MEGATHREAD Signing Tips, Tricks and Quips (along with howls of despair)

[dek067]

just fyi, the tv stand for the furniture transition comes from box stock. the rockers came in as displays.

 

[TargetOldTimer]

My favorite is when someone on the plano says they didn't see any backer paper back there. Really? I ALWAYS put it in the same spot and date it. I love walking back there with that person and pointing to it.

My main problem this week was moving the shelves in the video games. No one read through the planograms beforehand to see what needed to be done or planned out. So, it is 1030 am, and the whole area is unshoppable. Had I known I was going to have to move all these shelves for the plano team, I would have planned it out a little. Our PTL, who used to be just the pricing TL, is still getting used to the whole plano thing.

Does anyone know if you can order just the top from (where the viking screws go) for a softlines billboard?

I've ordered it before when ours has broken. I don't know the part number, but if I remember right, its called an convertible extender????

 

[TargetOldTimer]

just fyi, the tv stand for the furniture transition comes from box stock. the rockers came in as displays.

Impact came, but they only had a work order for 1 video rocker.

Ugh, that means I will be building a tv stand........

 

[dek067]

Impact came, but they only had a work order for 1 video rocker.

Ugh, that means I will be building a tv stand........

that sucks. impact is anything but impactful. the sft got an email about now managing the impact process. wonder how long it'll be before the sft just builds everything.

 

[Bucky]

The guy who came built four pieces for us. He had a his work orders for all four pieces. And true, the one tv stand came from box stock.

 

[commiecorvus]

I'm not looking forward to next week.
Small appliances and entertainment in the same week?
Neither will be too tough for the team but I will be stuck doing most of the heavy lifting.
For that matter looks like they are doing the sleds for sporting goods, so I'd better build the frelling shippers ahead of time or that's not happening.

 

[Formina Sage]

The transition packet for Entertainment says that all the Blu-Ray plexi anti-sweep shelves are being tossed in favor of standard 4" entertainment shelves. But the new POGs still call for the anti-sweep fixtures on the cover page!

 

[ISM Master]

Next week looks crazy. Entertainment is doing some changes. It said in the manual 50% less moves that the entertainment reinvention. I read that they want to take the anti-sweep off blu-ray too but I think we are going to leave them up. The only area they don't work is for TV shows on blu-ray.

Small appliances looks like a lot of work because all the displays are fixtures and not out of box. Got a whole pallet this week of all the displays. Looks like I'm gonna be busy putting those up plus the 3x5s because the plano team sucks at displays.

I wanted to start building Christmas next week but we will see if that happens.

 

[TargetOldTimer]

Next week looks crazy. Entertainment is doing some changes. It said in the manual 50% less moves that the entertainment reinvention. I read that they want to take the anti-sweep off blu-ray too but I think we are going to leave them up. The only area they don't work is for TV shows on blu-ray.

Small appliances looks like a lot of work because all the displays are fixtures and not out of box. Got a whole pallet this week of all the displays. Looks like I'm gonna be busy putting those up plus the 3x5s because the plano team sucks at displays.

I wanted to start building Christmas next week but we will see if that happens.

I was kinda freaked out this week. Adjacency work load showed signing at 37.5 hours. I'm like "Where?". The only explanation I came up with is that they put setting up displays in the signing hours. ??

I spent today taking all the small appliances out of their boxes. (Filled a trash cage to overflowing with cardboard/styrofoam) I got one of our extra convertibles and set up 6 shelves on it, and put all the displays there. I taped the display numbers to the outside of each. I think it will save a quite a bit of time, just to wheel out the convertible. Looks like we will also be using displays from store stock, so don't allow plano to get happy and toss anything yet....

Also prebuilt the vacuums.

I don't lift large furniture (thats why we hire young men), but the furniture changes don't look that difficult? I'm sure I will have to babysit the entire process..........

 

[greydot]

Ugh, I had to watch over furniture today. Luckily the team was in good spirits since there was something wrong or weird with every plano. One the TL wrote the wrong aisle on the POG, but luckily our TM figured it out. all the tv stands moved which was a pain but not the end of the world. Oh, and that new TV Stand that Impact built from boxstock? NOP! Our entertainment ditched the anti-sweep a while ago though....i thought...... looking at the entertainment transition skid though, they sent a lot of new shelves. hopefully they get used and don't just get left in the backroom for me to take care of. i still have my 8ft tall towering small app display skid in the back. i didn't have time to do anything of my own today. i saw the 37.5 signing hours in TWT as well - i was planning on using this week as a big purge week to make room for all the 2012 holiday that is going to swamp the store soon. i have a bunch of stuff that came off of backorder and needs to get to the floor. if not i'll just take the whole sm. app skid to the floor and sort it right there.

 

[Formina Sage]

I hear there are going to be a LOT more (more than double) dump bins for 2-day sale this year. So if they all have to be prebuilt, where will they be stored? I remember prebuilding 7 last year and they took up the whole fixture room. There are also some new checklane "cues" as well which I'd assume have to be prebuilt. Yikes.

 

[ISM Master]

I hear there are going to be a LOT more (more than double) dump bins for 2-day sale this year. So if they all have to be prebuilt, where will they be stored? I remember prebuilding 7 last year and they took up the whole fixture room. There are also some new checklane "cues" as well which I'd assume have to be prebuilt. Yikes.

I could have sworn I built around 20 bins for black friday last year. I think there were 12 just for domestics to hold all the pillows and towels plus all the softline's bins.

Anyone else see the 65 signing hours on the adjacency calendar for the week of 10/21, which means I'm only gonna get half of it. I'm wondering if it is high for pre-building Christmas bins of fluffing out the trees.

 

[dek067]

small apps was easy, but displays take a while. gotta finish up some signing, but our network was down and we couldn't print (or access) much of anything.
accessories was larger than usual (or seemed that way).
tomorrow we're gonna try to get stationery and the vacuums knocked out.

i mysupported the thing with the anti sweep and they still haven't answered. i think we're gonna pull them down. we went through and ordered a ton of new shelving for mmb to fix what we still haven't received from last time. be careful with what the pog calls for---all the dvds that say 4" actually have a capacity of 10-12 dvds and youll have to use 6" (or pull them out every time with the cafs). we're just gonna go through and use 6" for dvds/books, 4" for bray/music. our adjacency even calls for aisles with like sections 1-2 on 6", 3 on 4", 5-6 on 6". i sent those up too, but they said to set it to pog, even though all the capacities would be wrong. LOL. if we set everything to pog, our store would look like crap. :buba:

 

[Jeremy1818]

I hear there are going to be a LOT more (more than double) dump bins for 2-day sale this year. So if they all have to be prebuilt, where will they be stored? I remember prebuilding 7 last year and they took up the whole fixture room. There are also some new checklane "cues" as well which I'd assume have to be prebuilt. Yikes.

Your right, I got my 4th quarter book and they are having bins for the 4 day and 2 day sales. Plus an average of 15 checklane cues, which also need to be prebuilt. Its defentaly a huge signing increase over last year

 

[Jeremy1818]

I could have sworn I built around 20 bins for black friday last year. I think there were 12 just for domestics to hold all the pillows and towels plus all the softline's bins.

Anyone else see the 65 signing hours on the adjacency calendar for the week of 10/21, which means I'm only gonna get half of it. I'm wondering if it is high for pre-building Christmas bins of fluffing out the trees.

You have to build bins for softlines, basically gifting tables, that look like cardboard Christmas trees

 

[commiecorvus]

You have to build bins for softlines, basically gifting tables, that look like cardboard Christmas trees

I saw those.
Anybody got the baking focal yet?
Looks like last years, only more so.

 

[Jeremy1818]

I saw those.
Anybody got the baking focal yet?
Looks like last years, only more so.

The baking focal location doesn't make sense for my prototype. In my store layout the bulk endcaps are 14 aisles away from the baking aisle

 

[TargetOldTimer]

I need a vacation.

 

[ISM Master]

I saw those.
Anybody got the baking focal yet?
Looks like last years, only more so.

Baking focal will probably come on next week pallets since it wets the week on 10/21.

 

[commiecorvus]

Baking focal will probably come on next week pallets since it wets the week on 10/21.

I thought it was a dry goods focal ...


Ignore me, having a beer and thinking about what a cluster next week is looking like.
Built all the vacuums, am I the only one who throws out all the attachments?

 

[dek067]

I thought it was a dry goods focal ...


Ignore me, having a beer and thinking about what a cluster next week is looking like.
Built all the vacuums, am I the only one who throws out all the attachments?

we saved part of them to attach to our cordless vac. ordered it on tipp. best thing ever for cosmetics. sucks the dirt right outta all those grooves.

question... the little clear plastic "fencing" pieces in mmb that slide in the lip on the front of the shelf and are 30" x 3"? what are they called? are they supposed to be on there? i imagine its refered to as antisweep something, but they're not listed on the pogs anywhere. some of ours has them and some don't. i want it to be uniform.
mysupport has had my antisweep blueray question for 12 days. no answer still. so we're tossing them. ardon:

also, im having issues with my signing guy not being able to keep up with his orders. we do ppas, follow ups, and he prints where he orders the tipp items weekly and files them. but theres so much on backorder, and people are subbing like crazy, we just keep running out. it seems like the lead in times on tipp are no where close, or either he isn't ordering like he needs to be. any suggestions on how to keep it all straight? i know we're under scheduled so he's been having to set a LOT lately. but my team does all there own signing/displays, so he should have time for his stuff.

 

[commiecorvus]

We've been having issues with things, TPC 3X5's,clearance bubbles, 3X5 paper, etc., just flat not showing up.
I order batches.
I show the TL's, when we start to run out the orders, but they order more anyway and a week or two later we get 15 reams of the stuff.
Having serious case of the frustrations with supply side.

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

i got my 3 by 5 paper last week. but, the sale, tpc, instant sub & as advertised i ordered 3 weeks ago, as yet to come in. hopefully, on tomorrow truck?

 

[greydot]

Ordering fixtures is always an issue to be dealt with. Are you pre-auditing (aka: hey look, there is no 4ft fencing in the store and we're going to set mini seasonal in like 2 weeks - better order some) or post-auditing (aka: alright well we were 150 zone assists short on ink aisle, better order some)? In the first example there is at least some hope of things being in on time (lead times have never been of any help when i am ordering things. ever.). Also - if it is something that might be really heavy that all stores are using - its going to be hard to get. Also - when people start subbing things - you need to make sure that they are keeping tabs on that stuff now too, because thats is how you end up running out of e v e r y t h i n g all at once, and then your whole store implodes (ok, sometimes it just seems like that...). Some items just backorder themselves until they are obsolete. I know I've received Xmas signs in the summer. Anyone ever have to replace the x-lane battery fixture? That always takes like 12-18 months to come in (seriously, the last time i ordered it, it was at the request of a GSTL who had since moved departments almost a year later when it came in). So some things do just take forever. Some things come immediately. (not like, office depot immediately, but next pallet immediately.)

I also wonder what you mean by "his orders". Like, is new stuff just piling up upon receipt? Or just making sure he is ordering things in a timely fashion? It also depends on what you are running out of. Like, one thing that is big in our store is the softlines pegs for straight bars? Because they are used so heavily by POG, and the softlines team - one team will use an amount thinking there is a lot left - then another will come through and decimate the supply. So when the first team comes back around they wonder why there aren't any since they left "enough" last time. Everyone who sets has a hand in monitoring the fixture supply level at least on the most common items. For certain things I sometimes keep a "backup amount" which also helps me to guage where the communication levels are. Just today my TL came up to me and was like "have any label holders come in?" which was really confusing because no one had mentioned that we were out of label holders, but apparently someone (more than one) had told the TL that we had been out. Also, really weird because I had a box of about 300 which I would have dipped into had anyone mentioned needing any, and immediately ordered more.

Especially with 4th quarter coming up - things might be on backorder from people "stocking up" (which I know I am on all the things we generally run out of). I know we've had some gondola parts on backorder since BTS. Also - sometimes things get cancelled. Does your signing TM have email that they check? I used to ignore them, but there have been a lot of deletes the past year. One time they deleted an order for clearance labels. It said they were "no longer available" or no longer a current item, or something ridiculous. So then I printed it out, gave it to the Pricing TL and she resubmitted and it went through. Sometimes things make sense, sometimes they don't. There is also the issue of the way they redid the TIPP order process. Now, especially for displays - if it is not in stock it won't even show up in the search results. Which is maddening. I get that backorder is frustrating but it at least lets the order end. Now they want you to check back in 1-2 weeks and order again. When its like - really, if I can't order that lamp display now you really expect me to have to the time to keep looking it up every week, and remember that number? It all depends.

If he is filing his orders then it should be pretty black and white when he is ordering things. Whenever I order things for other people they ask how long it will take. I always tell them the same thing "it could show up in a week, could show up in 6 months" because it is kind of hard to really determine. If there is something you are especially waiting on - make sure he knows how to track his order. If you go into TIPP into the Approved orders, you can click through the tabs and check the progress of your order. Usually it goes Order received, Order Acknowledged, Order Fullfilled, Shipped, Received, or something like that. It also depends on if your item is coming direct from the supplier or from a warehouse or a supplier. Straight from manufacturer will be fastest, but it depends. If you look at enough of them you can decipher what they mean (comepare fullfilled orders, to pending orders, to new orders to see differences).

ps
i think that fencing part is called something like "plexi front lip" or mmb browser lip or something along those lines. it should be on POG for CDs, backwall dvd planos, and also the kids book tiered fixture.

 

[ISM Master]

I hear there are going to be a LOT more (more than double) dump bins for 2-day sale this year. So if they all have to be prebuilt, where will they be stored? I remember prebuilding 7 last year and they took up the whole fixture room. There are also some new checklane "cues" as well which I'd assume have to be prebuilt. Yikes.

The bad part is that the signing hours according to the adjacency calendar are low for the weeks before Black Friday, which means they are not going the schedule me much. We'll see what the monthly signing hours are when November is posted, but our store never looks at those hours.