Tell me about inventory

DBZ

Joined
Dec 9, 2018
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Its looming on our horizon. Does everyone have it at about the same time? We didn't have one last year because covid and the year before I was still pretty new and certainly wasn't a part of it as a cashier. I still probably won't have much of a role, but I want to know more about the process. I know people come in and count. Does the store have to be zoned perfectly? How does having lots of stuff on pallets effect it? Do they cancel all the trucks for a few days before hand? Do we get scored on it? Surely there is a metric for it LOL. What about the carts of reshop?
 
Stores do it at different times. Every aisle is supposed to be zoned very well so it's easier for everything to be counted. Anything on pallets will have to be counted as well, which is usually counted by a TM beforehand and written down on a sheet. At least at my store the only day we didn't get a truck was the day of inventory. The store doesn't really get an overall score on it, but it does give a metric for AP on product loss. They will likely want reshop worked out when the store closes, before they start counting in the aisles. But it's also possible some stores just leave reshop to be counted separately.
 
Inventory is a PITA. My store avoided it this year because of COVID (ours is normally October-ish). My ETL said Spot might be moving it in-house rather than using the vendor, as they suck.

You'll get a lot of hours to prep for it, and your store will look great, but ironically your counts will be seriously off for weeks after.

On the floor everything needs to be super zoned and have accurate shelf labels. In back everything will get audited and things need to be grouped and marked appropriately to speed up the inventory process. On the day-of, they start in the evening, but while the store is still open, which is fun. If you work before they start you'll be doing things like putting out the inventory sheets on the aisles, tagging things that shouldn't be inventoried (displays, etc.) and other prep. Once inventory starts, they'll have TMs in range of people doing the inventory to check DPCIs they don't find in their system.
 
Starting while the store is still open is stupid to me since it will just mess up the inventory even more than regis already does. Also they have to shut off SFS and OPU since that also messes with the on-hands, but it will be interesting this year with quarantine bins since we average about 10 for style and 4 for gm any given day. Like someone else said, your counts will still be off and you almost have to go and re-audit the whole store because one of the regis people will key in a whole peg for one size of a Halloween costume when theres actually 4 different ones. Although it is a whole event as all the ETL's and SD are there and it is pretty laid back after the prep process.
 
When we had inventory last year, it took a while before our counts and backroom were accurate again. I don't know what the RGIS people did, but somehow we ended up with many items being backstocked in the system in completely the wrong places. Frozen items that were somehow said to be in dry backstock, for instance. I wish they'd have TMs do it instead, as we actually have an interest in making sure the counts are accurate, unlike the RGIS people who just move on to some other business the next night.
 
I think the results of our inventory at my store will be terrible for these reasons.

We start doing "One for Ones" before COVID.

We didn't do inventory in 2020

We started using the updated My Day app in October without training.

Even without COVID why would a company launch a new app during our busiest time of the year? They should have waited until after inventory.
 
I think the results of our inventory at my store will be terrible for these reasons.

We start doing "One for Ones" before COVID.

We didn't do inventory in 2020

We started using the updated My Day app in October without training.

Even without COVID why would a company launch a new app during our busiest time of the year? They should have waited until after inventory.
Inventory does not happen at the same time for all stores
 
so recently the numbers came back for or inventory and apparently there was well over roughly 10 - 15 thousand unlocated items.

do not be like us. it is a bad look. on anyone.
 
Just pray your store or the inventory service (RGIS or WIS) doesn't get the date wrong. That happened that the store I worked at and the inventory service showed up a week early. Can anyone say oops?
 
so recently the numbers came back for or inventory and apparently there was well over roughly 10 - 15 thousand unlocated items.

do not be like us. it is a bad look. on anyone.

What does that mean? The stuff was still in boxes and pre-counted or the stuff just didn't have a sales floor location?
 
I can see them not being able to count, but I'm assuming most of those are from DPCIs that weren't located anywhere in the backroom.
 
If you had transition pallets still waiting to be pushed they aren't located so naturally your number will increase after inventory
 
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