This weekend has made up my mind for me...

[Kusanagi]

I realized this economy is not going to turn around any time soon.

Since Christmas, nobody has bought furniture. People have been spending money hand over fist last year, and after Christmas, our sales numbers fell through the floor, not just for our company, but for our entire industry.

Corporate's solution is to send more emails, frantically throw any buzz word propeganda at us to use on customers to make it stick, and to yell at us when we don't hit our sales goals.

We didn't sell anything near our projected numbers for our President's day sale - the excuse we talked ourselves into believing was that people were saving for taxes or they were getting ready to file, so they didn't have the extra money to burn. Okay, fine, I can live with that - I was one of them.

Everyone in our company, especially my district, was holding their collective breath for Memorial Day. Weeks of hundreds of "GET THE RATINGS UP!" emails for the last few months grinds on you, especially when they get lower. I made a post about this in morons in management about a sales technique I use that they hate but gets results, and have tried to repromand me before.

Memorial weekend, every year for the last four, I can always write up about $20,000 worth of business.

Want to know the only thing I sold this entire 3 day nearly 40 hour weekend?

One $300 couch.

None of the other stores did much better - nobody hit even half of their projected numbers.

And given that the economy is so bad, I know that we're shooting ourselves in the foot with our policies. I cannot flex on anything. I can't pull something out at the last minute to save a sale.

I counted. I had 23 living room packages ($2000+) walk out on me for the same variety of reasons:

• "Do you have financing like everyone else for like, two years no payments?" "Nope, we only have a three month plan." "Oh, goodbye."
• "What's the delivery charge?" "Anywhere from $100-$200." "The other place delivers it cheaper, goodbye."
• "Great, I'll take it, let me go get my truck and I'll come pick it up." "Oh, sorry, we don't have a warehouse in this city, it's 100 miles away the next county over." "That's stupid, goodbye."
• "Do you have a no sales tax promotion?" "Nope, sorry, Uncle Sam needs his cut." "That's stupid, goodbye."

The real killer? There was a customs delay in China for the furniture leaving their docks. The cargo ship had hundreds of table sets on it, and what do you know - those are the tables that we're including with ALL OF OUR PACKAGES. 13 piece living rooms for $999 - and the fucking tables aren't in.

So does corporate decide to swap the tables with something we have? No. They instead want us to sell these packages when people need to wait until the first month of JULY to get them delivered!

As a salesman, you know there's always room for improvement. You know you can always do more. When corporate decides not to do anything or flex on anything about our:

• high delivery fees
• not substituting product that isn't in stock
• not offering any attractive or even competitive financing options
• not doing any type of discount whatsoever - military, holiday, sales tax, etc.

It is KILLING us as salespeople. The typical solution - work harder, right? Yeah, that's great - when the company across the street has the exact same couch but they'll take off the sales tax, give free delivery, and no payment/interest plans till 2011, no salesman in the world would be able to salvage that situation, yours truly included.

If I had just ONE thing that I could use out of those four that kill us - I would close at least twice as many sales as I had. I had roughly $40,000 worth of business walk out the door this weekend because I couldn't match even one service with our competition in stores all around us.

Raise the price of everything in the store by $200 and then offer free delivery. I guarantee we would double or triple our business!

But no, the hotshots in corporate haven't been on the sales floor for years, sometimes decades, and anyone in a position to change corporate policy is making enough money that they don't feel the sting from the economy freefall. They have a set way of doing things and it isn't working. I know from experience - when I presented an idea that I had been using that had proven numbers and satisfied customers behind it, was it embraced? No. I was scolded and even threatened with a written warning because of it.

I am jumping ship from this company at the next possible opportunity - I don't care if it's an overnight stocking job. I need to get out of sales - President's day wasn't a fluke, it's a pattern. Memorial day didn't turn it around for at least anyone in my district, and I won't have the numbers for the rest of the company until tommorrow.

Corporate policy is shooting us salesmen in the foot, and unfortunately, I am not able to get a job at other furniture stores in my area simply because they're all in the same boat, and my company has a bit of a bad rep for shit just like this.

I ended up taking a test and filling out an application to become a service technician at Sears and am going to follow up until they actually tell me no. It's more money, more job security, and people will be paying to repair old appliances and things before they go out and drop two grand on a new piece of equipment like they used to in the old days. Let's hope I get it.

And the future doesn't look promising either - I predict the economy is REALLY going to get bad this time next year and hit bottom - until after China has the olympics and after the elections, but that's for another thread.

Our industry is dying, and our corporate office is helping to kill it. I made a grand total of $6 in commission this weekend, when I usually pull down at least $600. The only reason I put up with the bullshit with this job is because it's good money, but without that, I have no motivation nor reason to stay. There is no loyalty in sales.

[Crazeyal]

You have put reason, thought and effort into salvaging this site, and your career there. From your posts, all you've gotten is arrogance and overpaid people being rude and stupid in your general direction as a thanks.

Good luck in your search.

[marasbaras]

Hope you get a good job soon!

[Javarod]

I would definitely jump ship. On a trucking forum I frequent, they were talking about what retailers are filing bankruptcy, there was a furniture chain on there, Levitz I think. Furniture is in the worst place in these times, I think there's going to be a lot of companies folding in that area, especially one's that aren't doing what it takes to bring customers in, so you're best off getting out now.

[Becks]

*hugs and happy thoughts*

[Kusanagi]

Levits was a giant and they folded a few months ago, it shocked all of us to see them file bankruptcy.

[tropicsgoddess]

You're not the only one here, Kusanagi. I've only been at my current job (as an Appointment Setter for a major Ford dealership in my area)for a little over a month and business has been lagging. Me and my co-workers have a hard time as it is getting appointments and if we do, they don't always get a sale, let alone show up. To make matters worse, our boss and the higher ups have been asking us all the time about how many appointments we've been making so far. My boss just told us that the corporation that owns our dealership and some others out of county and state will be visiting next Wednesday and there's going to be quite a bit of changes or "restructuring". I've been debating whether to stay or go, but I think I'll start looking now to be safe.

[Gurndigarn]

Levits was a giant and they folded a few months ago, it shocked all of us to see them file bankruptcy.

I'm fully expecting a number of large retailers to fold during the upcoming year or two. Each one will have it's own particular issue that kills it, but most of the problems can be traced down to a basic issue: the people running the show become disconnected from reality. And, while they could survive anyway during the fat times, they won't make it through the lean times. Employee relations issues (not enough/insufficiently trained employees to give proper service; refusing to pay quality employees enough to keep them; etc.) will be high on the list.

The military (US, and possibly others) has an interesting term: the dipshit quotient. This is the number of people from any specific employee pool are needed to perform the job that ten properly qualified and motivated employees will do. For example, if a retail store job can be completed properly by ten experienced and motivated employees**, it will take about twenty people if you're pulling employees from the general populace and giving them a basic amount of training. Twenty-five or thirty if you're pulling from a pool made up of school-age kids in school, more if you're talking about a pool of dropouts.

The army has Ft. Leavenworth for absolute slackers. That manages to bring the pool under 20, but only barely. The dipshit quotient also decreases as you move up the education and job payment scales. Theoretically it should disappear by the time you reach the board room... but depending on the board, it can be as bad as pulling from the population at random.

The dipshit quotient at the top is always reflected lower on the totem pole, because even those skilled and motivated employees** get conflicting orders, or don't get orders in time, or lose their motivation because they see the general incompetence of the people above them***.

Damn, now I'm feeling melancholy. It's disturbing just how much of that last paragraph reminded me of recent goings-on in my company.

-------------
** Yes, I know how often those two words really go together in retail. Just pretend, OK?
*** And that's why those two words don't go together all that often. Not many retail places have a really competent upper management.

[Meadhands]

Jeez, Kus. I see why you would be so irritated. They basically removed your ability to haggle, shmooze, and otherwise attract people. It's almost like some sort of game; they realized you could clear a holiday weekend with ease, so they upped the difficulty for you and dare you to come away with the same level of success.

Of course, no matter how good one is at a game, if the difficulty level is "Impossible," then, well... it's impossible.

By-the-by, can you post up a link for the story you were talking about in Morons in Management? For both reference and entertainment purposes?

[Kusanagi]

I'm actually glad that they took away our ability to haggle - I can't haggle worth shit, honestly. But they don't have anything attractive compared to the other stores in the area when it comes to service, and someone would rather pay $500 more for a couch and get free delivery and no sales tax than they would get it for $500 less and pay $200 for shipping.

[jam704]

Wickes furniture also folded not to long ago.

On a side note the Home Depot I work in slashed 150 hours over the memorial day weekend to save money. The results were a store that had no facing of product and low sales by Memorial day because the store looked like trash.

[IT Grunt]

The dipshit quotient at the top is always reflected lower on the totem pole, because even those skilled and motivated employees** get conflicting orders, or don't get orders in time, or lose their motivation because they see the general incompetence of the people above them***.

Amen to that, especially the last line. In my line of work that statement usually manifests itself as corporate bureaucrats who wouldn't know what to do with a computer if they were set in front of it, yet they are tasked with drafting the overall IT strategy. My morale was once a proud ship steaming through clear waters, but now it's sailing through a war zone. In the process it has taken a dozen torpedo hits, and is quickly sinking beneath the waves of the ocean of despair and desperation. I'm in the same boat as Kusanagi; I'm hunting for a new job. I spent the last three years going back to school at nights getting a master's degree with the hope that it will give me some added leverage in doing so. If that means taking out a loan to pay back the company for it so I can jump ship (even though I signed nothing, and they have no formal program for it) so be it. I've had it with unqualified corporate lackeys making strategic decisions that only end up making things worse, especially since it's on the customer side and we have no choice but to follow it.

[zzapp the witch]

Yeah, I'm not even really selling my chainmaille items this year. No use for jewelry when you're poor----no one has any money, they all just come out to look.

So I'm trying to make chainmaille potscrubbers, etc. and creative wire kitchen utensils.....but mostly I'm just worried about getting my garden in to save as much as I can on the food bills.

(Taught my kids about making backyard salad. Now clover and daisy salad is their favorite, almost sounds exotic doesn't it?)

I feel for you Kus, my lil bro does repossesions for a local furniture store.....years ago he felt no remorse about people who didn't pay their bills, now he just feels sad cause he knows they can't.....

[Gothicsmurf]

I think part of the issue with retail now is the "restocking" fees that some places carry and some return policies.

As a consumer I understand that corporations don't want to lose money, but sticking it to the customer is BS.

For example, I know one company that if you buy something seasonal, have the receipt and decide to return it, you get only the current sale price on it, NOT what you paid. Direct from their site

"Holiday and seasonal merchandise on clearance at the time of return will be refunded at the clearance price. "

So even if you have a receipt and prove you paid a certain amount, you cannot get your money back. I think that's crap


I own a bit of chainmaille- let me know what you have! I'm looking for gauntlets/ shirts/ skirts/ necklaces. I know they are expensive, but I'd rather buy from some one who's hand made it vs. through a catalog.

Actually, I'm dying for a chainmaille corset!

[Gurndigarn]

example, I know one company that if you buy something seasonal, have the receipt and decide to return it, you get only the current sale price on it, NOT what you paid. Direct from their site

So even if you have a receipt and prove you paid a certain amount, you cannot get your money back. I think that's crap

I've been on the receiving end of that. It's fair. It sucks, but it's still fair: the product is seasonal. After you bring it back, they're stuck with something that they felt was SOLD and out of their hair-- and they won't be able to sell it for anything higher than what they're giving you for it, and storing it is a pain. Honestly, be happy they're willing to take it at all: I know some places that refuse to take back seasonal items.