Christmas stuff is out already!

[Gurndigarn]

See, this is what back rooms were designed for. So you could get this influx of seasonal materials, and keep them where customers can't see them until close to time.

[darkcrimsongoth]

Same thing happened with me at Easter. A manager was putting up Easter eggs a few days after Christmas and this lady came up with her friend, looked at the manager, proceeds to turn to me and says this:

Lady:'Why are you putting Easter eggs up NOW? It's right after christmas!!!!omg1!!!eleventry!!!'
manager: There is only *number of days* until easter.

Then said lady looks at me and says: 'I can't believe they're putting up Easter stuff up NOW....*followed by dead stare, like I have the magic power to control what the manager does*

Me: *in utter disbelief at the woman* Okay.

Customers are idiots.

[Ironclad Alibi]

Yep, the SCs are out in force complaining about all the Christmas stuff being put out early.

They'll be back the week before Christmas complaining that it is all sold out and why don't you have any Christmas stuff for them buy.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Yepper, we had it out then as well when I worked at Sam's!!!! I still wretch recalling the dancing Santa display!

Was it the one that said "Ho ho ho, how about a song to get you in the holiday spirit?"

Everytime I walked past that fucking thing I thought "Ho ho ho, how about a kick in the crotch to shut you up?"

It was motion-activated and corporate demanded it stay plugged in at all times so it could do its thing and "drive sales."

[Music Mo-Gal]

I would guess a misspelling of "brochures," but I could easily be wrong.

Ohhh...OK. For some reason I saw the word "broachers" and started thinking of rotisserie chicken.

[Becks]

See, this is what back rooms were designed for. So you could get this influx of seasonal materials, and keep them where customers can't see them until close to time.

And we all know how well THAT idea worked out.

[Nephy]

See, this is what back rooms were designed for. So you could get this influx of seasonal materials, and keep them where customers can't see them until close to time.

Dammit, now I'm going to have to call maintenance and inform them that my infinitely large stock room is broken, or at least needs to be upgraded. I currently have the old model, in which I barley have enough room for my overstock basic merchandise, let alone all the seasonal stuff that HAS to come in early.

[Muses_nightmare]

When the Zellers I used to work at was closing we got all the old Christmas crap from other stores from the last year (or before), it started coming in about September. Guess who got stuck in the Christmas section for the 2 or 3 months until she got moved to Cash? yeah. I was ready to go to the stores that were sending us crap and find whoever was putting all sorts of odd broken ornaments and knick knacks in the bottoms of the boxes...And if I never see a Red Velvet bow again it'll be too soon, two aisles, both sides, it amounted to about 2 full pallets of boxes filled with bows. Which I got bitched at by customers for, because they all wanted to know where the other decorations were, or why we had christmas stuff out so early.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

See, this is what back rooms were designed for. So you could get this influx of seasonal materials, and keep them where customers can't see them until close to time.

Backroom? You so funny!

I have spent significant amounts of time in my store's backroom, moving crap around to make room for Christmas stuff.

I have condensed Halloween and Harvest stuff to one side of shelves (one side=about 24 feet of shelving space, ballpark figure) and it's a disorganized mess. We try to keep seasonal items together by planogram as an aid when pulling items for new sets, but that's gone out the window with the Halloween and Harvest stuff.

On the other side is sporting goods. That too is condensed as much as it can be. I have 3 valleys for Christmas (a valley=an aisle between two sides of shelves, so we have 6 sides of backroom shelves for Christmas in total).

That space is all used up already. And it's a godawful mess. Boxes are piled on top of other boxes any way they can fit and not really separated by planogram anymore. If we didn't write the SKUs of each item on the boxes, there's no way you would be able to find anything in there.

For the last 5 trucks or so, we've been getting in at least 3 or 4 pallets of Christmas chotchkies. Today it was over 5. And much of this is tiny little boxes of ornaments. Imagine having to put all these little boxes away somewhat neatly and you have an idea of what kind of Hell I've been through lately. And this can't be all the Christmas stuff we're going to get. There's got to be at least one or two more trucks of this stuff.

The point in shipping this stuff so soon seems to be to have it all in the store when the planograms are set, so we won't get in quite as much of it to fill and backstock when everything is set. Which will be nice, but for now it's about as enjoyable as a poke in the eye with a rusty nail.