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

[Wave Ballerino]

I got permission to sacrifice the life of one of the softlines shelves to test out a theory, and it ended up working great -- I shaved off the top metal nub from the shelves that forces whoever is trying to set the shelves to lift it up akwardly high in order to put it into the notches.. but without that nub, you can just set it straight in, instead of at a weird angle. Shaving the nub off also allows you to take a shelf down from the fixture room without having to start from the top, since shelves above it would need to move in order to reach it.. Just saved us zillions of hours of muscle cramps and headache messing with those wretched shelves, with no loss of stability. I looked down inside the column of the standards and the rolly-things the shelves rest on, and the nubs before didn't even touch the insides to begin with, as if they added stability..

 

[sigma7]

I never assumed they were for stability. I always figured that nub was so a guest doesn't pull one out on themselves. It's much more common to run into the tables and racks in softlines than it is to run into a gondola in hardlines. Except in cases of the motorized cart vs endcap showdown.

 

[Wave Ballerino]

The weight of the shelf alone, with wood and metal, seems like a sufficient amount of downward pull to prevent coming dislodged from a cart bump.. Maybe I could test the impactworthiness next time I go in -- we've only converted maybe 10-15 shelves to nubless so far. One of the main reasons for doing so was partly because our previous Wave only went up so high, and the fixture room had shelves a lot higher than the Wave could reach. We had some kind of motor issue with our Wave recently and instead of repairing it, whoever supplies them just sent us a new one instead and took the old one -- and the new one reaches high enough now =P

 

[sigma7]

Now that I think about it, the new style softlines shelves don't have a nub. They're more just like the hardlines shelves. I've always hated softlines shelves. That's awesome about your new wave!

 

[Wave Ballerino]

Being mister photo-taky person I am, I was sure to get dozens of pics of the old wave from different angles for posterity. The new Wave deffo has some quirks to get used to.. The old one's maximum height was exactly perfect for our ceiling, giving me ~3 inches of head room clearance from the ceiling tiles, but this one's maximum will go clear thru the tiles, plus it is SUPER wobbly when up high. We could lean way over on the old one without the hintest of waver, but this one feels like I'm on a tightrope. It also has some struts along the bottom, with horizontal rollers, that prevent the base from knocking into basedecks and will just roll along them instead. The side-to-side motors are hella strong tho, and don't seem to operate on the turtle circuit as the old one did, meaning full rabbit when turning even when in turtle.. *CLUNK* =P

 

[zachman]

Everyone make it through market?

I've been off 4 days, today a plano tm tells me that market is finished, then I see about 25 boxes of signing and fixtures not even touched, so I see I will be in market half of next week

 

[greydot]

We start our readjust of Market Monday, 6/23 morning. ISM screw up was EVERY market box wasn't marked what kit was inside. I opened every box and got it laid out on my cart to set the days of. ISM also put BTS set and the Market Readjust AND Furniture set in the same week. PTL convinced the stl to allow us to set BTS and Furniture this week, and luckily sales were up so we were allowed to. BTS was same old stuff. Allow 1 person 3 days (Box to Baler) to prebuild everything. 2 days to set.

and that's why i love TOT and that you are an early set store (and have box to baler times way before my chain set store). does it bother anyone else that the monthly signing updates get posted so late? i heard someone saying that there is only 23hrs of signing for BTS, and i was like......are you new?

My market boxes weren't too bad. There were a few that were marked out to specific POGs, but the ones that are in generic boxes were just more of the same thing that we had (the choose well brackets, butcher block headers, the choose well headers, and the outriggers.). I ended up just taking all of of the ones that were larger than a box of outriggers apart and combining into one tiered cart and going POG by POG. The only ones that had really had anything more specific than a supergraphic or a vertical informational was coffee with the clings and a few shelftalkers and two unique headers.

The one thing that we were not prepared for was candy switching to a 22" basedeck and not having the wire dividers to support it. Also, one of our chip aisles got new smaller 18" chip shelves but they only sent 8 when we needed about 20. There were a couple **surprise** 22" aisles that were not before and we didn't have nearly enough 22" pushers to support either. I think it depends on how your market was set previously.

 

[Angel]

Our store just re-did all of market, we still have tons of boxes waiting for me on pallets in the back....I don't mind pulling the pallets, but seriously? Must they make them weigh more than I do??? LOL!! I can't wait for MP to get back to where it should be....*rolls eyes*

 

[salesfloor10]

I'm a new Plano TL and was curious what kinds of routines you all have for signing? I would love to get signing to a good place in my store but I'm not quite sure where to start. (Ideally it would be cleaning out the horrible fixture room but payroll/workload prevents that).

 

[signing genie]

I'm a new Plano TL and was curious what kinds of routines you all have for signing? I would love to get signing to a good place in my store but I'm not quite sure where to start. (Ideally it would be cleaning out the horrible fixture room but payroll/workload prevents that).

What my ptl did was on a short week with the pog team and myself we spent just a day in the fixture till it was reasonably manageable. Then i spent half my shift the following week to finish up on small details. Works everytime

 

[ZombieGurl]

normally as we are setting my team gets all of their signing, fixtures and brings it to the aisle after they tie and drop.. that way they have everything in one shot and dont have to keep going back and forth. they also put up their signing either as they go or at the end. once a week my signing tm goes through the signing area and put up any overdue stuff. our fixture room just had a major cleaning and its stayed nice for the last month so far. just hold people responsible.. i take pictures, email them and make sure I copy the STL cause he will then make it a point to have people clean up their messes.
I also find it very important to give my singing tm all the time she needs on her work. she doesnt fool around and I know shes working so if she says she needs the time she needs it. She is starting the shippers for next weeks softlines today because thees so many and BTS is next week

 

[ciNOThyfs]

Can anyone breakdown their core roles and daily tasks mon-fri(or whatever)? Nobody seems to know what signing does, or what's actually efficient so I become the slave girl 😕

 

[ZombieGurl]

signing tm core roles? i can give you a breakdown of what my signing tm does if that helps.

everyday she comes in and checks email and message boards. if there's an email about something needing fixed she does that
if pallets come in she sorts those and distributes depending on what it is. our sales floor still does their own sp's so we have a separate spot for their signing
she also spends Monday going through old signing to see what needs put up etc.
if she has stuff that needs to go up like softlines billboards and such she starts putting them up. if theres a big project coming up she gets a head start.
she maintains the street signs and headers.. if ones broke or whatever she fixes it . other than that she works with the presentation team. my pog team puts up signing as we go so she has less to do.

 

[Wave Ballerino]

Core role varies by store, but ask HR for the 'core role' paperwork you would need in order to submit an Americans With Disabilities Act form, and the papers describe the specific duties so that a doctor can evaluate..

Anyone know how to measure EC basedecks? We may not have enough for the BTS reset but not sure how to find out which basedecks we need to order..

 

[ZombieGurl]

my signing tm also prints the prep batch every friday, she checks the computer for urgent batches and hangs those also. she helps back-up also in the afternoons

 

[Jeremy1818]

Core role varies by store, but ask HR for the 'core role' paperwork you would need in order to submit an Americans With Disabilities Act form, and the papers describe the specific duties so that a doctor can evaluate..

Anyone know how to measure EC basedecks? We may not have enough for the BTS reset but not sure how to find out which basedecks we need to order..

Just take a tape measure, your either going to have 22" basedecks or 18" basedecks (wide). Unless your seasonal section has unique footage, they should all be 4feet long

 

[Wave Ballerino]

22" or 18" deep (front to back), you mean? (looking at it as if you were facing the endcap) I measured from the back end of the shelf portion to the front top lip's edge and got 24" on all the basedecks in the area we'll be setting BTS, and it looks like most of the ones we have are the same depth.. They were 4ft wide, yes =)

 

[Jeremy1818]

22" or 18" deep (front to back), you mean? (looking at it as if you were facing the endcap) I measured from the back end of the shelf portion to the front top lip's edge and got 24" on all the basedecks in the area we'll be setting BTS, and it looks like most of the ones we have are the same depth.. They were 4ft wide, yes =)

Sorry I didn't see the endcap part. First you will need to see what side each of your gondola base decks are. That will tell you if you need an endcap basedeck of 22" on each side, 22" one one side and 18" on the other or 18" on both. Once you determine that, go to my support and type in gondola parts and they should have a list of the part numbers. I am off until Thurs morning, if you can't find them by then, I will get them for you on Thursday

 

[salesfloor10]

Random question, but what is the part number for a basic 4 foot label holder, for hardlines? is it FX0001 or something different? I was having a really hard time figuring it out in SAP.

 

[NOP]

Random question, but what is the part number for a basic 4 foot label holder, for hardlines? is it FX0001 or something different? I was having a really hard time figuring it out in SAP.

FX4500 or FX0007. One is the old part number, the other is the new one.

 

[NOP]

Now that I think about it, the new style softlines shelves don't have a nub. They're more just like the hardlines shelves. I've always hated softlines shelves. That's awesome about your new wave!

The new style softlines shelves are also the shoe shelves.

Wish we could swap them out with the new shoe shelves when we had our PFresh remodel - ETL-SL said no.

 

[salesfloor10]

Thanks @NOP
Is that the one that's clear? (I know the off-white ones are the older version, correct?)

 

[NOP]

Thanks @NOP
Is that the one that's clear? (I know the off-white ones are the older version, correct?)

Correct. The off-white/beige ones we don't use anymore. They don't make them, and if you still have them, you should probably start getting rid of them, if they haven't broken by now. Think they went away in...2011?

 

[salesfloor10]

@NOP
We really should replace all the label holders in my store then!!!! I need to order a bunch (and give my STL a heart attack when that SAP order goes up for approval!)
Thank you! 🙂

 

[NOP]

@NOP
We really should replace all the label holders in my store then!!!! I need to order a bunch (and give my STL a heart attack when that SAP order goes up for approval!)
Thank you! 🙂

We did that transition area by transition after that rolled out. Now anytime we run across them (we find them in random places), we swap them out.

Your STL approves the order? Mine's automatic.