So, in Blog #59 I talked about the first Half Yearly Sale of Arden Fair. In this blog I want to talk about The day before Half Yearly sale prep.

Half Yearly was tomorrow. We tagged all the shoes for the sale. There we a lot of sections full of sale merchandise to drive our business. Everything was prepped and ready to go. Today while we were open, we had a team of people outside the store building 40 racks for the sale. It was very manual. Even though we were a new store, we got “hand me down racks” from the Distribution Center.

Steve and Jim were taking turns watching the floor and strategizing the floor layout. When we closed today, we would reset the entire floor with our key tables featuring sale merchandise. We would have sale signs everywhere.

Wait for it…

We all knew we would still have that one person ask,  “are you having a  sale?” or “where are the sale shoes?”. Uhhh… maybe on the 40 racks in the middle of the floor, or maybe on one of the tables on the perimeter of the floor with all the sale signs…hmmm never fails…

The morning team left at 4 PM today which was earlier than usual. At 9:30 everyone would be back at the store to help set up the floor, then some of us would come back at 7AM to open. Closing time rolls around and as the customers are leaving; we start breaking down the displays and setting the floor.

The Racks

When all the customers were gone, we rolled out the racks and started bringing out all the shoes we staged in crates by size. Steve and Jim figured out how much we had to pull by size, and we  had to pull the “good stuff” first to have a great first day. We started filling the racks as soon as they were staged by size. It didn’t take that long actually and before you knew it we were done.

Steve’s gameplan review

After all the finishing touches were done, Steve told everyone to gather in the middle. He started by thanking everyone for their hard work getting ready. Then he reminded people about the rules; being neat on the floor, and taking care of your sale section. If someone got caught leaving “deadwood”, they would have to run the pile which usually grew pretty big during the day. Runners would be hired to sweep the floor to keep things neat.

After Steve’s speech, we all felt pretty motivated. He was a really great guy, and we wanted to do him proud. Tomorrow was the big day…Nordstrom Half Yearly!

The day before Half Yearly sale prep is always hectic. Tonight would be a sleepless night as the adrenaline was running pretty high…