ShadowTiger
05-31-2008, 09:19 PM
This is going to be a bit of a weird thread...
I work at an Ace Hardware. It's been great, the first eight months or so, but then the store switched to an automatic ordering system. Now, the overstock just won't stop! It orders things that we already have a full shelf of! And, no less, we just took full tedious inventory nary two months ago!
The nature of an automatic ordering system is that the actual ordering method is generally a "fire and forget" one, and thus has less control over what actually gets ordered than a system where people pay attention to what needs to be ordered and what doesn't. The obvious theory is that if an item sells, the automatic system endeavors to replace it.
So why the hell do we have one entire aisle (That's right.) of boxes of overstock? A few thoughts I had:
1) I can see it happening that if someone steals an item from off the shelf (Which happens quite often, sadly. We find packages blatantly opened with their contents missing or strewn about the floor very often.) then it wouldn't go through the system. However, if anything, that just means that we'd have fewer items than the ordering system thinks we have, and wouldn't order any more to account for it. The opposite is happening here. What could possible make it order things beyond any set maximum capacity?
2) Why does it appear as if nobody cares? This is obviously an incredibly terrible business practice, and it's not like people haven't complained, publically and privately. The managers are just sighing (At the mess they have on their hands.) and telling us to bear with it and to do the best we can with the limited space we have.
3) One theory that a few of the people I've spoken with had, is that the store owners are attempting to get a huge loan from the bank which they don't intend to pay off. They order all this stuff, just to claim that they have it, and need the loan to help support the store which is "obviously" succeeding due to their ability to afford so much stock.
This Ace Hardware isn't like any other retail store; it's chock full of personality, and over half of the people in the store know each other by sight, if not by name. I say over half, because it's really not that hard to say it in reality. People leave smiling. It's great. It'd be a shame if this store got shut down.
I work at an Ace Hardware. It's been great, the first eight months or so, but then the store switched to an automatic ordering system. Now, the overstock just won't stop! It orders things that we already have a full shelf of! And, no less, we just took full tedious inventory nary two months ago!
The nature of an automatic ordering system is that the actual ordering method is generally a "fire and forget" one, and thus has less control over what actually gets ordered than a system where people pay attention to what needs to be ordered and what doesn't. The obvious theory is that if an item sells, the automatic system endeavors to replace it.
So why the hell do we have one entire aisle (That's right.) of boxes of overstock? A few thoughts I had:
1) I can see it happening that if someone steals an item from off the shelf (Which happens quite often, sadly. We find packages blatantly opened with their contents missing or strewn about the floor very often.) then it wouldn't go through the system. However, if anything, that just means that we'd have fewer items than the ordering system thinks we have, and wouldn't order any more to account for it. The opposite is happening here. What could possible make it order things beyond any set maximum capacity?
2) Why does it appear as if nobody cares? This is obviously an incredibly terrible business practice, and it's not like people haven't complained, publically and privately. The managers are just sighing (At the mess they have on their hands.) and telling us to bear with it and to do the best we can with the limited space we have.
3) One theory that a few of the people I've spoken with had, is that the store owners are attempting to get a huge loan from the bank which they don't intend to pay off. They order all this stuff, just to claim that they have it, and need the loan to help support the store which is "obviously" succeeding due to their ability to afford so much stock.
This Ace Hardware isn't like any other retail store; it's chock full of personality, and over half of the people in the store know each other by sight, if not by name. I say over half, because it's really not that hard to say it in reality. People leave smiling. It's great. It'd be a shame if this store got shut down.