MEGATHREAD Signing Tips, Tricks and Quips (along with howls of despair)

commiecorvus said:
What's happened with everyone's headers in miniseasonal?
Did the fix they sent out work or were they (like mine) damaged beyond repair?
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The headers that went over the endcaps? I put the clips on that was suppose to fix it. Didn't fix the problem because they still lean forward. They should have made them out of cardboard.
 
commiecorvus said:
What's happened with everyone's headers in miniseasonal?
Did the fix they sent out work or were they (like mine) damaged beyond repair?
Click to expand...

When did the fix come, to whom, and what did it look like? I still haven't gotten one. Did it come through weekly ISM, Fed-Ex, Store Mail? Was it marked Attn: Signing, or like Attn: Hardlines ETL (everything that says ATTN: Hardlines ETL - i have to monitor the TL office and TSC just because 99% of the time its for me and they take their sweet time letting it trickle over)
 
greydot said:
commiecorvus said:
What's happened with everyone's headers in miniseasonal?
Did the fix they sent out work or were they (like mine) damaged beyond repair?
Click to expand...

When did the fix come, to whom, and what did it look like? I still haven't gotten one. Did it come through weekly ISM, Fed-Ex, Store Mail? Was it marked Attn: Signing, or like Attn: Hardlines ETL (everything that says ATTN: Hardlines ETL - i have to monitor the TL office and TSC just because 99% of the time its for me and they take their sweet time letting it trickle over)
Click to expand...

Mine came in the store mail, in the white box. It looks like three little plastic brackets that attach to the grey header above the endcap. I don't remember who it is marked for.
 
so i got the instructions off of mysupport. how are these supposed to help? i can see if your headers are flopping backwards - but how does this help with a forward-facing-flop?
 
What is the difference between a sale sign and temporary price cut? I was doing audits this morning on end caps, and some end caps have temp and sale signs. Some even have both. Aren't they the same thing?
 
seasonal said:
What is the difference between a sale sign and temporary price cut? I was doing audits this morning on end caps, and some end caps have temp and sale signs. Some even have both. Aren't they the same thing?
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In reality yes. Many salesplanners are set up to be TPC product. TPCs run longer, usually 3-6 weeks. The main difference is that Sale items are raincheckable where TPCs are not. Although if an item is on TPC and Sale then it is raincheckable for the week that it's on sale provided it's not an "Quantity Limited..." or "Seasonal Merchandise. No Rainchecks" item. This is probably the main reason why it's important to put up both signs.

The promo signing seems to have gotten worse in the last few years. About the time that TPCs moved from a Tuesday set up to Sunday with the rest of the ad. There are products that are TPC and Sale for the same price for the same time frame, TPC and Sale/AsAd prices that don't match, current TPCs that are less than the sale sign. I could go on and on. And don't even get me started about As Advertised signs for items that aren't on sale at all, but simply advertised. Seemingly the majority of the ad some weeks.
 
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sigma7 said:
seasonal said:
What is the difference between a sale sign and temporary price cut? I was doing audits this morning on end caps, and some end caps have temp and sale signs. Some even have both. Aren't they the same thing?
Click to expand...
And don't even get me started about As Advertised signs for items that aren't on sale at all, but simply advertised. Seemingly the majority of the ad some weeks.
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*cough* market pantry and up&up this week *cough*
 
there's a pilot floating around where as advertised signs are no longer used. it's pretty sweet.

any of you guys set computer software this week? what's the deal with the footages being messed up and no new map for entertainment?
 
dek067 said:
there's a pilot floating around where as advertised signs are no longer used. it's pretty sweet.

any of you guys set computer software this week? what's the deal with the footages being messed up and no new map for entertainment?
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I hope that pilot rolls out to all stores. I'm okay with the as advertised signs for sales less than 10% off or whatever the cut off for sale signing actually is (it might be more than 5% to be sale, although some things have sale signs for a penny off), but the ones for stuff that is not on a promotional price at all just seem like extra noise. Maybe guests could easier find the sale items if they didn't have to look through signs a plenty per aisle. Even new at target I can see the point. This is a brand new product!!!! As advertised just means We sell this...no it's not on sale, but we just wanted to let you know that this is what was in our flyer...nope its just regular price...yeah this sign is a little misleading...once again this item isn't on sale, but we do carry it.

As far as no new entertainment adjacency:
Just going on prior years the major transition for entertainment is in August to October sometime. Otherwise everything just usually stays in the same spot. Usually. Sometimes there are minor changes in early set notes or the entertainment weekly workload or message boards.
 
I'm sure a fee was paid, especially if it's not an owned brand. But with the amount of signs in some aisles the promotions get rather confusing. Some things are on sale, some are on temporary price cut, some are a special purchase, some are an instant substitute, some are new at target, some are free giftcard, some are as advertised. Some items have a combination of two or more of these signs at any given time.

The whole fast signing rollout talked about how signing wasn't going to take as long because the process would be streamlined and the signing would be simplified and clearer. The new cardstock is great. Saves a lot of time. Packaged for the most part pre-sorted and the leftovers by pog and then department...that's awesome too. Prep doesn't take nearly as long. Moving TPCs to Sunday lets you have a bigger ad team who can get those signs put up too. Great idea. But since the whole process was streamlined it seems we're putting up more signs than ever now. It doesn't take as long to prep or set, so we technically have time to put up more signs, but is that always a good thing. I'll put up whatever signs they send, that's my job.

The signs I really dislike have to be the 1"x5" signs. They're so small that the label price font and the sign price font are about the same size. And then they don't lay flat half the time no matter how many times you fold both creases.
 
If I had a penny for each time I've been yelled at for those As Advertised signs.
I would probably have a dollar, or close to it.

"What the hell? How is this a sale? It's the same price! This is ridiculous!"
"I need to speak with your manager! What kind of sale is this? It's the original price!"

I also hate when products have more than one sign. A Sale sign on top of a TPC on top of a Special Purchase.
 
well, the only negative thing about the pilot is that the as adv still appear in the ad audit on the pda. so while the signs don't come in with the ad prep, after you audit an aisle you HAVE to go manually print them all or they just keep popping up in the ad audit. another audit gripe... every day the lod says that it's our fault they keep getting sent to the aisles we just set and then we end up getting the rest of the audit dumped on us. i thought that it was using the ad and price challenges, we just happen to be setting in that area for the day, but our lod swears it's because we're not "rescanning" the signs in again.

also, do you guys scan down promo signs and then scan them back up when setting pogs per bp? we never do. we put them back out, but what's the point scanning? if they're not up on saturday, they can just be "not found".
 
TargetOldTimer said:
I don't remember now who needed this or even if they still do, but the number for the basket 4' label holders is FX4621.

At least that is what is stamped on the back of all of mine..........
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Hardlinesmaster said:
revhtr said:
anyone have the numbers to order these? basket label strip holders?
HTML:
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Here is the picture.
http://www.thebreakroom.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=313&d=1365863827
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It was under Plano thread.
 
My fixture room is trashed again. No one empties the trash, i told etls i refuse to do it anymore because if the lid wont close doesent mean throw it on top or on the ground fixtures with 20 inches of dust on top of them because the former ptl was a pack rat, i also found displays they took and didnt put up but used box stock high dollar items like seriously i know you got issues with me but i threw your ass under the bus when i found them man up
 
Signingminotaur said:
My fixture room is trashed again. No one empties the trash, i told etls i refuse to do it anymore because if the lid wont close doesent mean throw it on top or on the ground fixtures with 20 inches of dust on top of them because the former ptl was a pack rat, i also found displays they took and didnt put up but used box stock high dollar items like seriously i know you got issues with me but i threw your ass under the bus when i found them man up
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Careful on this one my friend.
I was told that the fixture room was my responsibility and I had to 'own' it.
If other people messed it up I was to report it to the TL's but it was still my responsibility to keep it clean and safe.
Always fun to be held responsible for others peoples behavior.
 
commiecorvus said:
Signingminotaur said:
My fixture room is trashed again. No one empties the trash, i told etls i refuse to do it anymore because if the lid wont close doesent mean throw it on top or on the ground fixtures with 20 inches of dust on top of them because the former ptl was a pack rat, i also found displays they took and didnt put up but used box stock high dollar items like seriously i know you got issues with me but i threw your ass under the bus when i found them man up
Click to expand...

Careful on this one my friend.
I was told that the fixture room was my responsibility and I had to 'own' it.
If other people messed it up I was to report it to the TL's but it was still my responsibility to keep it clean and safe.
Always fun to be held responsible for others peoples behavior.
Click to expand...

You know, I was debating mentioning this, but this has come up again at my store. I am really at wits end about this. I literally have contributed NOTHING to the mess that is in there. In fact everything I do touch is perfect (that sounded so snotty didn't it, I don't mean it like that, but that you can tell if my hands have touched something in there). I have copies of all the core roles on hand just "in case". I don't want them to tell me that I am not a team player, but literally no one is held accountable for anything, and they expect somehow for me to go in and just clean it all up. Everyone that I talk to on the TL level responds by saying "and why is this your responsibility" but apparently my STL is literally telling people that I "just need to do it and get it done" when with all these transition I really wonder when and how this can happen.

Not only that but I know other people are talking about what needs to go where (at one part someone was saying all gondola parts need to be stored in the fixture room, when I know last I checked BP was to store them in receving) and I am only getting trickles of information. I don't understand how you can say "own" it when I am not being privy to whatever conversations are being held. Really either, you assign things to me, or you let me "own" it, not both.

I am at the point where I want to literally just throw everything away, but that doesn't 1) help the mess that is inside all of the wacos (literally no waco has one item in it - it is ALL mixed) 2) I know for a FACT that they will just end up asking why we don't have A or B fixture and that I need to order it ASAP. THEN when item A or B comes in - no one can put it up. and either I have to go unset whatever aisle it is from to get it out, or it sits. This happened before, and exactly what I just mentioned is what happened.

I am thinking about just literally throwing it all away and then quitting. I wish I had another job lined up - I am at that point. Its one thing if there was any accountability, but there is not, and I know the same thing will just happen again. I have literally heard my hardlines ETL try and explain why it is hard for the planogram team to have time to "put fixtures away". Really? Really?! I am so sick of it. oh, and whenever someone mentions it to the POG team there is at the very least one person who responds with a snappy "i'm not cleaning none of that up - i'll call out! it's not my mess!" ORLY??? like really at the end of the day there is this: it is in the POG TLs core roles to own the fixture room. it is in every presentation tm's core roles to "maintain" the fixture room, and in mine it says that I should "assist the tl with maintaining" the fixture room. like, seriously. it looks to me that i am the third level of responsibility in that room, but the people with 1 and 2 not only contribute to it, are not held accountable at all.

I guess I would ask those of you that are completely responsible for your fixture rooms - do you have to physically put every sign out onto the floor for your planogram teams? I do. Every store I have been to (even mine used to be like this - but a mixture of team laziness, and my own proactivity has led to this) the signing spec (i'm sorry Signing TM is still a rough cut) would unpack their pallets and stage everything POG within some sort of organization and the team would pick up what they need for their POGs and go. They would get called over if anyone needed help. When I come in I have to get a rundown of what POGs are happening that day, get all the stuff for those POGs, drop it off by the aisle, talk to every presentation TM, look at their POG, and either explicitly say "this goes here" or "call me when you are this far" or I just have to check back in later and do myself. Usually this because they will let it sit all day until they leave otherwise. Oh, and heaven forbid they remove a POG for the day - i need to swing back around and make sure nothing not set was left on the floor. this on top of find all the tms doing salesplanners, meeting anyone who is working on "branding" their depts, SAP orders (oh yeah, also train everyone in the store on SAP, and troubleshoot everyone's errors), mysupports, email, message boards, fix previous POG mistakes, put out anything that came on backorder, etc, etc etc.

ugh. sorry guys. my frustration level is through the roof right now. i should have a light week right now where i can get into the fixture room, but not even that is happening right now. also my pog team gave me the stinkeye when someone asked if i was doing all the 3x5s, and I said, if you guys have trouble let me know, but i will be working on "XYZ" today. super sadface all around.
 
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The fixture room is an ongoing battle that requires a change in the culture of the store.
The only way to do that is retrain the TM, TLs and ETLs.
Start at the top and work down.
Because unfortunately the last two are more often than not the worst offenders.
The problem with that is it takes a lot of time, patience, and constant set backs.
Because even after you get if all fixed people are stil going to work against you to mess up your hard work.


I put up every sign, including the 3x5's (and was written up for missing one out of 30).
I also handled all the displays and most of the fixtures.
Caring about doing a good job can be hard on you, rant away that's what we're here for.
 

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