They just told the entire company to stop ordering supplies immediately. Over three months left in the fiscal year. They even suggested we stop using bags if at all possible.
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Update: They seem to have backed off slightly on this. We got sent an excel file with supply counts for every store in the district and we were told to share supplies, but if we're completely out of something as a district they are going to allow us to order in limited quantities.
While this is inconvenient, it doesn't look like they're going to let us completely run out of register tape or anything vital.
I do wonder if this step back is because of negative feedback from booksellers.
Last years supply order “ban” was different. The company stopped using Staples as that was Demos’ connection so for a few weeks while they switched over to a new provider you couldn’t order office supplies. This only affected office supplies like pens, staples, paper clips etc, not bags, toilet paper or receipt tape which were always ordered through a different supplier.
It’s also incorrect as one post stated that last year this “ban” wasn’t communicated. Every store got an email in advance of this and should have been able to place one more order through staples before it went away.
Now I can’t speak to this years supply order ban as I’m not with the company anymore but it sure sounds bad. 3 months is a long time to not be able to order anything especially essentials like toilet paper, paper towels, bags and receipt tape. Should be interesting to see how this plays out.
@Xg4czm4-1rxm; Most of the DMs I worked with were quality, professional people. True story: one day a guy came into my store and was caught by one of the MMs exposing himself. The snake-handler took off running, and we contacted the police. The cops asked if we had CCTV of the pervert entering the store, which we found. The MM asked me if we should give the images to the cops, and I told him to go ahead, seeing as the guy had committed a s-xual felony.
Unfortunately, I screwed up, because you're supposed to reach out to LP before giving law enforcement CCTV evidence, and our regional LP bull wanted my butt. Thankfully, my DM was old school, and we had worked together since way back. I was probably looking at possible termination, but the DM made a phone call and told LP to back off, and that was the last I heard of it, no stern talking to, no write up, no nothing.
Just my own experience, but I was pretty lucky with the DMs I worked with.
Does anyone have a good District Manager, or are they all witches?
I think it's funny that the woman who was moderator of the B)
I think it's funny the woman who runs the B)
funny in a way.. i mentioned this to my family and they think this is a sign the end is happening much sooner than previously thought. makes sense imo. who is actually coming into stores now holiday is over? basic sense: not making money shouldn’t spend money. pinching pennies and all that..
haven’t been looking for jobs yet? better start now cuz better late than never.
@Xg4czm4-1bnb - Yes. Have definitely told others about this site. Many have read the comments and some are now commenting. At the store I work at, there is a LOT of worry. Sales are bombing after holidays and we are waiting for cut hours or more lay-offs. My store is a big one. Very well known in the tri-state area.
@Xg4czm4-ysp: There were certainly ASMs and SMs sitting on their asses in the office and doing little to nothing that I witnessed in my time at B if they were smart, they took as little time as possible to do this, usually walking the floor and back offices with a clipboard and a build-to list, and order as necessary. In years of doing this, worrying about budgets wasn't in the process. If you needed, say, small bags, you would order small bags, X1.5 needed, and not worry about it for another month. The only time you heard any beef about it was if you put in an order more than twice in a month, which was usually necessary because you had to order stuff for both the store and the café. The penalty for ordering more than once a month was a $15 charge against your store, which wasn't a big deal, since some poor schmuck (usually the ordering ASM) had to take an hour to drive to another store to borrow what they were short, and that generally cost more than the surcharge.
In terms of stockpiling, you certainly didn't want, say, four hundred boxes of small bags in your back room, because that would tip off the district manager that you were stockpiling. You'd put together a build-to list, multiply it by 1.5, and that was what you'd order. Supply ordering is pretty small beer compared to any other controllable, like payroll or markdowns. The fact that B no doubt some drone in NYC has decided that this should be controlled better. This is what they call in the military, chickenshit. It is stupid, and points to the fact that the company is in worse shape than we think.
I'm curious if everyone on here has told the people they work with about this site.
OP is correct. Managers told booksellers today at my store.
To the person that mention someone buying a greeting card and getting a shopping bag to carry it home because the store was out of small bags....those were the days!
The store I was at (now closed) would run out of bags and the SM kept telling us they were on order. Now I think she was told not to order bags until the fiscal year ended, and she just lied to us. This was years ago too.
STOP SPENDING MONEY = SOMETHING VERY BAD IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN
As crazy as this sounds, it's probably true.
Last year, they started limiting the amount of maintenance supplies you could order. Toilet paper, paper towels, cleaning fluid, bleach, etc.. It was unbelievable. Many times stores would run out of toilet paper and had to get some from another store.
At the store I was at, they had a supply budget. I guess that budget came from the home office or the district. The Asm. Would order just about anything whether it was needed or not just to get to that budget . "If we don't use it, then they will lower it" they would say. Supplies are a controllable expense, so the home office is the blame for that. Common sense would dictate you check what you have first then you order what you needed. Has not been that way for a long time. OH WAIT......Barnes and Noble has lost all its common sense !
My source: Every store in the company received this email yesterday afternoon. Managers should know by this point, and maybe some booksellers this morning. They should at least be communicating the bag frugality.
This is a big deal. Every store will have to do a survey so that they can redistribute supplies on a regional level. If you have too much of something, you may be asked to ship it to another store.
Everyone knows the end is coming this year. Sales are horrible.
There are better places that will treat you better and pay more!
@Bronko, what is the point of doing this if some ASMs know this (which you say happened before) and stockpile supplies? They are still paying for all that stockpile if they do it in anticipation. Or does the company know some of their ASMs and managers are lazy do nothings who don't order or pay attention and then figure they saved the money for supplies for that store(s) in the next 3 months? Obviously there are many of the aforementioned described ASMs in the company and the company bets on their just sitting in the office chatting and checking their cell phones or eating stuff and all day and not paying attention to anything at all?
If Mr. HILL is an insider and what he says is legit (I have no reason to think otherwise), this wouldn't be the first time. Last year the company turned off the Staples button from the supply ordering page on their intranet site for at least several weeks. IIRC, there was no announcement about not ordering, New York just turned off the ability to do so.
ASMs who did the ordering, if they were good at their job, would stockpile enough bags, register tape, etc. to probably make do for a month or two, but you can bet that there will be plenty of nearby stores that didn't do this, and for some reason actually ordered supplies according to their budget instead of the store's actual needs; in cases like this, you'll see customers asking for a bag for their greeting card purchase and ending up with a big handle bag.
They don't need register tape. They'll just email all receipts which is an option currently.
What are they saying on the B&N booksellers Facebook page?
UH OH, not a good sign.
Oh, c'mon. No cash register tape resupplying?
What is your source?