Archived Softlines out of stocks

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toredandkhaki

Throw me somewhere in the store, I'll stick
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So, background info, I now captain the instocks process at my store, and we've gotten to yellow for out of stocks percentage overall the last two weeks, with all hardlines departments coming in a few percentage under the goal. Though, our softlines departments are tanking the metric, especially areas like ready-to-wear coming in at 22% OOS. I don't have enough knowledge as to if RFID controls enough of the replenishment or if I should try researching planogrammed areas in softlines (tables, basics, etc.) OR literally go around to each rack and research DPCIs of missing sizes of hanging softlines. Any help/suggestions would be lovely
 
The person that does this process in our store does it on a GM truck day. She literally goes to every Z rack and cart at the end of our breakout and wands over them, and goes to every hanging rack and table in softlines. I don't know what her scores are, but she seems to be doing ok.
 
You don't research hanging. ever. RFID only.

Making sure that returns are RFID tagged when applicable, making sure salvage and defectives are done properly and empty packages. Especially the empty packages - my store is pretty high theft and you should see the stacks of tags they bring up to guest services. That can make a pretty big difference.

Tables you can research but in my experience not much comes of it. What you end up pulling vs time spent checking = not worth it. And OOS a lot of reasons you have no control over. Product is stolen = OOS, product never came in = OOS, mispicks = OOS, stuff in the wrong place = OOS. Was on sale last week now you have none = OOS.. Product is retagged as the wrong thing = OOS. Item merge not done = OOS.. And on and on..

I don't know how much of RFID is controlling replenishment, cause the tables are still overstuffed or empty depending. We are making numbers but our womens panties are always way off what they want vs what we have, same for infant toddler girls.
 
I run RFID at my store. Consistently hit that 98% expected (with some help from the LOD). Our softlines sections are jam packed. Expected has gone from 57,000 to 118,000 over the last 2 months since I started scanning RFID.
 
The OOS metric is probably one of the most ridiculous metrics Target has. By doing a good job on instocks, you're literally increasing your OOS. In addition to that, OOS is negatively effected by multiple variables that are out of a store's control. Pay less attention to the OOS metric and put more emphasis on your weekly stand alone research scans, outs scans, and pog fills. As long as your weekly scans outside of RIGs are high, it shows that you are doing everything in your power to keep the store full. If Softlines looks light, go shoot outs on tables/basics. Let the RFID process take care of RFID enabled merchandise, that's what it's created for, regardless of whether or not it seems like it's working.
 
Honestly, and this is coming from someone who has been in charge of instocks for almost two years, there isn't a ton you can do with softlines. More than half of the dcpis are hanging and you can't change the counts or research them. Rfid has had very little impact on my store it seems. Never changes counts, so not really sure how it's helping. Oos shouldn't be a metric that determines if you are great or bad at your job. Oos is slightly out of your hands, you can research all the outs and lows, but if it never comes in, you will still have a yellow or red Oos. DC has to have the product. So yes, try and do your best at fixing it, but just no there isn't much you can do past researching, manuals, pog fills.
 
Thank you all for your feedback it has been helpful, my leaders seem to care about it a bit too much, so that's out of my control but again thank you guys
 
I do still scan outs in basic items because I haven't seen the impact of RFID.
 
More than half of the dcpis are hanging and you can't change the counts or research them
You can change counts on hanging items (I zero things out all the time). But there's no reason to do so unless you're looking for something specific and have checked everywhere.
 
You can change counts on hanging items (I zero things out all the time). But there's no reason to do so unless you're looking for something specific and have checked everywhere.
Yeah I do when someone orders it for an F.a. But that's that only reason I do.
 
Our store has been taking last/low quantity items and repacking them to make them go clearance (for "old," but not yet clearance styles) if we aren't getting any more in to keep Softlines looking "brand". Interesting to see how it will play out overall, especially because it will say we're out of stock but the item will be on the clearance rack because we aren't going to wait for them to go on sale normally.
 
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