I went in today to get my schedule for next week and couldn't believe what I saw. All the bread tables were completely empty. The pie table was completely empty. The single serve dessert table was empty. All the cupcakes were gone. About the only things left were a few birthday cakes and a few table items. We're already over $1,000 over budget, and they haven't even counted Saturday yet.
Over budget means we took in more sales than they predicted. We were budgeted to have a weekly sale total of about $25,000. As of Thursday, our sales were over $26,000.
Over budget means we took in more sales than they predicted. We were budgeted to have a weekly sale total of about $25,000. As of Thursday, our sales were over $26,000.
But if you were wiped out on sales of $1,000 over budget, you weren't going for sales. I'm not saying throw shrink goals out the window, but you missed sales since you ended up blown out. Not saying you were slacking, but you weren't exactly prepared either.
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The information in the above posts are not intended to be taken as truth. Only a fool would believe it.
Over budget means we took in more sales than they predicted. We were budgeted to have a weekly sale total of about $25,000. As of Thursday, our sales were over $26,000.
But if you were wiped out on sales of $1,000 over budget, you weren't going for sales. I'm not saying throw shrink goals out the window, but you missed sales since you ended up blown out. Not saying you were slacking, but you weren't exactly prepared either.
You weren't there asswipe. Unless you've worked in the bakery department in one of the busiest stores during a holiday, you've got no business saying we weren't prepared.
It's difficult to be prepared on a holiday. People think bakery is a joke or something because we're a smaller department but with the amount of people we have, compared to say, produce, it is difficult to even keep the product full for people to buy. Plus it's hard to gauge just how much to order. We overestimated our 8 inch pies and made way too many, but on the other hand, our 9 inch pies were wiped out.
Over budget means we took in more sales than they predicted. We were budgeted to have a weekly sale total of about $25,000. As of Thursday, our sales were over $26,000.
But if you were wiped out on sales of $1,000 over budget, you weren't going for sales. I'm not saying throw shrink goals out the window, but you missed sales since you ended up blown out. Not saying you were slacking, but you weren't exactly prepared either.
You weren't there asswipe. Unless you've worked in the bakery department in one of the busiest stores during a holiday, you've got no business saying we weren't prepared.
I've been a manager over bakery departments multiple times in almost 9 years with Kroger. You bet your ass I'd have been told we weren't prepared if a coordinator or division coordinator walked into a blown out department. And I know this because it's happened. But go ahead and keep talking out your ass like you know what I have and haven't done.
__________________
The information in the above posts are not intended to be taken as truth. Only a fool would believe it.
I currently work in a bakery/cafe. I wasn't working last Monday and Tuesday, but I worked last Wednesday and we had less than half of the product that was delivered that past Monday. By the time Thursday came around, we had nothing. We were wiped out until the truck came, which was supposed to come earlier than normal, but ended up being 4 hours late. Luckily (and this was probably because we didn't have a lot of product), we had a slower day on Thursday than the other three days. Even my boss said she couldn't predict this; she even worried that we would run out of product again over the weekend since Saturdays are usually our hit day and she didn't order enough to compensate (this weekend was slow so it made up for it). Being that our store is much smaller than a Kroger, the lack of product hurt. But preparation would've helped a bit.
It's difficult to be prepared on a holiday. People think bakery is a joke or something because we're a smaller department but with the amount of people we have, compared to say, produce, it is difficult to even keep the product full for people to buy. Plus it's hard to gauge just how much to order. We overestimated our 8 inch pies and made way too many, but on the other hand, our 9 inch pies were wiped out.
What's hard is you can't predict what people are going to buy from year to year. Our bakery manager keeps meticulous notes on what items sold and didn't sell during the holiday. That way she can adjust what she orders and what we bake the following year. It doesn't work. One year we can't seem to keep the rye bread in stock. The next year we can't give it away.
It's difficult to be prepared on a holiday. People think bakery is a joke or something because we're a smaller department but with the amount of people we have, compared to say, produce, it is difficult to even keep the product full for people to buy. Plus it's hard to gauge just how much to order. We overestimated our 8 inch pies and made way too many, but on the other hand, our 9 inch pies were wiped out.
What's hard is you can't predict what people are going to buy from year to year. Our bakery manager keeps meticulous notes on what items sold and didn't sell during the holiday. That way she can adjust what she orders and what we bake the following year. It doesn't work. One year we can't seem to keep the rye bread in stock. The next year we can't give it away.
Story of my life. :)
I'll order the grocery truck and load up on all the great sales items. It sits on backstock because the customers decided to buy everything that no one ever buys(creating holes in the process)!!
I just hate the mega events. So many items on it, and which ones people actually buy change everytime they run the sale. There are some consistencies, but a lot of the time it's random.
It's difficult to be prepared on a holiday. People think bakery is a joke or something because we're a smaller department but with the amount of people we have, compared to say, produce, it is difficult to even keep the product full for people to buy. Plus it's hard to gauge just how much to order. We overestimated our 8 inch pies and made way too many, but on the other hand, our 9 inch pies were wiped out.
What's hard is you can't predict what people are going to buy from year to year. Our bakery manager keeps meticulous notes on what items sold and didn't sell during the holiday. That way she can adjust what she orders and what we bake the following year. It doesn't work. One year we can't seem to keep the rye bread in stock. The next year we can't give it away.
Here we sell through pumpkin pies like there's no tomorrow but sweet potato sits on the shelf forever. I've heard that at some of the more urban area stores though they sell a ton of the sweet potato instead. Every store is different same as every year is different.
Over budget means we took in more sales than they predicted. We were budgeted to have a weekly sale total of about $25,000. As of Thursday, our sales were over $26,000.
But if you were wiped out on sales of $1,000 over budget, you weren't going for sales. I'm not saying throw shrink goals out the window, but you missed sales since you ended up blown out. Not saying you were slacking, but you weren't exactly prepared either.
You weren't there asswipe. Unless you've worked in the bakery department in one of the busiest stores during a holiday, you've got no business saying we weren't prepared.
You sold out. You missed sales. You were definitely unprepared.
Much like how customers would blast a retailer for selling out a very popular item within minutes of release. If you did not prepare to sell to every customer, YOU WERE NOT PREPARED.
Over budget means we took in more sales than they predicted. We were budgeted to have a weekly sale total of about $25,000. As of Thursday, our sales were over $26,000.
But if you were wiped out on sales of $1,000 over budget, you weren't going for sales. I'm not saying throw shrink goals out the window, but you missed sales since you ended up blown out. Not saying you were slacking, but you weren't exactly prepared either.
You weren't there asswipe. Unless you've worked in the bakery department in one of the busiest stores during a holiday, you've got no business saying we weren't prepared.
You sold out. You missed sales. You were definitely unprepared.
Over budget means we took in more sales than they predicted. We were budgeted to have a weekly sale total of about $25,000. As of Thursday, our sales were over $26,000.
But if you were wiped out on sales of $1,000 over budget, you weren't going for sales. I'm not saying throw shrink goals out the window, but you missed sales since you ended up blown out. Not saying you were slacking, but you weren't exactly prepared either.
You weren't there asswipe. Unless you've worked in the bakery department in one of the busiest stores during a holiday, you've got no business saying we weren't prepared.
You sold out. You missed sales. You were definitely unprepared.
Much like how customers would blast a retailer for selling out a very popular item within minutes of release. If you did not prepare to sell to every customer, YOU WERE NOT PREPARED.
sometimes it's nearly impossible TO be be prepared though. that's the sad thing about it.
Over budget means we took in more sales than they predicted. We were budgeted to have a weekly sale total of about $25,000. As of Thursday, our sales were over $26,000.
But if you were wiped out on sales of $1,000 over budget, you weren't going for sales. I'm not saying throw shrink goals out the window, but you missed sales since you ended up blown out. Not saying you were slacking, but you weren't exactly prepared either.
You weren't there asswipe. Unless you've worked in the bakery department in one of the busiest stores during a holiday, you've got no business saying we weren't prepared.
You sold out. You missed sales. You were definitely unprepared.
Much like how customers would blast a retailer for selling out a very popular item within minutes of release. If you did not prepare to sell to every customer, YOU WERE NOT PREPARED.
I don't work in bakery, but... how could any department possibly be prepared to sell to "every customer"? Reviewing what has sold well and not sold well in the past can help and that's why that information is available and is supposed to be reviewed ahead of every big sales event, like Christmas, but... a customer's shopping habits can change, to varying degrees. Sometimes, by a little, other times, by a lot, occasionally somewhere in between and other times, not at all, but part of where Kroger is wrong in its thinking is the assumption that data from previous weeks, months and years can perfectly predict future sales, and again, while it's good to know what sales looked like in the past, all the data in the world can't fully prepare you for what's to come in the future because people change, and so do their circumstances.
Missed sales are a fact of life in retail. You can't make a sale to every single customer every single time. You can minimize the number of missed sales, sure, and the department heads that have the fewest missed sales are the ones that definitely have a future higher up in the company if they choose to go that route, but even the best department heads are going to have a few missed sales opportunities here and there. If a department gets blown out big time, and it's not just one or two products, then yeah, it in all likelihood wasn't prepared and steps need to be taken to prepare better in the future. Not all managers though are good at collecting all the facts before making conclusions, unfortunately, and not all store managers lead by the right example and do the right things around big holidays, either. The whole picture needs to be looked at to see what went wrong and where, and just how much a role the expected/unexpected shopping habits of the customers played in it all.
-- Edited by GenesisOne on Tuesday 29th of December 2015 10:36:15 PM
Over budget means we took in more sales than they predicted. We were budgeted to have a weekly sale total of about $25,000. As of Thursday, our sales were over $26,000.
But if you were wiped out on sales of $1,000 over budget, you weren't going for sales. I'm not saying throw shrink goals out the window, but you missed sales since you ended up blown out. Not saying you were slacking, but you weren't exactly prepared either.
You weren't there asswipe. Unless you've worked in the bakery department in one of the busiest stores during a holiday, you've got no business saying we weren't prepared.
You sold out. You missed sales. You were definitely unprepared.
Much like how customers would blast a retailer for selling out a very popular item within minutes of release. If you did not prepare to sell to every customer, YOU WERE NOT PREPARED.
I don't work in bakery, but... how could any department possibly be prepared to sell to "every customer"? Reviewing what has sold well and not sold well in the past can help and that's why that information is available and is supposed to be reviewed ahead of every big sales event, like Christmas, but... a customer's shopping habits can change, to varying degrees. Sometimes, by a little, other times, by a lot, occasionally somewhere in between and other times, not at all, but part of where Kroger is wrong in its thinking is the assumption that data from previous weeks, months and years can perfectly predict future sales, and again, while it's good to know what sales looked like in the past, all the data in the world can't fully prepare you for what's to come in the future because people change, and so do their circumstances.
Missed sales are a fact of life in retail. You can't make a sale to every single customer every single time. You can minimize the number of missed sales, sure, and the department heads that have the fewest missed sales are the ones that definitely have a future higher up in the company if they choose to go that route, but even the best department heads are going to have a few missed sales opportunities here and there. If a department gets blown out big time, and it's not just one or two products, then yeah, it in all likelihood wasn't prepared and steps need to be taken to prepare better in the future. Not all managers though are good at collecting all the facts before making conclusions, unfortunately, and not all store managers lead by the right example and do the right things around big holidays, either. The whole picture needs to be looked at to see what went wrong and where, and just how much a role the expected/unexpected shopping habits of the customers played in it all.
-- Edited by GenesisOne on Tuesday 29th of December 2015 10:36:15 PM
I'll tell you what went wrong. They cut the hours during Christmas week. Even if you take Christmas Day out of the schedule, there were some days where we just had four people: a baker, a decorator, a bagger, and a closer. It also doesn't help that some of those people weren't scheduled a full 8-hour day. It also doesn't help that most of the employees under the age of 35 can't seem to keep from texting while they're working. It's pan out a pan of cookies; send a text text. Pan out another pan of cookies; read a text. The help we have now is nearly as competent as the help we used to have.
^ That's why I personally believe that you get what you pay for. Kroger pays such a miserable wage that a majority of people that take the job don't have very good work ethic. Without question, there are hard workers at every Kroger store - but those hard workers tend to be outnumbered by the ones that see that they can get away with doing as little as possible and still hold on to their job. The sad thing is, that has a demoralizing impact on the hard workers, sometimes. They may ask themselves, "why, again, am I breaking my back while they are getting away with texting/talking/etc... on the clock?" No consequences, no incentive to perform well, and a lot of employees don't care whether or not the company has great holiday sales numbers because they feel there's nothing in it for them. Unlike the executives and district managers and store managers and whatnot that get bonuses, the employees don't get any sort of bonus for working hard to pull in great holiday sales numbers. The employees look at their pitiful raises that come once or twice a year and what they're making versus their counterparts at Walmart, Target, Costco and so on, and they just say, "screw it, it's not worth it." Everyone works hard and strives for results at, say, Costco, because Costco takes very good care of its employees and the employees don't want to lose their jobs, so they give it their all and then some. We all see what happens when you have a company like Kroger that is the exact opposite of Costco.
I'll tell you what went wrong. They cut the hours during Christmas week. Even if you take Christmas Day out of the schedule, there were some days where we just had four people: a baker, a decorator, a bagger, and a closer. It also doesn't help that some of those people weren't scheduled a full 8-hour day. It also doesn't help that most of the employees under the age of 35 can't seem to keep from texting while they're working. It's pan out a pan of cookies; send a text text. Pan out another pan of cookies; read a text. The help we have now is nearly as competent as the help we used to have.
That should be, "The help we have now isn't nearly as competent as the help we used to have."
