Overstuffing Item Homes

Let me preface this post by saying that some of my favorite coworkers are overnight associates. With that said, some overnight associates are my worst enemies. There are a select few overnight associates that have a tendency to ignore shelf caps and stuff as many items on a shelf as they possibly can. Sometimes there is stress from management to overstuff homes because it eliminates or reduces the need to bin overstock. Binning, although time consuming, allows merchandise to easily be found in the event that the shelf becomes empty.

To be fair, too, overnight associates are not the only ones guilty of overstuffing homes. My department manager has a really bad habit of overstuffing item homes because she has some weird notion that more merchandise on the shelves equals more sales; this is true--to an extent-- studies show that empty shelves are not as appealing to customers and can cause a decrease in sales. However, the same is true about overstuffed shelves. If a shelf is overstuffed and appears cluttered it can cause slight discomfort and anxiety for some customers, which in turn decreases sales.

Shelf caps exist to keep shelves neat and easily accessible to customers. Caps also make it easier to zone a department because merchandise isn't intruding the next item's home or falling off of the shelf/peg. The frustrating part about overstuffing homes is that 80% of the time someone ends up having to repackage the overstock into a new box and binning it anyway. The new box is typically larger than the original box which wastes our already limited bin space.

Not only does overstuffing homes waste bin space, it also is counter productive. Rather than the overnight associate marking a case as overstock and moving on to the next one, they waste time putting product that is not needed onto the shelf. Then during the day time someone else has to spend unnecessary time finding a box that is an appropriate size for the merchandise and then they have to take the time to bin it.
In the image above, you can clearly see a peg that has been overstuffed. There are about 36 of these toy gliders on the peg. The image to the right is a closer look at the shelf tag-- we can see that the cap is actually 12, which is 1/3 of the amount that is actually on the peg.

In a typical shift I find between 3-5 homes that have been overstuffed but I rarely end up having time to bin the overstock. And on the days when I do end up binning the overstock there are still more productive ways that my time could be spent.

If managers would stop stressing the need to reduce overstock and encourage associates to listen to shelf caps the store would look a lot more orderly and it might even have a slight effect on sales.

Thanks for reading my rant! I look forward to reading your comments.