Archived Strategies for Inventory Prep

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I guess this question is for you veterans out there: what are some stellar strategies for preparing for inventory? (setting up new rules in the backroom, communicating with those who work in the backroom and receiving, sales floor zones, etc.)
 
Asking your teams to take ownership of certain areas may help. But, proper training, support from your leadership & communication is the keys to a successful inventory.
 
I'm not sure if this will help, but at my store, we superzoned each area of the sales floor. We also did "ticket blitzes" in softlines to make sure all clothing items had tags. Any items that needed info would need new tickets, and defectives had to be processed ASAP. Last night, before our inventory started, the closing team went through all the clearance areas and searched for all the SIM'd items (repackage, as is, online only) because they would be counted separately.

I can't say for certain what was done on the logistics side other than that we did not get a truck last night.
 
When we prep for inventory in the backroom we always start extra early. We run through pretty much every aisle of the stockroom and completely overhaul them, relocate, low and tight and a super zone where everything is easy to count. All cases in the stockroom are all 1 deep so there is no use of deep stickers. If the team cant scan a barcode we either open stock it (quicker) or get a printer and print barcodes as we go. Usually a week before were good and clean and zoned and then we go through all the aisles 1 last time and we check for any and all D code and anything else that usually gives us problems with sku checks.

My inventory is about the same time as my bounceback so preparation for both at the same time is easy.
 
I don't have much experience with inventory. At my store we schedule people to superzone each department. All of our huddles become smart huddles where we all superzone.
 
@backroomdude, you must have a dedicated backroom team to keep it all nice and tidy up until the big day comes around! Relocating all the wacos must be very tedious. There was one day a couple weeks ago I helped do empty location audits in all of the aisles and we pulled out a bunch of D-code items.
 
In about 2 months, we will be doing inventory. Signup for inventory overnight has already been posted.

Our backroom is a disaster area (our team does not know proper backstocking techniques, let alone what zoning is) and asked when the process for prep will begin. The only response I got was, a week before Inventory.

I'm presentation, but due to the time inventory is scheduled, I'll likely be scheduled backroom due to light POG hours. The past 2 years, I've meticulously zoned some large areas (SPRT/LUGG/HIPA/BIKE) and (STAT/OFCE). It was a tedious process and I was very proud of the work I did... but because the BR team doesn't have clear training and communication, the valleys I zoned and reworked were destroyed within a matter of weeks.

I'm now going to refuse to help zone/prep for inventory. I realize that it's a huge waste of my time and effort and that it robs the actual BR team of learning how to do it themselves. I've already communicated that I'll help do BR functions to support the team while they prep.

Personally, I am hoping that Inventory breaks the BR team.
 
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