Association Of Village Idiots

Improving a Small Part of the Economy 11/02/2009

By Chuck Howard

I am an unashamed capitalist. I believe given an even playing fields and everyone using the same rules the best product or service should win out based on  its individual merits. I know Capitalism comes in many flavors each with different management styles. I will be talking about one of these styles as it relates to retail. None of these styles are meant to describe any one business as each business is mostly a combination of styles many leaning heavily to one rather than another.

The “Top Down” management style I will speak about first.
Everything flows down from upper management through the various departments finally to the actual selling floor of the individual stores. This includes not only the merchandise and the way it’s displayed, but also the customer interaction with the sales associates. It also includes various other  personnel issues and stock room policies and such.

The “Bottom Up” management style is one in which the information flows from the individual stores up to the upper management in the corporation. This not only includes sales associates and data from various sales and stock needs but also customer feedback and interaction. The statistic of sales of items can give you some customer feedback. It is obvious if one item is purchased rather than another then there is more demand for that item. The lack I see in the stores that use the data as their only form of feedback is that it misses one issue. What about items the customer wants that are no longer stocked or never bought in the first place?

I bring you to my personal story now. I was in a “Big Box” store a few weeks back. I was looking for a simple outdoor thermometer. The kind with a metal or plastic backing and the alcohol tube in the middle. Nothing fancy just something functional. The person I was with and myself spend over half an hour searching isle by isle looking for this item, a simple thermometer. We were finally able to find a store clerk int the clothing section and they had no better luck. After a while they called someone on their portable radio who said there may be some in the center isle. We did find the one in a few minutes. A fifty dollar computerized weather station. A bit over kill for my needs to say the least.

This incident I describe has been played over and over the past several years in many stores. Simple items, common items, much like a pair of scissors or a box of staples. Not only none to be found, but not even carried by the store. I spoke with an assistant manager on a trip to the store before about the lack of staples when there was half an isle of staplers to be found but no staples. The only explanation he could come up with was a person at corporate headquarters makes the isle displays and there was no room in the design to put staples. I then asked him, “What does the customer put into the stapler when they buy it here.” He didn’t really have an answer. I believe this is the “Top Down” management style shown to it’s obvious conclusion. No feedback loop.

Let me make a suggestion here rather than just end on a rant. I hate when people whine all the time and yet never give ideas as to how to solve the problem they are whining about. Here is my suggestion to retailers start using the “Bottom Up” management style with emphasis on customer interaction. I am not necessarily talking about keeping a data base of cutomer complaints or putting a suggestion box at the front of the store. I am talking about training the sales associates to recognize when a cutomer points out an obvious error in stocking merchandise. Such as five racks of Carharts all in XXL and no other sizes. Yes, This is another of my encounters at multiple stores in my area. Not only recognize but reward the customer for finding these things out. Then take it serious and send the information up to corporate. Maybe give the customer a coupon for 20% off their next purchase. Put a sign in the store to call attention to your reward program for having the customer help to know what the store needs to stock.

My idea may be but a small part of improving the economy or the bottom line in the individual store, however the alternative in my case is often I give up trying, go home, log on to Amazon and the local merchants lose sales. I really think this could be done better.

Any “Big Box” store corporate types reading this? Remember a lost sale is a lost sale forever.

Chuck Howard
(The Token Yank)