been doing terrible lately. Just got a new STL. Had the TL meeting about how we are supposed to step back and observe and lead. Haven't done anything but act like highly paid TMs since. She's had all ETLs and TLs pushing truck or doing tasks. No time for planning or reviews. And certainly no time to focus on electronics and beauty selling. She gave me the hours to set my POGs and revisions minus the softlines workload but didn't schedule anyone for SPLs. I was told "we will get you some help." Later that turned into "well you had people under hardlines for three shifts for SPLs." Well you could have told me or put them under POG where I'd see it. Our new direction is that we must be green in all metrics all the time regardless of callins, backup, truck size, etc without adding any hours. Half the team is ready to walk out. Oh and we just started using the Move app which has totally messed up POG. We were told we can't tie anything until we are done setting it and we have 15 minutes to pull it before it drops into an auto batch. So after I set a POG I have to scan everything and match DPCIs to restock it, then tie it.Talk about a waste of time. End of rant.

Sounds familiar but I know you are not in my store, I don't do POG but a lot of what you said sounds like my store right now.. Might be new direction from above to stores.