What a great idea Mad........Blitz has bombed at our store for the last couple of years.  I agree, with Layaway gone.........WalMart needs to come up with a strategy to get  a higher/better traffic flow which will increase sales...we need all the help we can get.  All departments are scrambling to get rid of all the "junk" from prior years...also don't see as much merchandise coming in as we have had in prior years.  LS

I have a lot more features than I used to.  Since markdown money is so tight, I am not getting any money to get rid of the junk.  I have around 20 features, both sidekicks and endcaps worth--in my back room.  And mgmt thinks I have too much backstock.  All but one of the features I have, are HO bought.  That one's my VPI.

 

Mad

Photo Lab got this feature of digital picture frames for Fathers Day in the shape of basketball, basball, soccer, and football.  They look cheap and they are not selling at all.  They came in at 30 dollars.  Our manager put them on clearance for $20 and they still are not selling.  He marked them down to $15 today.  We even still have camera bags left over from last blitz day.  We have never had anything left over from the holidays last this long.  The managers say our sales are down and we need to be more agressive at the camera bar.  Not many people are buying digital cameras or camcorders right now.  I think they are thinking ahead for Christmas now.  Our new mods just dropped this week too.  Sanyo cameras are really improving in quality some with 10mp will be coming out soon.  I don't understand why we got the  digital camera and camcorder for dummys sets.  They feel so cheap in your hands and the camera is only 2.1mp.  The kids won't even steal those.

Hi!

Yes, we were told that also.  All stores, even division 1, will be open Thanksgiving.  Soon we'll be called Tar-Mart.  Or is that Kal-Mart?  Just call us sheep-baaaaaaaa.

store manager reminded us again yesterday that he was looking for volunteers... so far I don't think anyone has volunteered.  I hope not... I just don't see the point of being opened if the darn stores have never been opened.  We are open from 7am-5pm... sure right at dinner time.

Maybe if no one volunteers we can't open ?

Almost all the years that I have worked for W*M, we've been open on Turkey day.  Dept mgrs are usually scheduled off.  Sometimes they asked us which 4 hours of our normal shift, we wold like to work.  That was helpful to a lot of folks.

 

Mad

At my old store we were not open on Thanksgiving day or Easter before we became a Supercenter.  My old store has been a supercenter since March of 2002 and is now open on Thanksgiving and Easter.  My new store is a supercenter so we are open too.  People shop after they get done eating to see if they can get one of the Blitz deals early.  I have had people ask me if they could get the camera on Thursday because they did not want to wait in line.  I always tell them if you think I am stupid enough to risk my job to sell you that camera today then you are crazy.  LOL  I even tell them if I was stupid enough the register would not let me anyway.  Now that we close at midnight it will be a free for all to see how fast people can get in the store and find what they want.  In a 24 hour store people can come in early and scope things out to see where they need to be for what they want.  It is incredible how shoppers think we are the most stupid people on the planet.  (Well at least I HAVE a JOB) :D

We have had a few Supercenters around here that closes at night. Depends on area and wether or not they pull in enough money for it to be open. I wish mine would close it would help cut down on the theft. Or at least get Mgmt to practice different ways of doing things they do that makes it open season for shoplifting.

Yes we started closing at midnight the middle of January this year.  We have a lot of theft issues at our store.  I was overhearing AP say they have more calls to the police department to come and arrest a thief than any other store in our area.  I think there is still a lot that don't get caught.  We have to put out empty boxes for some of the bigger camera sets.  Even with the spider wrap on it they go where the cameras can't see them and cut open the box and remove the contents.   I think in the beginning some of our theft issues were internal but I think we have gotten rid of some of our internal problem.  We have a new store manager and more AP people so maybe things will start looking up.

 

We had a Blue Ray player stolen a few weeks ago. They cut the box around the spider wrap.

Got a guy who was stealing Laptops. Stops and looks right into the camera before he leaves.

We don'thave action alleys any more.Wonder where They will put it all?

We are supposed to be getting some kind of locking boxes for some of our photo lab merchandise.  One style of the box is supposed to be big enough for a memory card and larger ones for the Kodak camera kits that come with a bag and charger.  I think electronics will be using them for DVDs and bluray movies.  I think they come in several sizes and are similar to the locking boxes for software.  Hopefully that will slow our theft problem.  They are also getting some kind of sticky tabs to put the locking boxes on locking peg hooks.  People complain when they have to pay for stuff at the photo lab register they say they have to pay double taxes. ???  I told my customer today it is not double taxed it is a percentage of your total price of taxable items.  OMG people are so stupid.

Double taxes??!!  Now, that's original!

People will come up with anything, if they think it will get them somewhere.

 

Mad

Yes he wanted to take the camera to the register as he had other things he wanted to pay for.  We will take stuff up front but never let a customer take it up front.