Archived Empty Shelves

[seasonaldude]

I think the empty shelf problem is a bit worse since they made us stop doing audits. There are always some products that would take 3 months to get more of regardless of how many times they were scanned, but in general, I still think audit helped. Our baby TM said the baby food section has gone back to having much more flavors out of stock since audit stopped, for an example.

Why has audit stopped? That's the best way to kill your flex fill numbers. Outs needed to be audited regularly so that in-store guests don't constantly say "But, it says you have it online!!!!!" And, so guests who order online don't get their orders routinely canceled.

 

[Bosch]

I think the empty shelf problem is a bit worse since they made us stop doing audits. There are always some products that would take 3 months to get more of regardless of how many times they were scanned, but in general, I still think audit helped. Our baby TM said the baby food section has gone back to having much more flavors out of stock since audit stopped, for an example.

Not auditing baby food and its out of stock? We call that over in the old In-Stocks Team "NO SHIT SHERLOCK!"

 

[Shani]

Leads told us we weren't doing audit anymore because "DC already knows what we're out of and it's redundant." Yep.

The only audits anyone is allowed to do is to check the suspect task lists. Instead, they want us to just check outs in EXF to make sure there aren't any in the back.

 

[MajorChomp]

Leads told us we weren't doing audit anymore because "DC already knows what we're out of and it's redundant." Yep.

The only audits anyone is allowed to do is to check the suspect task lists. Instead, they want us to just check outs in EXF to make sure there aren't any in the back.

Why? Audit is one of the best way to maintain your shelf integrity. I’ve had so many sections that were blown out when I first became TL. They then started becoming replenished once I developed regular audit routines for my team to execute in those sections and now those areas are consistently full and we keep getting more off the truck.

DC doesn’t always catch everything...especially if you’re waiting for suspect tasks...you’d be waiting for a very long time. Manually auditing your areas will definitely benefit your department. I have my teams on a daily audit routine. Everyday they have an assigned section to audit, mapped out for the entire week. Usually by the end of the week I have four departments fully audited, every week. Did wonders for my departments.

 

[ThatAPguy]

I’ve been able to audit things as I am pushing truck for about 2 weeks at least now and haven’t gotten that message. Things that came in on that days truck

 

[ThatAPguy]

Yeah market is a bitch.. so many items to audit

 

[seasonaldude]

Leads told us we weren't doing audit anymore because "DC already knows what we're out of and it's redundant." Yep.

The only audits anyone is allowed to do is to check the suspect task lists. Instead, they want us to just check outs in EXF to make sure there aren't any in the back.

That's crazy. Do they not think that mispicks happen at the DC, that theft happens in-store, that things don't get properly located in the back ever, or that incorrectly pushing ever messes with floor counts? Your store's INF% must be through the roof.

I came across a cleaning product two weeks ago. We were supposed to have a bunch of it. Nope. Nada. Nothing. Hadn't been audited in 231 days. Hadn't been sold in over 200 days. (Good job, team. Sigh.) INF. Open Audit. Zero it out. Guess what we have in-stock now?

 

[Shani]

That's crazy. Do they not think that mispicks happen at the DC, that theft happens in-store, that things don't get properly located in the back ever, or that incorrectly pushing ever messes with floor counts? Your store's INF% must be through the roof.

I came across a cleaning product two weeks ago. We were supposed to have a bunch of it. Nope. Nada. Nothing. Hadn't been audited in 231 days. Hadn't been sold in over 200 days. (Good job, team. Sigh.) INF. Open Audit. Zero it out. Guess what we have in-stock now?

And for as much as I audit, or used to, I still came across stuff like that enough times. Maybe not to the extent of 200 days, but still.

I used to do the all store audit every Sunday... I scanned everything except beauty, electronics, and market. My accuracy and counts were always excellent... was even told our store's scans were beating out all the other stores in our district. My ETL told me they credited me for all of those good scores. I really took pride in doing a good job with it.

It just really took me aback that audit was this huge deal, and out of the blue had been deemed redundant. And I'm even more confused that it seems like all the other stores are still doing it, or at least it seems that way based on the recent comments here.

 

[jarman]

Ive finally got more hours last 3 weeks I have been getting 37 hours a week. I have even voulnteered to work papertowel section last 2 weeks after seeing empty for a while. pushed 12 uboats of papertowels and tolietpaper. It took about 6 hours. Glad to see store director has taken notice to my concerns. Things are getting better at target.😀

 

[Bosch]

Anything I INF, I am flipping over to my work and zeroing out the floor count if we don't have it. I am tired of this no one doing anything to help counts. It's killing our numbers and our shelves are fucking bare because of it. So going to fix it.

 

[seasonaldude]

Anything I INF, I am flipping over to my work and zeroing out the floor count if we don't have it. I am tired of this no one doing anything to help counts. It's killing our numbers and our shelves are fucking bare because of it. So going to fix it.

I've started going further. INF = the entire pogs outs and lows get audited. I check the back first though to make sure there isn't a truck or pull vehicle sitting back there that no one has been given the hours to work so I can be careful about not auditing stuff we can find easily. It has been my understanding that auditing INFs is best practice. I was directed to audit out any INFs I'm certain we don't have by our ETL-LOG. If I don't have time to get to some of them, I'll let the closing lead know before leaving for the day so he can get it taken care of.

 

[ShortTM]

Anything I INF, I am flipping over to my work and zeroing out the floor count if we don't have it. I am tired of this no one doing anything to help counts. It's killing our numbers and our shelves are fucking bare because of it. So going to fix it.

When I'm pushing and I notice the floor count is way higher than what is physically there (or if I spot an empty spot) i always try to correct it in EXF. Idk if this will help us get more or anything, but at least it makes me feel better about it

 

[seasonaldude]

When I'm pushing and I notice the floor count is way higher than what is physically there (or if I spot an empty spot) i always try to correct it in EXF. Idk if this will help us get more or anything, but at least it makes me feel better about it

Correcting it in EXF won't help you get more. It will help your flex fill team tremendously though, so thank you. Using the audit app to correct the count will help you get more. The ideal is to use EXF to correct counts and create batches to fill. Then go back and use audit to scan any outs/lows. That'll make sure that product gets pulled out of your backroom and that anything you don't have gets sent to you.

 

[ShortTM]

Correcting it in EXF won't help you get more. It will help your flex fill team tremendously though, so thank you. Using the audit app to correct the count will help you get more. The ideal is to use EXF to correct counts and create batches to fill. Then go back and use audit to scan any outs/lows. That'll make sure that product gets pulled out of your backroom and that anything you don't have gets sent to you.

Is auditing pretty straightforward? Nobody has ever taught or mentioned it to me. Most likely cause I'm inbound and should only be focused on pushing but I don't like empty shelves

 

[seasonaldude]

Is auditing pretty straightforward? Nobody has ever taught or mentioned it to me. Most likely cause I'm inbound and should only be focused on pushing but I don't like empty shelves

Yeah, it's simple, but tedious. All you need to do is scan the shelf location or an item barcode and report how many of the item is in the locations. The only real complication is you don't want to do it if there is a lot of stuff sitting unlocated in the back on push, pull, or backstock vehicles because auditing a location will zero out the on hands if things aren't located in the backroom. This shouldn't be a problem for inbounds if you are backstocking as you go since you can't audit a location if the item has been received on the truck or been pulled out of the back recently. That doesn't become an issue until mid-afternoon if things haven't been pushed to the floor yet. Typically, about 2 pm I'll get cautious about what I audit. Before that it won't let me audit if something has recently been received or pulled that morning.

 

[Tessa120]

I hate auditing. In the old days if the quantity read "0 on floor, 0 in back (1 on hand)" it was a certainty that the item was out of stock. Now that auditing is done by everyone on the floor and leadership wants it done quick (with plenty of "are you done yet?" on the walkie) when the quantity reads "0 on floor, 0 in back (1 on hand)" there's a really, really good chance the item is on the floor and was just zeroed out during auditing because it couldn't be found fast enough.

 

[signingminion]

If I have to push truck, everything I touch that's not empty gets corrected in exf. We have so many trucks and late sets audit blocks most of what I'm pushing. But if I'm going to zone as I go, I'm auditing what I find. Pog doesn't and only end to end areas audit much.... somebody needs to put some effort into it. Might as well be me since I've got instocks training.

 

[seasonaldude]

I hate auditing. In the old days if the quantity read "0 on floor, 0 in back (1 on hand)" it was a certainty that the item was out of stock. Now that auditing is done by everyone on the floor and leadership wants it done quick (with plenty of "are you done yet?" on the walkie) when the quantity reads "0 on floor, 0 in back (1 on hand)" there's a really, really good chance the item is on the floor and was just zeroed out during auditing because it couldn't be found fast enough.

You're softlines, no? MyWork's listed counts for softlines are absolutely meaningless. They're complete garbage. Confession time: the only reason I pay attention to them is if I'm pressed on time and need to INF something for goal time purposes. I can show our specialty sales TL 0 on floor, 0 in back (0 on hand) and she'll tell me that we don't have it. That gives me the lead coverage I need for my INF reports. But........I routinely find softlines items that are 0 on floor, 0 in back (0 on hand). Usually, they are right where I would expect to find them.

There's a whole other inventory system going on for softlines that's on the downlow. MyWork won't show you the accurate counts. However, Audit does. The on hands in MyWork and Audit are different.

 

[Tessa120]

The only time I've seen 0 on floor, 0 in back (0 on hand) is when something has a replacement tag, so we're not that bad yet. But yeah, there's a lot of stuff that is being audited out because no one has the time to do a thorough search for the items, and because there's pressure to move on if a cursory search doesn't find it.

 

[skrepo1977]

Be proactive & grab what you need. Locate stuff, use exf to pull. Do it, with time allowed. Spot will notice you & give more hours for you.

Team members in Consumables have to go by what their TL instructed them to do per their assignment sheet. You cannot deviate from that. The TM can always suggest something to the TL but they cannot simply do whatever they feel is a priority in their eyes.

 

[GreasyGary]

There's a whole other inventory system going on for softlines that's on the downlow. MyWork won't show you the accurate counts. However, Audit does. The on hands in MyWork and Audit are different.

This is something I've wondered. Do the RF scans act as an audit for the on hands? At least for the audit count?

I've seen people either on here or Reddit, I forget mention having to scan 3 days in a row to get more of something, and that sounds kind of like how Audit works for drastic counts. So I've kind of wondered. Because I've never seen anyone in my store do a 3 day audit, and every time I have a flex shift, there's always some softlines counts that are way wonky.

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

Team members in Consumables have to go by what their TL instructed them to do per their assignment sheet. You cannot deviate from that. The TM can always suggest something to the TL but they cannot simply do whatever they feel is a priority in their eyes.

You will lose sales & missed opportunity to be noticed by spot for noticing an empty end cap in market.

 

[jarman]

Ok Iam 8 months into working at target. I still fail to understand why everyone is not on the same page as to keeping the shelves stocked and faced. Its a very simple process. A product comes in you put it on the shelf.You label face neatly to the correct amount that will fit. If what does not fit you backstock. When Items sell restock. Some people at Target are making it harder then it is.

 

[sfslackey]

Ok Iam 8 months into working at target. I still fail to understand why everyone is not on the same page as to keeping the shelves stocked and faced. Its a very simple process. A product comes in you put it on the shelf.You label face neatly to the correct amount that will fit. If what does not fit you backstock. When Items sell restock. Some people at Target are making it harder then it is.

Depending on leadership, it can be a lot more complicated. There are several factors that contribute to what you are talking about but time is the greatest evil, and without enough time you have trouble doing everything you can to help out other departments. I know that is a vague response, but that's because I don't have all the answers either. There are serious problems with each department working together. Everyone just focuses on their own and seem to not care about the rest with a "That's not our problem" type of mentality. This is just from what I have seen and experienced. Working in different departments, I try to help out the others the best I can, but usually you just do not have the time to do so with the constraints put on you.

 

[jarman]

That’s a large area. I was going to suggest just adding one project a day, but that would be tough.

Like every Friday or Monday- stock an extra U-boat of dairy. On Tuesdays, grab an easier U-boat of dry market.

It is difficult to watch an area struggle and fall apart due to payroll constraints or staffing issues.

So Now Iam at 38 hours per week. I am happy for that. Management fails to understand that they need to retarin everyone on how to stock,rotate,zone. Ive taken pictures of before and after Iam done in my area. They always say how fantasic it looks. But Icant be the only one making the effort. We are a Team. Why cant others take pride in there work. Its not all the teammembers fault its some managers. Its a very simple process.