Archived What's the strategy for inventory?

[Guest]

Wonderful inventory is next week at my dump of a store. Inventory always seems to be so unorganized, messy, and terribly managed. Is that the case for most Target stores or do I just work at a sucky one? Last year, we didn't have everything back stocked on the grocery side of the stock room so I was back stocking SNCK, GRC1, and GRC3 in GRC2. And we also had a fun FDC truck come right at 6pm just as the douche bag 3rd party people started to count.

Is this the norm?

I mean I kinda get in a way why Target waits to the last minute to start inventory prep because the counts change daily especially in the backroom.
I also understand why Target hires the 3rd party bozos.
What I don't get but maybe I do get is why do we have to cater to those bozos? Having to put stickers on things with deep and how many is in a box? Why not just let the bozos figure out on their own?
However, I kinda know why because Target only wants them in the store for the least amount of time possible because it will save money the shorter amount of time they are there.

If I was the master and the commander, I'd probably have inventory on a Sunday night and close the store early at 9pm or at 10pm because some people might kill themselves if Target closed early and make sure there were no GM trucks or FDC trucks on that Sunday or Monday. I'd also have flow team members there to work pulls and help with the inventory prep. Start with the bozos in the backroom at 6pm and then head to the salesfloor at 9pm or 10pm. Probably tell backroom to burn the 5pm batches. Just screw it.

 

[commiecorvus]

We had an old school ETL LOG and for a while our STL had been the LOG so when it came time for inventory they had it locked down tight.
We started prep two weeks out and had the BR totally ship shape.
I would tag every display and all of my gear Do Not Inventory.

It all comes down to good leadership.

 

[Guest]

Two weeks? Wow, I think I've only seen someone write counts on diapers that are way up high on pallets. We're screwed.

 

[Gulfcoast]

Can't be worse than my store.

Our inventory is already gone by. Our backroom was a Goddamned disaster zone. GM truck hadn't been backstocked, steel precounts weren't accurately started until the jackasses showed up, my freezer, dairy and meat coolers hadn't been backstocked in four days, and ETL-Log wanted to get into a pissing contest with ETL-AP and any TL that crossed their path.

Our shrink/shortage is ridiculous because they couldn't get their heads out of their collective asses long enough to make sure backroom was clean the day of.

 

[Guest]

There shouldn't be GM or FDC trucks on the day of inventory. Plain and simple. Why make it harder than it has to be?

 

[logisticsismygame]

There shouldn't be GM or FDC trucks on the day of inventory. Plain and simple. Why make it harder than it has to be?

It's all about the prep. Your zone has to be as good as it can be in the back room as well as on the sales floor. Trucks can be rescheduled but don't have to be if it's done right. The idea is to make it as easy as possible on the inventory people. If they do a bad job it's just another bad day for them, what do they care? We all have a number of bad days in the corse of a year. However when a bad day for them happens on your day of inventory, your store has to live with it for a year.

 

[IamLegendTGT]

There shouldn't be GM or FDC trucks on the day of inventory. Plain and simple. Why make it harder than it has to be?

It's all about the prep. Your zone has to be as good as it can be in the back room as well as on the sales floor. Trucks can be rescheduled but don't have to be if it's done right. The idea is to make it as easy as possible on the inventory people. If they do a bad job it's just another bad day for them, what do they care? We all have a number of bad days in the corse of a year. However when a bad day for them happens on your day of inventory, your store has to live with it for a year.

My OPS kept preaching this to me during prep last time. How far in advance should DSD vendor orders be refused to clean up the backroom. The day of? Day before inventory?

 

[Bosch]

Also you need that prep done and locked right cause the inventory people are morons. They don't think - they count.

They don't think that the 6-pack of shrink wrapped hair spray is a 6-pack. Nope it is 1.

You know what day inventory is, I would think as soon as the dates are confirmed you look at all deliveries and cancel them. We for at least a week out had one person in the backroom cleaning, marking boxes, bundling stuff in Waco's and every backroom person was then in on it as they back stocked or pulled.

 

[logisticsismygame]

There shouldn't be GM or FDC trucks on the day of inventory. Plain and simple. Why make it harder than it has to be?

It's all about the prep. Your zone has to be as good as it can be in the back room as well as on the sales floor. Trucks can be rescheduled but don't have to be if it's done right. The idea is to make it as easy as possible on the inventory people. If they do a bad job it's just another bad day for them, what do they care? We all have a number of bad days in the corse of a year. However when a bad day for them happens on your day of inventory, your store has to live with it for a year.

My OPS kept preaching this to me during prep last time. How far in advance should DSD vendor orders be refused to clean up the backroom. The day of? Day before inventory?

It really depends on the condition of your vender area. Venders tend to walk all over you if you let them. Who has the biggest passion for maintaining the area? ETL Log? ETL Food? STL? Get there input and support ASAP. The venders should be concerned with the results of inventory so keep them in the loop and get commitments on there involvement and hold them to it.

 

[Gulfcoast]

There shouldn't be GM or FDC trucks on the day of inventory. Plain and simple. Why make it harder than it has to be?

It's all about the prep. Your zone has to be as good as it can be in the back room as well as on the sales floor. Trucks can be rescheduled but don't have to be if it's done right. The idea is to make it as easy as possible on the inventory people. If they do a bad job it's just another bad day for them, what do they care? We all have a number of bad days in the corse of a year. However when a bad day for them happens on your day of inventory, your store has to live with it for a year.

My OPS kept preaching this to me during prep last time. How far in advance should DSD vendor orders be refused to clean up the backroom. The day of? Day before inventory?

Our inventory captain didn't bother with vendors, because, "that's your (my) job".

So I got with the receiver, called my vendor reps in for a meeting and told them truck to shelf. Their steel and pallet space had to have fewer than ten casepacks. We refused so many blind orders.

Receiving and I agreed, next year, vendor steel and pallets are 100% clean. Everything truck to shelf. No exceptions.

 

[Kompa]

strategy ?

Pray.

 

[Ringwraith917]

My strategy as a TM: request that day off.

 

[mrknownothing]

Wow, inventory prep is not nearly as complicated sales floor side. All we have to do is superzone the whole floor, complete all the re-shop, and ensure that all items have barcodes.

 

[BigEyedPhish]

Just realized my Stores Inventory is the 16th, and my PFresh Inventory is the 21st, If I have to do both I will be slightly sad.

 

[qmosqueen]

my pfresh inventory is on the 22nd. I was warned to be free that night. It's pretty simple cause it is the day before a truck and we usually order light that weekend and procduce cooler is pretty much empty.

 

[vendordontmesswithme]

There shouldn't be GM or FDC trucks on the day of inventory. Plain and simple. Why make it harder than it has to be?

It's all about the prep. Your zone has to be as good as it can be in the back room as well as on the sales floor. Trucks can be rescheduled but don't have to be if it's done right. The idea is to make it as easy as possible on the inventory people. If they do a bad job it's just another bad day for them, what do they care? We all have a number of bad days in the corse of a year. However when a bad day for them happens on your day of inventory, your store has to live with it for a year.

My OPS kept preaching this to me during prep last time. How far in advance should DSD vendor orders be refused to clean up the backroom. The day of? Day before inventory?

zi start telling vendors a month in advance and post signs in every area about inventory. I tell them to get their

 

[vendordontmesswithme]

My pc is acting like Target equipment screwy. Get your backstoc

 

[Backroom81]

1. Wait until the last possible minute to start prep.
2. Watch your fresh-out-of-college Log/Process ETL try to keep herself from having a psychotic breakdown.
3. Savor the moment watching her hope die.
4. Hand her some pre-count/Asst item sheets to keep her occupied.
5. Run the damn prep.
6. /like a boss

BONUS:
On inventory day, allow ALL the CAFs to add up throughout the day until an hour before inventory is due to start. Then freak out and send them all to the floor at one time.

 

[tgtguy]

1. Wait until the last possible minute to start prep.
2. Watch your fresh-out-of-college Log/Process ETL try to keep herself from having a psychotic breakdown.
3. Savor the moment watching her hope die.
4. Hand her some pre-count/Asst item sheets to keep her occupied.
5. Run the damn prep.
6. /like a boss

BONUS:
On inventory day, allow ALL the CAFs to add up throughout the day until an hour before inventory is due to start. Then freak out and send them all to the floor at one time.

We had ours back right after the first of the year...and this pretty much describes the way it happened lol

 

[tgtguy]

Wonderful inventory is next week at my dump of a store. Inventory always seems to be so unorganized, messy, and terribly managed. Is that the case for most Target stores or do I just work at a sucky one? Last year, we didn't have everything back stocked on the grocery side of the stock room so I was back stocking SNCK, GRC1, and GRC3 in GRC2. And we also had a fun FDC truck come right at 6pm just as the douche bag 3rd party people started to count.

Is this the norm?

I mean I kinda get in a way why Target waits to the last minute to start inventory prep because the counts change daily especially in the backroom.
I also understand why Target hires the 3rd party bozos.
What I don't get but maybe I do get is why do we have to cater to those bozos? Having to put stickers on things with deep and how many is in a box? Why not just let the bozos figure out on their own?
However, I kinda know why because Target only wants them in the store for the least amount of time possible because it will save money the shorter amount of time they are there.

If I was the master and the commander, I'd probably have inventory on a Sunday night and close the store early at 9pm or at 10pm because some people might kill themselves if Target closed early and make sure there were no GM trucks or FDC trucks on that Sunday or Monday. I'd also have flow team members there to work pulls and help with the inventory prep. Start with the bozos in the backroom at 6pm and then head to the salesfloor at 9pm or 10pm. Probably tell backroom to burn the 5pm batches. Just screw it.

Back in the day , we would start inventory prep a month out. Yes, a whole month. We would literally take everything out of an aisle in the backroom, push to the floor, bring it back and BS it. Rubber band the like items, put the count on the boxes etc. Then move to the next aisle. The sales floor was treated with the same extreme care. Now, IF we start two weeks prior its a miracle...the backroom prep process is a joke.

Placing the qty and deep stickers on boxes should make inventory easier....if you are there the night of inventory it cuts down on those dreaded SKU checks.

 

[Guest]

My store is extremely behind. We haven't even done the aisle audits or put deep stickers on things. This inventory is going to be an epic fail. They only have themselves to blame. Poor planning and prepping. I'm so thankful and grateful that I'm off on Tuesday and get to miss inventory in my 6 year sentence at Target. I have to work the day before so I'm sure it will be chaotic.

 

[ClearanceMaster]

@jackofallworkcenters Do you have an inventory zoning calendar? Racks areas are the easiest because they just need to have tags. Partner with price change (they should be doing it anyway) to bring you anything without a barcode while they are scanning the whole department.

As far as basics.. superzone one area of basics a day and hold the closer(s) accountable for keeping it maintained. Otherwise be prepared the day of inventory to re-do a little bit.

Get your jewelry vendor to make sure (s)hes changed all dpcis and cards to what they need to be. Jewelry was a huge miss for us.. one card had the right dpci, the others the vendor never switched over and were NOF of course we still got credit because the price change team wrote it down for financials but we had a whole top tier of a smart cart of just jewelry

Everyone should be superzoning a handful of hardlines aisles a day after huddle like monday. (A1-a7) softlines do like (021-016) market and helpers need to do (g18-g-24) ... save the freezers for last! They get destroyed/overstocked by flow the fastest. Especially vegetables, lean cuisines, and anything in bags like pf changs. The SFTLs need to focus on getting items in HL with no tag a dpci. If they cant, get a responsible HL team member.

Watch our for clearance down the aisles in party etc. Clearance endcaps they scan everything but down the aisles they scan and count. If there are two different items on one peg, they just screwed price changes accuracy and the count

As far as the backroom.. someone else will have to help you with that. All I know is they prep and audit each aisle by making sure theres not too many dpcis in each waco, rubber banding all like items, putting deep stickers on casepacks. I think the whole purging, pushing, rebackstocking thing is too time consuming and benefits very little this close to the last time. But if your STL is forcing you to do it, theres nothing you can do besides bring your concerns to them and hope they are level headed and understand or get you the support help you need.

And if all else fails make sure you have very attentive people doing audits and call the inventory team out on everything (tell your etl, and let them do it.. )

Oh, and if youve never done inventory before for SL... be forewarned.. when they go through shoes, it is like a tornado.. they rip open each box to scan the shoe, some are nice, but some are so stupid they throw shoes back in wrong boxes etc. Expect a huge mess with everyone you can there to clean it up. Took 4 tms an hour to do 3 aisles (merona/mossimo flats, heels and boots) ugh..

 

[signingminion]

I had store inventory on a Thursday and pfresh the following Monday. Easy peasy. I only had four sku checks for all of market. I can run my own inventory in my sleep, which is good since the ctl has had to skip out on quite a few.

We super zone the week before, backroom prep two weeks out. Emphasis on repack and online return getting pulled from floor.

 

[ClearanceMaster]

I had store inventory on a Thursday and pfresh the following Monday. Easy peasy. I only had four sku checks for all of market. I can run my own inventory in my sleep, which is good since the ctl has had to skip out on quite a few.

We super zone the week before, backroom prep two weeks out. Emphasis on repack and online return getting pulled from floor.

Ditto.

 

[oath2order]

If you want basics perfect, deep zone it and SUBT999 IT. You do NOT need 50000 overpushed underwear packs coming out again