With so much focus on the back room, I worry the floor will suffer. All I hear is how much we are saving on inventory and labor but no one is talking sales. Increasing sales is the only way to get us out of our rut.
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I don't see how S.O.P. would impact comps. If your shelves are empty then you are approaching O.T.S. incorrectly. Spend enough to fill your shelves first then implement the new technique. Eventually as a buyer you'll learn the flow. Never before has Whole Foods had such a structured path to follow. It's awesome as long as you are realistic. The expectations of the new deal are absurd concerning out of stocks and many other lofty expectations. In the end I believe the expectations will collapse in a giant workable curve that is more realistic.
Await The Curve....
Comps are down because everyone is in on our game.
how much of this supposed comp growth is from price increases which I have seen throughout the store-remember those lil prepack things in prepared foods that were 2 for 5$ now run 2 for 6$..big change in percentage growth..wines that were regularly 6.99$ now 10.99$ but "on sale" for 7.99$..cauliflower,yes cauliflower was a flat unit price of 3.99ea now 2.99-4.29$ a pound..big change..they never discuss this aspect of our comps on the earnings calls..and if our impeccable customer service didn't save our lagging revenue for the last couple years how will an inventory/clipboard program really change this problem.we haven't addressed the core issue with competition and pricing.or revenue growth with this sop/ots program..i love the scared look on some tl/buyers and the other half that are brown nosers who cheerlead for this crap.also how will regional allocations that fail miserably be held accountable??
My comps are super high just like me. That's why my clip boards and feather dusters are always close at hand. Toodles my comps are the highest in The land.
It works well in my store. They got rid of all the back room clutter and made so easy for anyone walking back there to understand where items are stored.
Not a troll, just a dairy buyer. If it wasn't working for us I'd be just as honest. Love how anyone who is okay with any change at wf is automatically a troll or someone working for regional or global. The disillusionment works both ways. It must s--- to hate your job soooo much but yet you can't leave. I truly feel for you.
As a long time shopper and former employee I can tell you what I am seeing during the transiston. Less product selection, but lets be frank who needed 30 types of mustard when only 10 would give you plenty of choices. Lots of holes on the shelves, hopefully as product mix is tighter those products have more space on the shelves and that self corrects. No one ever on the floor in the market team aisles whenever I am shopping, but with less products that need hand selling and more space for the remaining products you can cut that team in half stocking overnight until the early morning and clear space for people to shop. Once this happens and staffing is cut more the prices can be rolled back 25-30% to compete with their retailers selling the same exact brands cheaper. This can likely be completed by 2018 fiscal year, not the pricing but the structure to allow the prices to head in the right direction.
The new system is amazing. I do less physical labor and just walk around inspecting. Less customer interaction too. The teams are not too thrilled about the extra work but that's their problem. I'm not sharing that fate.
Does everyone have overheads? It wasn't much of a change for us.
Love this site, glad I got out of that place reading these post make my day better, if u hate it there get out
OMG...great troll @MVxEaw0-hsc...you should probably be more subversive in the future so you don't sound like a member of the disillusioned regional/global team...drink that kool aid and keep putting your hands over your eyes...I don't blame you...I wouldn't want to be accountable for my mistakes either...especially if it meant I couldn't buy my new sports car...:P
Smoother than ever. Once the truck is thrown we can spend the time on the floor focusing on guests instead of working a jigsaw puzzle of back room back stock organization. There were some kinks for our buyer to get used to, but with any change that's normal. The clipboards aren't that big of a deal or time waster like everyone makes it sound. It keeps communication up dated, straight forward, and organized. You know exactly how many pallets of what was ordered. With other departments like meat the auto allocations without reason have stopped - stuff that is allocated is stuff that is set to go on sale whereas before you got a whole bunch of product and were expected to move through it. It's working fine.
Comp's have increased by 5%, because of OTS the extra labor is used for customer service. With very little inventory and more efficient operations of OTS, has allowed us to run our business smarter and invest that into customer service. I find it interesting talk about all these clipboards, on daily avg we only only add a couple of documents to them. There more than for check's and balance of the Team daily.
Talking about living in a bubble. Amazon did look into WFM and one of the major issues was labor.
So is it all cowinkydink after that labor was drastically reduced. OJulius rock by the way. You don't have to be so mean. Not everyone can be a big shot at WFM.
Our comps are WAY up. I think the word is getting out...we are signing off on a bunch of clipboards every day and it is really bringing the customers in!
This notion of making WFM attractive for a sell out is absurd. First, there's no way Amazon would purchase us, we couldn't be further from their business model. At 14 - 15% store labor, we are way too labor intensive for most prospective buyers. It's easy to buy a company and eliminate its central support labor dollars, but to bring store labor down to industry standards would be a huge headache and likely lose a significant aspect of how we create loyalty. Grow up. John Mackey doesn't want our company bought out. He's just as energized by WFM as ever. Move on, doesn't your Orange Julius shift start soon?!?
The whole point was to make the company attractive to a buyer like Amazon. Big wigs want to cash out and don't care about the people that work for them. We are trying to run grocery teams like its target with none of the tech.
They have improved. It can be done.