No More Flexing

NXT

NXT

Knowledge TL
Joined
Feb 10, 2016
Messages
133
Curious how well this is going in stores? I know it is just starting to roll out. My store will have so much trouble with this, especially in Q4 when they over push toys beyond the max. Curious if field leadership will follow up on this.
 
NXT said:
Curious how well this is going in stores? I know it is just starting to roll out. My store will have so much trouble with this, especially in Q4 when they over push toys beyond the max. Curious if field leadership will follow up on this.
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My bet is leadership will follow up on it because it is "the thing" right now. How they will do it, probably by looking at endcaps and seasonal. We were told once seasonal is near the end and nothing else was to come in we were to leave everything were it is and basically spread it out or expand the facings of one item to cover the out of the item next to it. For the time being while this is still a hot topic, it will HAVE to be done that way or answered to during a visit. We'll see what happens in toys.
This makes more sense to me because the whole reason for doing it this way is so fulfillment can find things plus its less work in seasonal not having to condense. It will take more time to set seasonal because there won't be empty aisle anymore whoever sets it will have to tear down all the fixtures, backer and gondolas and put it all away while at the same time setting and pushing.:eek: But with them breaking up the set into different weeks it should be manageable. We'll see.🤣
I wonder if this was piloted in some stores and if so how it went there.
 
Mikuhl said:
Stay tuned for next week, where we get instructed to flex because it looks like we are going out of business. And the week after that where we cant flex because everything is all over the place. And don't get me started on the week after that!
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What?! No they wouldn't do that!🤣
 
Mikuhl said:
Stay tuned for next week, where we get instructed to flex because it looks like we are going out of business. And the week after that where we cant flex because everything is all over the place. And don't get me started on the week after that!
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Flexing is a must, not flexing just looks awful. I don't know who's bright idea it was to set jean walls with bin tickets but when they are set to "plan" the walls look horrible.
 
Flexing can be great when done by people who know what they're doing, and who aren't looking to cut corners, but are in fact willing to take on the added efforts of label maintenance, changing capacities, adjusting fixtures intelligently, etc. But as a shopper, I'd rather be able to see that an item is still carried but temporarily out of stock than see shelves that look "full" of stuff I'm not looking for.
 
The problem with flexing is TMs will do it because it's either that or not finish the u-boat in time. I've been this TM. You flex because otherwise you're going to get talked to about the U-boat timer thing and you're not going to make that time anyway but if you're only late by a LITTLE BIT then MAYBE you won't get that "talk."

You simply don't have time to backstock the thing so you just flex it.
 
Thank god front end is still allowed to flex or my bullseye and checklanes would be permanently empty and have major gaps forever and ever. I’m really good with making sure labels are updated at least when we flex up front.
 
We’ve been doing this for a few months now. End caps are constantly empty and our bullseye section looks like crap.

As a company, Target has always been bad at re-merchandising (outside of style). When it’s time to condense and flex out, seasonal always looks like a hot mess at my store. No tags, no price signs, just a bunch of crap all pushed together in a few aisles as the new set comes in. In this case, I agree on no flexing.

But things like end caps, sales plans and bullseye should absolutely be flexed. They are easier to maintain and don’t take as much effort
 
I thought flexing was supposed to be replaced by "findability" at my store.

I was told we would have product in more than one location to reduce backstock.

That didn't increase the DCPI number just the number of items pulled.
 
So the new PTP best practice says to leave empty spots on endcaps for two weeks after set to allow merchandise to flow in. It also says to take action when an endcap is more than half empty.

So what do you do when a newly set salesplanner is more than half empty?
 
BKop16 said:
So what do you do when a newly set salesplanner is more than half empty?
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At my store, we just go with it the best we can and hope the rest of it comes in soon. The last round of OTC and Personal Care end caps were mostly sort of set twice - once without all the ISM and again when it came it. Still haven't received it for the Dove end cap, but at least it's a back one so not so noticeable. The Crest one though is still missing one of the toothpastes; I have the product but the price is showing as $0.00. As much as I hate the chat bot, I actually created a case for it; the reply was that it's going to be reset, again, soon (next week, I think) and the problem should resolve.
 
My wife and I, both former Target team members, walked through our old store today and holy shit does it look bad without flexing. Endcaps are set with maybe 10% of the product, entire 4 foot sections looking like a picked over seasonal aisle. The store looked awful, but seeing this thread kind of explains it. Whoever made this decision clearly hasn't worked or shopped in a Target store and only cares about OPU metrics.
 
The Dude Abides said:
My wife and I, both former Target team members, walked through our old store today and holy shit does it look bad without flexing. Endcaps are set with maybe 10% of the product, entire 4 foot sections looking like a picked over seasonal aisle. The store looked awful, but seeing this thread kind of explains it. Whoever made this decision clearly hasn't worked or shopped in a Target store and only cares about OPU metrics.
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You hit that on the head.

only cares about OPU metrics.
Click to expand...
 
The Dude Abides said:
My wife and I, both former Target team members, walked through our old store today and holy shit does it look bad without flexing. Endcaps are set with maybe 10% of the product, entire 4 foot sections looking like a picked over seasonal aisle. The store looked awful, but seeing this thread kind of explains it. Whoever made this decision clearly hasn't worked or shopped in a Target store and only cares about OPU metrics.
Click to expand...
I don’t that that’s because of no flexing. Empty endcaps is not from no flex direction. There is pretty clear direction if there are a couple outs on an endcap that’s okay but empty or half empty is not. Sidecaps and endcaps are the exception to the rule. I imagine if they’re not doing that right, there’s also the opportunity they aren’t finishing truck or pulling all of their priority fill.

No flex isn’t making the store look bad, it’s just exposing bad operations.
 
We had an pet food endcap was almost empty for about a month because of no stock.

Flexing other pet items there would have been better than nothing.

Whatever happened to the "findability" phase push recently too?
 

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