Specialty Sales

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Mar 22, 2019
Messages
93
I am a new SSTL and I haven’t been trained, so I am learning on the fly. How many team members do you have in beauty, style, and tech? Do you actually own home & seasonal, and if so how many team members do you have? On average how big are your style trucks and how long does it take the breakout team to finish and how many work on it. Do they also do beauty breakout? How have you been managing the backroom refresh? Are you really dividing the areas by fixture ID? Any strategies or advice is welcomed, TIA.
 
Our SS ETL is all of Style, ULTA, Beauty, Tech, Mini-Seasonal, C&D, Kitchen. We have 3 SSTL's and they split all of that up between them. I'm not sure how your store will have them divided up or what you'll personally be covering.

You will not have nearly enough TM's for any of those departments, but especially not for C&D and Kitchen (high B for us). We have amazing style breakout TM's and they can't even keep up with what is coming in. Style TM's can't either. Tech has 2 regular TM's and some randoms that fill in. ULTA will always have to be fully staffed, Beauty usually has 1 mid-day person.

Note - this will all depend on the volume of your store also. Regardless, you will not have enough payroll and will have to do quite a bit yourself/work alongside your team if you want your departments to succeed.
 
I have one beauty tm who is on a medical LOA right now and I just lost a breakout tm and two style team members. We have been closing with just one style tm. I don’t quite own home and seasonal yet, but the goal is for me to own it.
 
Our style etl covers home, beauty, tech, seasonal & apparel. We are short staffed.
Our Style ETL quit last year because Target wanted to add seasonal to their work load with naturally no more TMs.

That person's replacement was just terminated conveniently before Target started their new Inbound ETL program.

Target took a TL from another store to fill that position starting soon.

That person will soon realize that they are understaffed.
 
The only advice I could give you is what not to do. Don't do anything my store does. Everything specialty is failing miserably
 
Our SS ETL is all of Style, ULTA, Beauty, Tech, Mini-Seasonal, C&D, Kitchen. We have 3 SSTL's and they split all of that up between them. I'm not sure how your store will have them divided up or what you'll personally be covering.
Very, very off topic but... major pet peeve of mine is seeing people online refer to departments by their block letters. There's roughly 2,000 stores, with probably a couple hundred different prototype layouts. Except for maybe W being grocery in supers, there's no guarantee of any kind of consistency. Your C & D is almost certainly not mine.
 
Very, very off topic but... major pet peeve of mine is seeing people online refer to departments by their block letters. There's roughly 2,000 stores, with probably a couple hundred different prototype layouts. Except for maybe W being grocery in supers, there's no guarantee of any kind of consistency. Your C & D is almost certainly not mine.
Sorry, I don't get the opportunity to travel ever and haven't been to any other Target stores. I've also (that I can remember) never seen anyone tell me that. So, thanks for the heads up!
 
I am a new SSTL and I haven’t been trained, so I am learning on the fly. How many team members do you have in beauty, style, and tech? Do you actually own home & seasonal, and if so how many team members do you have? On average how big are your style trucks and how long does it take the breakout team to finish and how many work on it. Do they also do beauty breakout? How have you been managing the backroom refresh? Are you really dividing the areas by fixture ID? Any strategies or advice is welcomed, TIA.
I started as a SS team member before I got promoted but, usually, there is one tech opener & closer, one beauty opener & closer, and maybe 3-4 style openers & 3-4 style closers.

The exception is during the holiday season when Tech items get hot there is usually a tech opener, closer & one tech mid to assist with the much-increased tech freight during the holiday season. Those tech repacks are no joke, people say "Tech is an easy job anyone can do it." While yes anyone can work tech, it's far from easy.
Trying to run a full cage of re-packs stuffed to the brim with tech freight while helping guests find what they're looking for and check people out, all while not losing the keys & making sure you secure all the valuable items is no joke.

I haven't worked beauty too much so I can't give much advice there but all I can say is be weary of February, that's usually the beauty re-set...expect working overnights & long hours with a tiny team to get beauty reset when almost the entire department transitions to new beauty sets. This is always an absolute BLAST:rolleyes:

Style: Well, uh, yeah. Good luck You'll see what I mean once you see what a truck unload looks like for style & the many steps of breakout.
All while trying to zone? As guests consistently mess up everything you zoned up because they're looking for that certain size.
If I had to name the worst specialty sales area I'd say style.

Home & Seasonal?: I honestly have no idea, I'm more old school before Target decided to merge GM areas with specialty sales for whatever odd reason. In my mind, these areas will always be GM to me no matter how much Target wants to change the name. I'm not super old school though only 3-years with Target but I'm old school enough to remember how it was when I started in 2020, and just a little more veteran than the team members that got hired this year in 2023 still learning the ropes.😆😆😆
 
Home & Seasonal?: I honestly have no idea, I'm more old school before Target decided to merge GM areas with specialty sales for whatever odd reason. In my mind, these areas will always be GM to me no matter how much Target wants to change the name. I'm not super old school though only 3-years with Target but I'm old school enough to remember how it was when I started in 2020, and just a little more veteran than the team members that got hired this year in 2023 still learning the ropes.😆😆😆
Why did home and seasonal get merged into SS? I thought specialty sales were supposed to be the things that would require "specialty knowledge" to engage with the customer on. Home and seasonal is pretty "general merchandise" in my view
 
Why did home and seasonal get merged into SS? I thought specialty sales were supposed to be the things that would require "specialty knowledge" to engage with the customer on. Home and seasonal is pretty "general merchandise" in my view
Gm etls were leaving left and right. It basically tried to get the sales split between gm and ss. I think it's somewhere around 45/55 ss/gm in most stores. Home seasonal is more of a specialty sale as it's not everyday items and are set in a more visually merchandised way then other areas. In the new pilot kitchen and stationary are brought back to gm as they don't really fit that type of merchandise and then baby would go to specialty. I might sound a bit biased here but gm etl most definitely had a much higher workload then the other etls in the store.
 
IMHO it has more to do getting an ETL to do more work without having to hiring another employee.

Then again we don't have a Cart Attendant have the time so the Closing TL and/or another TL get them.

Penny wise and pound foolish is my store's motto.
 
IMHO it has more to do getting an ETL to do more work without having to hiring another employee.

Then again we don't have a Cart Attendant have the time so the Closing TL and/or another TL get them.

Penny wise and pound foolish is my store's motto.

I'm pretty sure that is Target's motto.
 
I have one beauty tm who is on a medical LOA right now and I just lost a breakout tm and two style team members. We have been closing with just one style tm. I don’t quite own home and seasonal yet, but the goal is for me to own it.
When you say "beauty" are you referring to Cosmetics or all inclusive HBA? Most stores I frequent have HBA separate from cosmetics. Cosmetics being the shorter shifts.
 
When you say "beauty" are you referring to Cosmetics or all inclusive HBA? Most stores I frequent have HBA separate from cosmetics. Cosmetics being the shorter shifts.
AFAIK there are not any stores that run hba and cosmetics together still. Hba which technically isn't a thing anymore should fall under essentials and comprises of personal care and hair care. And cosmetics was changed to beauty and now includes cosmetics and skincare and is owned by the specialty team. So referring to beauty would refer to to that as it's a specialty sales thread and they are a new specialty tl. Perhaps some stores with larger beauty sections or ultra own pc or hc? I haven't been to one of stores.
 
AFAIK there are not any stores that run hba and cosmetics together still. Hba which technically isn't a thing anymore should fall under essentials and comprises of personal care and hair care. And cosmetics was changed to beauty and now includes cosmetics and skincare and is owned by the specialty team. So referring to beauty would refer to to that as it's a specialty sales thread and they are a new specialty tl. Perhaps some stores with larger beauty sections or ultra own pc or hc? I haven't been to one of stores.
Oh well. No we still have cpp separate...and 1 person am , 1 person pm covering personal care skin care and cosmetics. Impossible to keep a decent zone.
 
Why did home and seasonal get merged into SS? I thought specialty sales were supposed to be the things that would require "specialty knowledge" to engage with the customer on. Home and seasonal is pretty "general merchandise" in my view
You have h&h, home flat and rear sea all those are vmg
 
I'm pretty sure that is Target's motto.
Except that now etl inbound has more work than any etl.
At least in my opinion . I own inbound, truck unload , all push , priorities , zone , returns and plano . I do have 3 tl
Etl specialty 1 oversees stationary , beds, bath , decor and plastics 1 tl
Etl specialty 2 oversees sea, mini, toys , sprt and babies , 2 tl
Etl specialty 3 beauty , tech men’s and performance 2 tl
Etl specialty 4 oversees RTW boys& girls swim , shoes and inf clothing 2 tl
Etl gm 1 oversees essentials 1 tl
Etl gm 2 bullseyes , checklane 1 tl
Etl service and engagement just the front 4 tl
Etl f&b dry , pfresh and Starbucks 3 tl
Etl flex oversees flex and off-site . 1 tl flex , 3 tl off-site
2 etl ap
1 etl hr 1 tl
2 SD
with the rollout we gained 😂 and additional SD
 
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Except that now etl inbound has more work than any etl.
At least in my opinion . I own inbound, truck unload , all push , priorities , zone , returns and plano . I do have 3 tl
Etl specialty 1 oversees stationary , beds, bath , decor and plastics 1 tl
Etl specialty 2 oversees sea, mini, toys , sprt and babies , 2 tl
Etl specialty 3 beauty , tech men’s and performance 2 tl
Etl specialty 4 oversees RTW boys& girls swim , shoes and inf clothing 2 tl
Etl gm 1 oversees essentials 1 tl
Etl gm 2 bullseyes , checklane 1 tl
Etl service and engagement just the front 4 tl
Etl f&b dry , pfresh and Starbucks 3 tl
Etl flex oversees flex and off-site . 1 tl flex , 3 tl off-site
2 etl ap
1 etl hr 1 tl
2 SD
with the rollout we gained 😂 and additional SD
It makes no sense for you to own all of that. Returns plano priorities zone all seem like it makes more sense for the people incharge of their areas to own. Although tbh I own all that as a gm tl in my store with my other gm tl, except Plano. I honestly don't understand how they break these things up. My peers literally do nothing compared to what I do and all I do is here them complain because they can't get there stuff done.
 
It makes no sense for you to own all of that. Returns plano priorities zone all seem like it makes more sense for the people incharge of their areas to own. Although tbh I own all that as a gm tl in my store with my other gm tl, except Plano. I honestly don't understand how they break these things up. My peers literally do nothing compared to what I do and all I do is hear them complain because they can't get their stuff done.

The reason I own the returns and zone is because we are overnight . That’s why I didn’t fight it when I was told to own it , besides I was allowed to get overnight zoners which are not part of unload or push.
 
The reason I own the returns and zone is because we are overnight . That’s why I didn’t fight it when I was told to own it , besides I was allowed to get overnight zoners which are not part of unload or push.
If you're the overnight ETL, and are given the resources for it, then I get it. That still seems like a big amount of work though.
 
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