06.29.01
The very same company that crabs at us constantly about our abysmal retail sales just sent us the mother of all drop shipments of KMS haircare.
There were so many boxes that Jeff the Dock Manager had to go next door to Osco Drugs and borrow their forklift to get the damn pallet of boxes off of the truck and onto a dolly, which he then wheeled into our salon and spent the next 5 minutes unloading. That may not seem like a lot, but these are a gazillion little boxes, each containing 12 - 24 bottles of something or other.
Example: 36 bottles of Tacky Gel, at $13.95/pop. You tell me who is going to buy a 4 ounce bottle of gel for $13.95, and where can we find 34 more people like him, and I'll buy you a damn bottle for yourself*.
Right before HMS sold us to Saks, they shorted us severely on out last order. HMS used to give us a budget of $1300 every six weeks with which to order product, which we would then turn around and sell at great profit. On their last order, instead of 6 to 12 of an item we ordered, they sent us 1 or 2. And when Saks took us over, we had been out of everything for at least a month, unable to order more for at least another month.
But it gets better.
Saks gives us an amount equivalent to 40% of our previous month's total retail sales with which to replenish our stocks. Since we're constantly playing catch up, we can only afford to order just a couple of each item, which promptly sell out in the first week. We order in $400 worth of product, we turn around and sell that same lot of product for $1000, and the next month we're back to a $400 budget. If we could order $1000 worth of product and get out shelves filled out with enough product to sell for an entire month, we could have that kind of budget every month as a result.
But no, the fucknuts upstairs decide we need a new product line that no one besides us has ever heard of, and we only know about it because we have it in stock. They sent us a shitload of Grund last month, which is still sitting on the shelves, mostly unsold. It's not that we didn't try to move it, it's just that it is very expensive and no one has ever heard of it. Sure, we use it on people because they provided us with samples, and we talk it up, but people blanch at the price, and then scamper over to the Paul Mitchell shelves and buy a bottle of shampoo twice the size for half the price.
And now, the mother of all KMS drop shipments. Lemme see if I can roughly guestimate what we got in, since I checked in and priced most of it today:
We're talking about several thousand dollars worth of product.
Several thousand dollars worth of product that I**** not only have to individually check in and price, but also figure out where the hell to put in the salon - which will result in my having to rearrange all the other products in the salon, in order to find a set of shelves big enough to hold it all, and then inventory along with the rest of the godforsaken crap we sell in about a month.
Maybe I can stick it next to the fucking Nioxin they sent last month too, that coincidentally isn't moving. Or the Kenra we're supposed to get in a few weeks.
Fuckers.
I am so glad I'm going on vacation in a few days.
*Scout's fucking honor. They clean us out of the shit and I'll take you to lunch, too.
**Me actually being able to remember this much of the order is only a testament to how fucked up my recall system is anymore. I can remember the lyrics to every Duran Duran song before the album Big Thing, and I can recognize all of Carol's clients by voice or sight, fully recalling first and last names, but I can't remember to pick up spinach at the grocery store when I went there specifically for that task***.
***True story. I wanted to make veggie lasagna, which features spinach. I had all the other ingredients, but had to keep putting off the assembly because I'd go to the store for spinach, and get home to realize that I'd spent $60 but had not spinach. This happened 3 times before I actually got the damn spinach purchased and the lasagna made.
****And this isn't even really my job. It's the job of the Overlord Carol, but as we all know (say it along with me now:), she's too busy. I just do it so it gets done. Otherwise there would be NOTHING on the shelves, and I would have to listen to even more whining about how our retail sucks and how she's going to get in trouble with her superiors than I already do now.
