MEGATHREAD Hang Me (The Softlines Thread)

RightArm said:
What I am struggling with is how many things we're expected to juggle at once. I'm on workload/plano for all of softlines but when there is no workload/plano then I'm supposed to be helping out wherever I can. Went in to find no workload for the week and started helping push truck. There were 4 of us working on it. SRTL said it wasn't so bad today, we got it all done before noon and I'm thinking in my head, GIVE us 4 people EVERY opening shift and we'll kill it every time. Not going to happen though. The coverage is not the same every day and that's not her fault. See, we're short a few bodies that are needed to fill all the rotations. We don't get trucks every day of the week. I'm hoping tomorrow is one of those days of no truck. We could use the break.

We're supposed to do reshop, zone, and rack alignment all the time and all at the same time. When the fitting room isn't buried it's easy to do this and it works well but when the fitting room is buried in five or six or eight or nine carts of reshop that hasn't even been sorted or hung I'm torn between trying to catch up everything and do all the zoning and rack alignment too. Drives me crazy. This morning I found two CAFs pushed into the mix. -_-

I can push a jammed pack zrack in an hour if I'm not zoning everything. But the more you add to the "to do" list the less reshop gets put away. The balancing act is insane and I'm not the only one going home with 15K or more steps on the pedometer and exhausted as all get out.
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Same here! This was a 6 hour shift.
 

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Wish we could have slowly rolled it out AFTER our remodel but we have our remodel in a few weeks and so much prep work on top of everything else. I can see how the new ideas work but again we're short team members. Once we get those empty holes filled I'll reassess what I think. ;)

And wow, @soyaxo that's a lot of steps!
 
HRZone said:
Our softlines tms are being allowed style days where they can ditch red and khaki for a designated day with other target branded clothes that they then sell to our guest.
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Does that also means the items have to still be available to purchase at regular price? Idk if this is still the case, but I know some mall stores like A&F require that. A friend of mine used to work there and went in and her jeans had been marked down as clearance on her day off so they made her work in the stockroom loll. It was probably an asants thing, though. It also sounds like a way to get tms spending more money in target. I can't think of an outfit I'd wanna wear from what we have now, that I could make it through an 8 hour shift in comfortably other than very basic stuff because I'd wanna wear something that looked fine with my comfy work sneakers

I do like the idea of having outfit freedom though
 
Ahem said:
Does that also means the items have to still be available to purchase at regular price? Idk if this is still the case, but I know some mall stores like A&F require that. A friend of mine used to work there and went in and her jeans had been marked down as clearance on her day off so they made her work in the stockroom loll. It was probably an asants thing, though. It also sounds like a way to get tms spending more money in target. I can't think of an outfit I'd wanna wear from what we have now, that I could make it through an 8 hour shift in comfortably other than very basic stuff because I'd wanna wear something that looked fine with my comfy work sneakers

I do like the idea of having outfit freedom though
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A similar idea was bounced around at our store...... but with a slight twist: The Leadership wanted our TMs to "model" different outfits throughout their shift to show the Guest what we have to offer. Who has time for this? We are far too busy to make time for this. If the Style A&A Team is creatively merchandising the fixtures and walls, we are ALREADY showing our Guest what we have to offer. No need for "live" mannequins..... no payroll for "live" mannequins either. o_O
 
I get 8 hours now to break out folded carts by myself, break out the hanging with one other person, then pretty please Yev can you push BGI zracks. All the extra standing has my feet more unhappy than 4th quarter with 17k steps.
 
We're in the middle of transitioning to E2E. One tiny little thing that concerns me is that we are supposed to be "experts". I can manage that for everything except baby hardlines. Half the stuff in it I'm completely and utterly clueless, and I don't know any mothers of young children that can give me the cliff's notes on baby care. Are we supposed to be experts on the entirety of softlines, or just specific areas within it?
 
If your process is like ours you'll start by pushing the truck and merchandising the product to the floor. I feel like this process is such a huge change from what we used to do that it's going to take time to get from point A to point B. I do believe the ultimate goal is to assign TMs over certain areas so that they can be experts in their area for the good of the guests. I don't think this will happen all at once though.
 
And we're dying... between the remodel and the End 2 End and the million and one people shopping our fitting room is slammed. I had to go in and pick up something this afternoon and I felt so bad for our team. They looked dejected and overwhelmed. I really think that End 2 End should be tabled until the remodel is over. The hours given back to flow and flow pushing truck till it's done. But no one is going to see it that way.
 
How many of you have done the 2.0 remodel in softlines? We're having loads of fun between the big wigs who make the maps in corporate for the layout and the map makers who put together the VMG. It's like having two separate divisions making maps for the same thing and neither group bothered checking with the other. I can't tell you how much fun it's been. (Oh where is that sarcasm font... :rolleyes:)
 
VMG doesn't always match our reality either but in this case you have the construction team disgruntled over how we're ruining their setting (and they are setting it to their map as corporate told them to) and our remodel team fighting to reset to the VMG map because that's what the VMBP told them to do. Loads of fun when the two maps don't match up.
 
Our softlines is a mess :mad: There are carts and carts as well as Z-rails full of reshop that no one has any time to get to. We are getting a truck every day except Sunday until further notice according to our ETL-LOG. Its so frustrating. We have so many new tms who are just slow when it comes to pushing truck, doing reshop, or well...anything. I also do not think my TLs are distributing the workload appropriately, and apparently leadership agrees. Taking over price change or anything else for that matter ain't happening. Would love to hear some input from anybody from high-volume stores.
 
RightArm said:
And we're dying... between the remodel and the End 2 End and the million and one people shopping our fitting room is slammed. I had to go in and pick up something this afternoon and I felt so bad for our team. They looked dejected and overwhelmed. I really think that End 2 End should be tabled until the remodel is over. The hours given back to flow and flow pushing truck till it's done. But no one is going to see it that way.
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We're going through the same exact thing. We're two weeks into A+A and I just got most of my fixtures (moveable walls etc.)

Dayside is no longer coming clean on reshop, leaving 2-3 z's a night. Zoneing is a struggle since I priotize reshop to keep the FR looking like a "hotel lobby".
 
DialMforMonkey said:
We're going through the same exact thing. We're two weeks into A+A and I just got most of my fixtures (moveable walls etc.)

Dayside is no longer coming clean on reshop, leaving 2-3 z's a night. Zoneing is a struggle since I priotize reshop to keep the FR looking like a "hotel lobby".
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Exactly how it is here. Part of our problem is the stuff the remodel doesn't take into account. For instance, the VMG doesn't show what to do with scarves. We're starting to take advantage of all the end caps on our moveable walls for accessorizing in RTW. We are getting there but the back of our FR is suffering greatly along with the z-racks you mentioned. On a side note in our store zone seems to take priority to the FR.
 
RightArm said:
On a side note in our store zone seems to take priority to the FR.
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If our DTL comes in to even one z bar in sight, we're doing it wrong. My team has to hide in the closet to sort, and make sure only guest carts are seen. It's tough since now with summer I have lines of people waiting to use the FR.

Just set jewelry/ accessories last night. The vmg's were even less specific then usual, so it wasn't too bad. Jewelry just makes me want to swallow a bottle of Tylenol.
 
DialMforMonkey said:
If our DTL comes in to even one z bar in sight, we're doing it wrong. My team has to hide in the closet to sort, and make sure only guest carts are seen. It's tough since now with summer I have lines of people waiting to use the FR.

Just set jewelry/ accessories last night. The vmg's were even less specific then usual, so it wasn't too bad. Jewelry just makes me want to swallow a bottle of Tylenol.
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Your DTL would have an absolute heart attack at my store. Last time I checked we had 3+ zbars and about nine carts of to-be-sorted reshop shoved away. We abandoned the no-carts at the FR rule cause it just ain't happening.

How in the world are you doing any setting at night? Your store must be really low volume.
 
Doglover89 said:
Your DTL would have an absolute heart attack at my store. Last time I checked we had 3+ zbars and about nine carts of to-be-sorted reshop shoved away. We abandoned the no-carts at the FR rule cause it just ain't happening.

How in the world are you doing any setting at night? Your store must be really low volume.
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Nope, A volume. I give direction to have whatever area I'll be in that night to be zoned and reshop complete. Its not perfect and there are areas that go 2-3 days without getting a good zone, but it's all we can manage at this point.

The only way we're keeping our heads above water is by leaning on the truck team to finish as fast as possible. Then they get to reshop/zone depending on where the fire is for, if we're lucky, about 2 hours. I also partner with the LOD to make sure they smart huddle some tables in softlines, or you know at least DO a smart huddle somewhere.

This is definitely a shitty time for all of us. Rolling out e2e with horrible communication, A+A/Home Renovation, and Back to School? I'm almost glad to be overnight.
 
DialMforMonkey said:
The only way we're keeping our heads above water is by leaning on the truck team to finish as fast as possible.
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If you are A volume like us, how does the team finish truck so fast? Some days I do it alone, sometimes I have one or two other tms helping out. Pushing and back stocking takes most of my shift, unless there is a small truck. And I am quite fast.

How many closers do you have at night? Not counting any overnight/renovation people.
 
Doglover89 said:
If you are A volume like us, how does the team finish truck so fast? Some days I do it alone, sometimes I have one or two other tms helping out. Pushing and back stocking takes most of my shift, unless there is a small truck. And I am quite fast.

How many closers do you have at night? Not counting any overnight/renovation people.
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You push your entire truck solo?! I can't even fathom how that's allowed. At my store since we now schedule according to guest traffic, there is no expected time for the truck to finish. I told my team that 12 is the latest that we should be pushing.

So the two ladies I inherited for the truck process are beasts. They've been detrashing and pushing just them since fourth quarter. Sometimes if the trucks/repacks were huge they would give them a third person.

Now that we're e2e, the way I had it lined out is 2 push hanging, 2 push carts, and my shoe sponsor comes in to push shoes. Two of them come in at 4am to detrash, two come in around 7 or 8, then usually my shoe sponsor comes in at 9. I usually would help out with carts, and I'd have my VMTL help with the hanging.

As for closers, most days I have 1-2 not including the fitting room operator. Generally the team leaves an hour before close, including my FR operator. I'm trying to lean on my ETL HR to start scheduling FR until we actually close at 11.

Honestly, I have no idea how you detrash and push a truck solo. What happened to the flow team that pushed softlines before e2e? Why doesn't your team help you out?
I'd be raising hell if softlines only had 1 person.
 
DialMforMonkey said:
Honestly, I have no idea how you detrash and push a truck solo. What happened to the flow team that pushed softlines before e2e? Why doesn't your team help you out?
I'd be raising hell if softlines only had 1 person.
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I don't detrash. Our former SL flow ladies do that and then they go on to other stuff (they might do baby hardlines, market, HBA, domestics...depends on the day). But yes, I have pushed all hanging, carts, and shoes solo and backstocked whatever needed to be. We have many new tms who are still learning so they simply don't go as fast as me who's been there nearly 3 years.

Typically its 2-3 people pushing truck. Former SL flow ladies generally have detrashing done by 8:00 when our team starts coming in. I've been scheduled as late as 1pm or so and still helped finish up. Then we have an FRO and maybe 1 other person to deal with reshop. TLs have their own stuff and will occasionally help out with sorting reshop or truck if they have time.
 
Doglover89 said:
I don't detrash. Our former SL flow ladies do that and then they go on to other stuff (they might do baby hardlines, market, HBA, domestics...depends on the day). But yes, I have pushed all hanging, carts, and shoes solo and backstocked whatever needed to be. We have many new tms who are still learning so they simply don't go as fast as me who's been there nearly 3 years.

Typically its 2-3 people pushing truck. Former SL flow ladies generally have detrashing done by 8:00 when our team starts coming in. I've been scheduled as late as 1pm or so and still helped finish up. Then we have an FRO and maybe 1 other person to deal with reshop. TLs have their own stuff and will occasionally help out with sorting reshop or truck if they have time.
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That's tough. There should never be a day where you do all that solo. In my store we put market and softlines first, and front load those teams with hours. Hardlines is suffering for it, but in the scheme of things folding a table is more time consuming then zoning an aisle. The profit margins for softlines are also larger then anywhere else in the store if I'm not mistaken.
 
Alrighty kids...sltl insists one ordering folding boards but wants the one piece flat white ones. I'm only finding one for infants. Are there ones for kids and adults or is she shit out of luck?
 

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