Several suppliers have grizzled to me that it takes up to 10 days to get stock from David Jones’ reserve to the selling floor. If that is true, a supplier may be accused of selling the store a dog when the poor mutt hasn’t had the opportunity of even sniffing a consumer.
To be fair, David Jones is not alone in being berated for a disconnection between buying and selling. From time to time most big groups come in for a serve. Current among the giants to cop a mouthful is Target. The general feeling is that the trumpeted new way of doing business is not as good as the much older way of doing business.
Everybody is painfully aware that big retail groups are forever trying to cut down on staffing costs. The department and chain stores are especially knife-happy. How often do you hear people grumble that they can’t find anybody to assist them in a purchase at Myer or David Jones?
There is even a lack of people ready to take your money when you are forced to take a long distance walk, clutching your goods, to another department’s register. You must stand dutifully in line to give the store your money.
One can only assume that the same staff-cutting policy has gone on behind the scenes as well, and that the customers are not the only ones missing out.
In my youth, a department store buyer was in charge of her floor – or her section anyway. She bought the stuff and she sold the stuff. When it arrived in the receiving bay she knew about it.
But since the division between buying and selling has become the norm, the two functions can easily run out of sync. While the big stores apply terrific pressure on suppliers to achieve delivery dates, otherwise they will be smote with a mighty lightning bolt, there is not the same pressure to get the goods on to the floor.
Now, I don’t know exactly what goes on in the administration of these big groups but I wonder if they have people (sadly, members of the board, they must be paid) whose job it is to run between the buyer, the receiving dock or depot and the sales manager of the department.
To make them feel better, I’m both a customer and a fan of David Jones and Target. I’m not a nasty competitor wanting to take a cheap shot. But if I don’t voice the concerns of the trade, who will?
Krunching the numbers
How do you establish a successful supply business in men’s basic accessories and plain shirts by swimming upstream against the in-house label aims and aspirations of Australia’s biggest retailers? The answer lies not, as you might think, in offering irresistible products at irresistible prices.
Retail buyers believe they already know all about that. What you do is develop an irresistible service that begins by securing goods of reliable quality and delivery from Chinese factories, ship them to the stores and then track them with astonishing accuracy right into the consumer’s shopping bag.
The products, in this instance, assume the role of ‘tickets to the game’, according to John Pitman. He heads up Krunchbox Operations, a computer software company whose krunchbox system was developed to enable a long-established menswear company to transform itself into what it terms ‘a full service supplier’. In doing so, it ditched its own brands in favour of being a peerless facilitator for big retailers’ house brands.
It is already embedded in the engine rooms of several major retail chains – with plenty more upside to come. krunchbox can also be used by wholesalers or importers.
The krunchbox program basically becomes a surrogate parent to stock once the buyer has placed the order. The company currently employs 120 merchandisers who check stock in-store, and 60 administration people who do the rest. The retailer only has to choose the goods and provide a physical environment to promote and sell it.
Simply put, krunchbox is a tracking system that works faster and more efficiently than any that has gone before. It is web based, meaning that anybody using it has no set-up costs and doesn’t have to purchase hardware or software. After in-putting purchasing and sales data (every retailer captures this information anyway), all a user has to do is go to a web address and put in a password to find out where his every SKU is and how it is performing.
There is a new version of krunchbox coming next year which will charge a fixed monthly usage fee; there are no licences to sign. In the meantime, the friendly John Pitman will let you use the existing version free. You can see the man himself performing on www.krunchbox.com.
I’m still looking for the catch, but I can’t find it. I do know that John’s partner, Andrew Isles, is somebody I’d trust with my last dollar.