Why is there merchandise shipped in quantities that will never have a chance to sell through?
If it doesn't sell, no money is made. A store that returns pallets of unsold merchandise will lose money and tons of it, yet the same old mistakes are repeated again and again.
@1wbw If I was $50,000 in debt, and planning on filing bankruptcy, no I wouldn't fraudulently rack up another $10,000 in debt just because I could. I would never allow myself to get in that position anyway. It's called personal responsibility, restraint and morality. Who the H--- do you think picks up the slack for bankrupt individuals with "morals" such as yourself. You are a pig and probably a millenial.
@aqy- thank you. Very helpful information.
To shed some light on the apparel side... I previously worked as a buyer in SF. When I started, we would order standard size runs for all stores. 1 S, 2 M, 3 L, 2 XL. Back when David was running apparel, there was a huge push to let our "smart systems" use data to determine what size/color would sell best and in what market. They said that it would make buying easier for us and that kmart had been using it for years. This system would analyze our sales data to choose what colors and sizes to send to what store. I can tell you there were times when the system would tell me to send some CRAZY stuff like 0 XS, 4 S, 3 M, 1 L, 1 XL to stores and send that to them 3 times throughout the season. Inventory can over ride, but at this point I'm afraid there is no one left who knows what they're doing on the inventory side or the buying side. Everyone experienced is leaving....and fast. They keep hiring people fresh out of college and throwing them in, no training or anything.
There were more store closings than expected. Units are placed/ committed 5 to 6 months in advance with vendors. Also teams are held accountable for the original plan regardless of the number of stores. The buy units are to cover the plan. As a result instead of buying down the units are now spread to more less stores. The state of Sears makes it very difficult to cancel units with vendors and all vendors have shorter terms so they are less willing to accept cancellations. Now stores will receive more units especially seasonal items and will incur more markdowns when the items don't sell. Ideally Sears should be buying down to count for closing stores. On top that it should be even further down because the number of store closings have been heavier.
I for one loved the joe boxer novelty socks!! I literally bought one of each style :-)
How about those winter coats in Florida in august and swim suits in Alaska in march lol
@isu- exactly! We used to have a higher assortment level in kids and used to sell a ton. Now they dropped our assortment to small a few years back. Customers glance at the department now and walk away. But they tell us they can't adjust our level until we increase our sales. Nonsense.
Lets say you have 50k in credit card debt but still have 10k left before its maxed out and you plan on going bankrupt. Wouldnt you go spend the 10k first?
There are items that sell OK but are overshipped, if that makes sense. For example, Laura Scott sells OK but it doesn't warrant 500 sweaters/T-shirts/cardigans of each color/pattern.
Other things don't sell well (or barely sell), like all of those novelty Joe Boxer socks (filled two 36 x 36 x 36 rolling bins with them last year, only 1/2 off one bin sold), the hand soap (about 150 boxes worth, with 24 in each case, haven't had a need to replenish what is already out on the salesfloor), stationery, pillows (way too many varieties and lots of redundancy, it confuses customers) and so on, yet we still receive this stuff.
Softlines needs to be overhauled and shrunk down. In some stores it should just be eliminated. Apparel is no longer the reason why people come to Sears. Sell the basic stuff that sells well. No two stores are the same and should not be "uniform". It is OK to add or drop categories and brands based on historical sales figures for a particular store. To a lesser extent, hardlines could use this model too. For example, nobody is buying fancy "premium" appliances in a working class, conservative town. Use the floor space for "domestic" appliances in the mid-range price point.
I'm not sure why the company doesn't handle their inventory and assortments on a granular, dynamic level, handling the stores on an individual basis and enabling the store managers to have a say in how their store should be stocked. Think of the money that would be saved and how that would be paving the way to profitability.
This has been going on for all the 15 years I've been with Sears, and I'm sure much longer. We just received a new Simply Styled blazer. This brand actually sells really well in our store. But we got one size run (1 small, 2 mediums, 2 larges, 1 XL) each of 4 colors, and SEVEN size runs of the ivory color. I can bet most of those will be RTV with the next green ticket mark-out.
Another issue is that some of these order are placed in advance such as seasonal things like Christmas trees. Last year we got such an excessive amount of trees it was ridiculous! I asked the DM why we had so many and he said they were redirected because of closing/closed stores. when the order was placed there were x number of stores and now there are fewer so the inventory must be redistributed among a smaller number of locations. With the large number of stores closed this year, it could be causing merchandise ordered in advance to be redirected causing stores to get a lot of some products. Just a thought.
possibly quality suppliers see too much risk and no need to sell to Sears.
Our store isnt selling and we keep getting truck overloaded and just basically building more debt. Doesnt the company focus on what actually sells and what doesnt? We have Sears products online that should of be in the actual store because customers like certain products. Another thing is when they cut the wrong Vendors for example in the past in shoes Converse/New Balance we use to sell a lot of those, we got simply style a product that isnt selling at all. In the Spring we had a ton of 0's for Footwear like probably 2 full pallets they didn't sell at the end, but guess what? We get again tons of junk and this summer its going to be the same exact thing lots of 0's since they wont sell its another waste of Sears.
The biggest problem we have in our store is our Store Manager he doesn't know how to manage the store no one sees him as a leader because hes such a huge douche bag.
The inventory teams flow product, not Buyers. It could be because of an inexperienced Inventory Analyst, or could most likely be due to a very inept program called IDRP (commonly known as (It Doesn't Really Perform). IDRP has been in the works for 10 years or so and still does not work properly yet it is being forced into production. We have seen where one store gets way excess product and other stores get nothing. Many issues with it, but they won't give up and cannot seem to be able to fix everything. Fix one issue and it causes another.
Buyers decide assortment, when allowed to make their own decisions, which is another problem in itself.
SHC has been laying off buyers like crazy. Experienced buyers are leaving in droves. Expect to see more costly mistakes. Scary for sure.