Archived What it like to work at a small city/express store?

[SugarSugar]

I went to a few and damn, I don't think I can work in such a small place. I'd feel like there's not much to do and very little guest. Black Friday will probably not be that exciting.

 

[gsa4lyfe]

I went to a few and damn, I don't think I can work in such a small place. I'd feel like there's not much to do and very little guest. Black Friday will probably not be that exciting.

Depends in what city... the Boston city stores are insanely busy for such a small square footage. I don’t work in Boston but I work at a 40,000 sqft store (full size is 120,000) and we do 33M a year and we are attached to a mall. Our basket size is 20 dollar less than the national average. Imagine doing the same sales as a chain store, 1/3 of the size and a much smaller basket size. The turn around on a zone is insane. Busy small formats are extremely high touch and there is always something to do. Granted there are also 10,000 sqft stores that do less than 10M a year but their payroll reflects that so you definitely can stay busy

 

[MrGSTLman]

I'm a Small Formal TL. Working wise they are much different than a GM store. We don't get nearly the payroll a larger store would get, so as @gsa4lyfe said, there is always something to do. Our store is also one of the Flow Center stores, so our truck process differs from most stores (we get replenished based on what we sell, so everything comes individually on rolling carts vs. by the casepack on pallets). We also don't have a large back room so we have to get creative to store stuff -- especially transition merchandise). We are still working on getting DBOs for all areas, but in reality we don't get the payroll to support having them at adequate coverage, and with the amount of people on a given day we are focused more on getting the freight worked vs. anything else.

Guest wise it's actually pretty steady throughout the day. I wouldn't say we are non-stop, we have our slow moments, but we are located in a shopping plaza off a very busy stretch of road so it can get busy (and again, with the amount of TMs you have on the floor at a given time what would be slow for a larger store can be busy AF for a small format. We are much busier at night, I have noticed lately. Like "I have to kick people out of the store because we're closed" kind of busy.

Black Friday was kind of a bust last year, but that I can equate to the store only being open for two months and people didn't know what we had. This year, I would think, will be a bit busier. Probably won't be a "people breaking down the door at 6am" busy but we'll probably get runoff from the larger stores once people know what we have.

 

[SugarSugar]

Depends in what city... the Boston city stores are insanely busy for such a small square footage. I don’t work in Boston but I work at a 40,000 sqft store (full size is 120,000) and we do 33M a year and we are attached to a mall. Our basket size is 20 dollar less than the national average. Imagine doing the same sales as a chain store, 1/3 of the size and a much smaller basket size. The turn around on a zone is insane. Busy small formats are extremely high touch and there is always something to do. Granted there are also 10,000 sqft stores that do less than 10M a year but their payroll reflects that so you definitely can stay busy

I'm a Small Formal TL. Working wise they are much different than a GM store. We don't get nearly the payroll a larger store would get, so as @gsa4lyfe said, there is always something to do. Our store is also one of the Flow Center stores, so our truck process differs from most stores (we get replenished based on what we sell, so everything comes individually on rolling carts vs. by the casepack on pallets). We also don't have a large back room so we have to get creative to store stuff -- especially transition merchandise). We are still working on getting DBOs for all areas, but in reality we don't get the payroll to support having them at adequate coverage, and with the amount of people on a given day we are focused more on getting the freight worked vs. anything else.

Guest wise it's actually pretty steady throughout the day. I wouldn't say we are non-stop, we have our slow moments, but we are located in a shopping plaza off a very busy stretch of road so it can get busy (and again, with the amount of TMs you have on the floor at a given time what would be slow for a larger store can be busy AF for a small format. We are much busier at night, I have noticed lately. Like "I have to kick people out of the store because we're closed" kind of busy.

Black Friday was kind of a bust last year, but that I can equate to the store only being open for two months and people didn't know what we had. This year, I would think, will be a bit busier. Probably won't be a "people breaking down the door at 6am" busy but we'll probably get runoff from the larger stores once people know what we have.

good insights into small stores, thanks!

 

[BackroomAlpha]

I've been to one. They're solely ran by ETLs.

 

[Xanatos]

I've been to one. They're solely ran by ETLs.

That's interesting because there aren't any ETLs at small format stores.

 

[MrGSTLman]

Small Formats are one STL and all Sr. TLs. The leaders (at least in my store) are treated like execs because of the work we have to do. Has it’s high points and low points but it works.

 

[gsa4lyfe]

I've been to one. They're solely ran by ETLs.

There’s only 1 small format (soon to be 2) that have etls. Herald square in NYC is so busy both foot traffic and sales. They’re a small format doing 60million which is insane. They are an overnight process since it’s impossible to push during the day there. They have 4 ETLs, 1 being the overnight inbound ETL

 

[gsa4lyfe]

Small Formats are one STL and all Sr. TLs. The leaders (at least in my store) are treated like execs because of the work we have to do. Has it’s high points and low points but it works.

It’s definitely a struggle some days but I think it’s been huge in my development to not have an ETL to fall back on. I’ve learned a lot and definitely became a better leader leaving a chain store for a small format