Beep. Beep. Thank You

Warning: This is a longer post than what I normally create. Pull up a nice warm mug and settle in for a winter holiday reflection. I am so happy you stopped by and I wish you good tidings.

This past year has been TOUGH. The grocery channel has struggled through some very sticky and trudge-sludge days that were a test for even the most seasoned manager or owner.

There were problems with supply chains (broken links be damned), H.O. centres had to restructure. They merged three jobs into one. There were ongoing issues with staffing at the store level. In the midst of all this, companies kept moving ahead. They implemented the needed changes and innovations that became obvious with CoVid. As we all crawled out of that mess, excitement brewed about our potential. We can make our retail society better.

No matter what livelihood you have, you appreciate peace and productivity. When you go to work, you have a plan. You have a set of tasks. There are goals set by the company or yourself. Then you follow the steps until the day is done. DONE. As a child, we are instilled to have a sense of pride in our accomplishments. We look at our livelihood as something to be proud of as we worked so hard. To be proud of one’s work is integral to happiness and productivity. INDEED has provided a nice little article on how to take pride in the workplace. This applies to the accountant and the merchandiser. There no different wish or want. Nobody likes turmoil or negative influence. NOBODY.

There are two ‘camps’ for turmoil or negative influence that affects your day: internal and external. Both are unpredictable, even the internal, to a certain extent. They can make the day feel like it will never end. Then, it goes home to bed with you. This is the breaking point. If it goes under the blankies, you are in trouble. You need to make some changes now. NOW.

We are staying focused on the Consumer-Packaged Goods aisles. We are also merchandising the products in the stores. As a merchandiser, we are sensitive and have to deal with all kinds of challenges daily. I have touched on several over the five years that our merchandisersminutes.ca blog has been rolling out. This post is meant to frame the current challenges in our world. This includes all the trudge and muck of this year. It also shares what we hope to change. I will try to summarize and I hope it doesn’t come across as trite and skimming any real issues. This is the breakout of what I see as the pull-down in the grocery channel now and a quick solution. I would rather be a part of the solution then just whining about the problem.

The internal turmoil or ‘stops’ to the peace of the day are usually more predictable. They can be changed with policy and procedure adjustment. This is the three categories of the ‘normal’ daily disruptors.

Scheduling: as long as I can remember, the retail channel operates on a huge population of part-time positions. These are usually between 8 and 16 hours per week, evenings and weekend workers. For the sake of all that is good, DO NOT schedule full-time weekday people for anything but that. These people are usually trained to make things happen in the store (operations, auditors, and inventory handlers) during H.O hours. They can’t do their jobs and get the support they need during weekends and evenings. There is no point scheduling them against their support. All you get is disgruntled people that feel out of place in the space. Let the rested and energetic part-timers who are wholly customer focused (all they know) handle these busy hours. Just because the management team has to share the evenings and weekends doesn’t mean that rolls to the full-time group. That management pay cheque is payment for the babysitting.

Inventory systems: it doesn’t matter how it pans out at H.O. The schematics on the manual show that it will do this or that. Nope, there hasn’t been an efficient inventory software program written to date. None of them actually works in a store. There are kick-outs, spinning wheels, and then the awesome update/crash at the best of times. Most stores are, on average 40,000 plus square feet. That will need more than one WIFI server point. Tim Tang at Enterprise Solutions wrote an article through the Hughes Blog. It discusses what stores need to do to make their WIFI and systems hum along peacefully (hopefully). This, along with investing the big bucks in software programs that have been designed correctly. So, until the grocery retail channel actually pays the big bucks instead of the shareholders, there will be problems with inventory management and software programs. The day will run on the spinning wheel on the inventory gun.

Customer effects: Imagine if I went to your home and took all the cutlery and food out of your kitchen. I tossed it from your bedroom to the back garden. Why are you scattering the store products across the store? Why am I finding melted, frozen food in health and beauty?

I have a merch friend, working in a store with a large clientele of seniors. Her take on building a display is simple: ribbon the rows to keep the lows. The low, bottom shelves on the displays will be destroyed quickly. Customers struggle to shop from them when they are physically creaky. Nobody likes to keep straightening these up. If empty, this is where the leaking frozen food will land. I have no idea why, it just happens, and then there is the half-done vanilla latte. Yuck.

Here is an example of two different endcap display styles, which includes the ribbon set, on the right/second photo. Both work. It’s always best to know thy customer and set for the majority. Either way keeps the flavours sorted and makes for easy shop and inventory management.

We want to see the shelves shopped. That is where the pay cheque is generated. We only want respect and consideration of our workplace. Extra work piled on the merchandisers causes the shelves to lack products. There are only so many hours in the day to clean up a mess.

The daily open and close of the store can seem routine, even boring, for most of the week and calendar. The beep and beep, and Thank You, of the store systems and courtesies is a dull hum. Then something happens in the store or the parking lot. It’s captured on the ever-present cellphone camera. Even when people are in a hurry, somehow they find time to take a photo of something. And then, they post on social media with some comment that may be rather hurtful. All of the sudden, a routine day has tossed you into the ring with a bullseye.

There may not even be a photo. There could be just a comment such as “I love shopping at (insert store name here)…said no one ever.”

Holy moly…that STINGS! There are so many good-hearted and hard-working people in these stores (worldwide). This comment just pulled the rug out. It made their livelihood useless. NICE. If you look over some of my earlier posts, I have reviewed how many skills merchandisers use. All at once that is. We will wait while you catch your breath every five minutes. It’s a little tougher than sitting at a laptop playing with Excel. Some people just have a hard time shopping. It’s okay. You do you. This is why I get taxes done. Opinions are never based on fact, BTW.

The external turmoil and negative public energy is the stuff that usually crawls under the blankies first. This is because it’s unpredictable, our day is routine until that photo (lazer) or comment (trip wire) creates havoc. And then, layer in the internal spinning wheels of the scheduling/inventory/customer effects. If you weren’t scheduled for that shift, the (insert adjective) customer would have been happy. If you could have found the product, the (insert adjective) customer would have been happy. If you didn’t have a million other messes, the (insert adjective) customer would have been happy instead of nasty. And then, the whole scene snowballs. Blah!

In the ten minutes of that day, there is a worker that now has to deal with a situation. They may not deal well. They may take it home to bed. They may not rest peacefully. That is not fair.

Can we ever, finally, start to treat others the way we would like to be treated? It’s the Golden Rule. This means: respect, consideration, patience, open-mindedness, care, intelligence, and insight. Seven ‘gifts’ that could be thought of as daily goals. Sort of like a One A Day, aim to be better examples of humanity. Hopefully, this way, we will all have the peace we need to go forward in the grocery channel in 2025. Let’s hope this next year is a drier and flower-filled meadow with smooth trails. Just say thanks, after the beep-beep, and wish everybody a good day.

Yours In The Store,

Cindy