Archived SMF Shoes Merchandising Flexibility

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I'm not excited about this at all. My STL says they should have kept the shoe specialist. And that we should have one display shoe, that's not a pair. Like we do with everything else. Ugh. I saw some stores getting cool display shelves last year. Hopefully they'll do that!
 
I'm not excited about this at all. My STL says they should have kept the shoe specialist. And that we should have one display shoe, that's not a pair. Like we do with everything else. Ugh. I saw some stores getting cool display shelves last year. Hopefully they'll do that!

But you will still have label strips and POGs, they get set and forgotten. You will still have shoes in the back, stuff that is just way over full and stuff that hasn't set yet. But it looks ugly and is always a mess. Nothing gets stocked by size anymore just shoved out until full and over full and then some more.
 
I think it depends on the shoe set. If you have been remodeled to the wooden fixtures and box shoes look then your space is already extremely limited. If you are part of the old metal fixtures, you still have plenty of space in general.

We have been part of the test for almost a full year and I will say our comp has been consistently double digits positive YTD. We have someone over there every single day though for a few hours (or average, some days its a touch up if the day before was a full zone).
 
But you will still have label strips and POGs, they get set and forgotten. You will still have shoes in the back, stuff that is just way over full and stuff that hasn't set yet. But it looks ugly and is always a mess. Nothing gets stocked by size anymore just shoved out until full and over full and then some more.
We put up the pog labels, but no label strips. Each side of the valley is a different brand: Merona on one side, Mossimo on the other, etc. We have no shoes in the back. It is a huge mess and, IMO, a total embarrasment!
 
We put up the pog labels, but no label strips. Each side of the valley is a different brand: Merona on one side, Mossimo on the other, etc. We have no shoes in the back. It is a huge mess and, IMO, a total embarrasment!

Opposite experience for my store, but then again we havd an environment that allows a shoe brand TM for 20ish hours a week
 
We are setting our shoe department on Monday with the new VA. Just wished we had more than 2 guides though. Also my guide shows using a block flow that does not match our layout to a tee (a normal thing for our store). We have a side wall that it does not include. Also the stepdowns are not not in the right spots and it shows us, as having 6 sections in most aisles, while we only have 5. I was planning on using this side wall for clearance and following the block flow for the set (at least that is how it is mapped), but think things might a little tight in some aisles. At the same time I am training a few team members, as I we do this. All have Target experience, but most have not set a VA (some have set regular label POGs).

Wish me luck!
 
On the plus side....

I have a ton of new awesome shoes shelves to use instead of the Terrible Softlines ones. (I through them out instead)
 
We did ours Wednesday. At first it was a pain, but once we got the shoes on the aisle then it was pretty smooth after that. Keeping it zoned, well... that's another story there....
 
We did ours Wednesday. At first it was a pain, but once we got the shoes on the aisle then it was pretty smooth after that. Keeping it zoned, well... that's another story there....
Yeah this is another big thing we've not anticipated or planned for aside from the pog perspective. And I can only get the vml and sltl to pay attention to do many things at once...
 
Yea, my stores been doing this for like a year and it is awful. When they push the shoes, they usually sorta start out in the right places, but then if they run out of space, they move the overflow either into the shoe next to it (which is fine usually. Not too terrible to find) Orr, they bring them to any spot in another aisle or in an endcap or whatever. Idk what the specific guidelines are for how they're supposed to be pushed, but it's impossible to find things. The shoe specialist/brand tm was demoted at some point, but they still expect her to make it look good without any of the shoe hours.

There've been times I told guests we didn't have something only to later (once the guests have left) find that that size was elsewhere. I've helped the sfs boys find shoes that were split up, but if there's no one there who knows enough about shoes, orders prob get canceled when they don't necessarily have to.
 
Yea, my stores been doing this for like a year and it is awful. When they push the shoes, they usually sorta start out in the right places, but then if they run out of space, they move the overflow either into the shoe next to it (which is fine usually. Not too terrible to find) Orr, they bring them to any spot in another aisle or in an endcap or whatever. Idk what the specific guidelines are for how they're supposed to be pushed, but it's impossible to find things. The shoe specialist/brand tm was demoted at some point, but they still expect her to make it look good without any of the shoe hours.

There've been times I told guests we didn't have something only to later (once the guests have left) find that that size was elsewhere. I've helped the sfs boys find shoes that were split up, but if there's no one there who knows enough about shoes, orders prob get canceled when they don't necessarily have to.

All the time orders get cancelled or parents give up since they can't find kids shoes with little ones they just can't with shopping.. Sot it needs to be close to right.. But nope all the boys shoes over women's is perfectly fine.. And then they wonder why they don't sell..
 
We started ours today, but still have a few aisles to finish. We found the manual to be confusing , as it showed us as not getting some items and we had them and they were tied to our set. Also found items that were already salvage or discontinued that we were supposed to set. I hate to say say this, but I learned right along with my team (most if not all them new to this process). Just glad that I had to nice eager to learn folks that I did or I would have pulled my hair out.
 
We just finished our SMF set. Today was a much better day, as we kind of knew what was going on and it was less of learning day for us. Just glad I did not follow the block flow to a tee or we would have an empty aisle (could be used for NOP or clearance) and everything else would have been squeezed.
 
SMF reset was odd. The Shoe Brand TM and I were tasked with completing the workload by ourselves. I had no idea of it. Neither of us was given any details prior. I just showed up on Monday and dived right in.

Five shelves, down to four. Not any big moves. Just lots of clearance.

Our store had a weird setup with the Big Girl and Infant/Toddler block flow, as it didn't follow the example given.

No backstock for SMF aisles, since it's all flex basically. Just have to follow brand and style. Our batches didn't get pulled till later in the day, but we left room for the new product.

Gave us three days to complete the July 17 set, and we just got some Push and the endcaps to complete. :)
 
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I did some eavesdropping. This thing sounds slightly more organized than the version my store was doing for the past yearish, but the unofficial shoe specialist (she was once official. they still expect her to do shoes though) still hates it and has the same concern about shoes being hard to find and all that.
 
We are setting our shoe department on Monday with the new VA. Just wished we had more than 2 guides though. Also my guide shows using a block flow that does not match our layout to a tee (a normal thing for our store). We have a side wall that it does not include. Also the stepdowns are not not in the right spots and it shows us, as having 6 sections in most aisles, while we only have 5. I was planning on using this side wall for clearance and following the block flow for the set (at least that is how it is mapped), but think things might a little tight in some aisles. At the same time I am training a few team members, as I we do this. All have Target experience, but most have not set a VA (some have set regular label POGs).

Wish me luck!
I've never set shoes will the map tell me what I need to know about the order of the shoes if they are in reverse or in standard?
 
I've never set shoes will the map tell me what I need to know about the order of the shoes if they are in reverse or in standard?
You just need to set the shoes in the order they are listed in your guide starting at the main aisle or adjacent to last program (SFM POG) set starting at the main aisle. Just note not every shoe listed in your guide will be set at your store (only those marked with grey boxes will are be set in your store).
 
Ours didn't show any details other than where to tie the sales planners, the main aisle POG, and our back wall with hanging sandals.

With SMF, you must read and understand the VA manual. It shows the block flow for your store and how the pogs will flow. Just tie all pogs to their correct location as standard and follow the VA manual. It basically has all the answers.
 
It's been like that at our store for the past 8-12 mo.

:twirls:

Did you do the permanent PTM thing that a few other users mentioned on here? We kept our shoes to POG until just recently. I still had trouble finding things at times, but I did succeed most of the time. Now, all bets are off.
 
Honestly, we shoved all the shoes out onto the floor that we could. No real PTM'ing, and we did not follow the POG after the initial set.

disaster.
 
Ours is not so bad right now compared to before the set, when it had devolved into people just placing boxes near ones with similar colors. But it's miles apart from what it looked like right after the last set.
 
Just out of curiosity, who in your stores has been completing these transitions? When SMF first set, I did all except for maybe three aisles, including redoing one that overnight completely messed up, and for this new fall transition, I have been doing it all single-handedly, with the exception of making shoe boxes (I've been lucky enough to have my FRO make them). Just wondering if this is unusual or if other stores have only one person completing everything, too.
 
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