Biting My Own (Re)Tail

or, TALES FROM AISLE TEN (IV)

You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you might find
You get what you need

--The Rolling Stones, of course

I take my job seriously. Often too seriously. It's a failing of mine. It led, in part, to the diagnosis of a peptic ulcer several years ago, at which time I began to make a conscious effort to lighten up a little.

It's not always easy...but it has gotten easier, particularly in the past six months or so. "Help" is no longer a four-letter-word to me. Nor, it seems, to my immediate supervisor, who--most days--is able to spare someone to give a hand.

I'm still woefully behind on any number of things, mind you. Price tags go missing in my department with alarming regularity, for instance. Up to fifty a week just up and disappear, sometimes actually taking the orange stripping that fronts their shelf along with them, and I'll be damned if I can tell you where that gets off to. It's kind of like coming home and finding your couch missing. That kind of thing is too big to just evaporate. Yet it happens.

And Head Office has a nasty habit of changing prices on a given item every other week. Which would be all well and good except I'm one of the few people in the store that can find anything in my aisle. So oftentimes the new tag doesn't make it on to the shelf until somebody draws my attention to the banana alfredo that's tagged at $3.27 and scanning at $3.29. (I'm amazed how many people notice, let alone care so deeply, about two cents...) Sometimes it seems like the file maintenance in my aisle and a half of store is itself a full time job...

*sigh* Let it GO, Ken...

Okay. On to what's really been bothering me. I'm losing a vendor.

I have (had) four suppliers of yogurt, as follows:

COMPANY A--was, for quite some time, "the" name in yogurt. A few years ago, they made a classic frontrunner's blunder and failed to acknowledge a change in their market until it was far too late. Despite the phenomenal success of one particular line, they have steadily lost market share in other segments. That said, they still have many loyal customers.

COMPANY B leapt out in front in the "diet segment", being the first company to eschew aspartame and capitalizing on people's growing disdain for same. They live and die on that diet segment and their kids' products, which outsell everyone else's.

COMPANY C used to have the single best-selling economy yogurt in Canada, until they inexplicably discontinued the whole line. Now they trail A and B quite badly in most segments, but do hold their own in plain yogurt. Their Balkan variety is my single best-selling sku on the entire counter.

I'd never even heard of COMPANY D until their rep showed up one day towards the end of last year with a request that I at least try to sell a few of his products. Even though space was extremely limited, I thought I'd give it a go. I was, quite honestly, surprised, almost shocked, when people starting buying up D yogurt beyond all expectations, demanding more and more flavours and even requesting other products, such as pressed cottage cheese, kefir, and sour cream. My chain viewed upstart D with some skepticism, only once featuring their yogurt in a flyer. And yet, even without promotion, it got to the point where--all things being equal--I was selling more D yogurt than A, B, or C. Most of their yogurt is organic and all of it is of exceptionally high quality, as any glance at their ingredient lists would ascertain.

First, we found out that we were losing half of company A's lines. This, to be honest, wasn't a shock, although the backroom wheelings, dealings and squealings that went into the decision opened even my jaded eyes a little. Companies B and C had acted in concert to secure an exclusivity deal in the creamy and diet segments. I went from two deliveries of A a week down to one, and making the minimum order for that single delivery is sometimes a bit of a struggle.

I was a bit distraught over this at the time, wondering how my customers would handle it. One in particular: an elderly lady who came in every Thursday like clockwork for three sixteen-packs of A. I always smiled when I saw her--that's over twenty bucks a week just in yogurt!--while privately wondering if she bathed in the stuff or what.

Came the first Thursday after my counter stock of A had depleted and I offered her three packs of C, which was the only other sixteen I had on shelf that matched her preferred flavour grouping exactly. Next week, she came in and said she hated the C-packs...had thrown them out after a single taste, in fact. "Like pudding", she said, disgustedly. I'd warned her of the difference in texture--A, to me, is like yogurt-water--but I guess I'd understated the difference. "I can still taste that crap!" she said.

I'd already talked to my B rep and gotten a free sixteen pack for her. The flavours didn't line up exactly, but they were close. I gave her the B and held my breath for a week.

"Nope", she said. "Still like pudding. Doesn't anybody make yogurt any more?"

There's no arguing with taste. D yogurt, which only comes in tubs, is thicker than either B or C. There can't be too many people in the world who like yogurt-water. Unfortunately, this lady, hitherto one of my best customers, is one of them.

Haven't seen her in my aisle since. I know I've lost other customers as well, and I sure as hell doubt I've gained any. Hey, I can balk, but money talks and the customers walk.

Before all this ABC nonsense, Head Office executed one of its stealth price changes, raising the retail on three (and only three) skus of D. I had seven other kinds on the shelf that were suddenly seventy cents cheaper. It made no sense. I wrote to them to draw their attention to this blunder, only to discover the blunder was mine: the seven cheaper skus of D were not authorized products. That's odd, I wrote back, because they're in our system. Anything unauthorized is tagged "DNO" in our database. None of this was. Nevertheless, I was informed that not only were the products unauthorized, the vendor itself would be discontinued shortly.

Not if I have anything to say about it. I began a campaign that bordered on obsessive. Over a period of a couple of months, as the B-C coalition took hold, I gathered sales figures showing how much D was appreciated by my customers. I related anecdotes. I begged, pleaded, and cajoled to be allowed to keep at least the D products that B and C didn't bother making equivalents for. I was told in an email tone that brooked no dissent that exclusivity deals were in place with B and C and that I was to discontinue D immediately.

Even then, I didn't give up entirely. I pored through our system and discovered companies E and F, neither of which I had ever done business with before. I wrote a different specialist at Head Office to inquire if I could bring them in, provided I (of course) stayed away from yogurt. At least the people buying five cases of kefir and three of pressed cottage cheese a week would have something. I hate sending customers elsewhere. Just hate it.

I got a letter back promptly, thanking me for my "passion for the business". No, I thought. I've got a passion for customer service, not business. They're supposed to be one and the same, but...He told me he was investigating with the higher-ups to determine of some "unique" products could be re-listed. That's all I'm asking, damnit.

A similar episode sparked briefly on the egg counter. I was informed that free run and organic eggs would be discontinued. It only took one email to fix that, but then, all my eggs come from the same company and there are no "exclusivity deals" in play. But seriously, come on, let me run my department. Maybe free run and organic eggs don't sell in Toronto--hell, I know they don't, most stores never bothered carrying either--but they sell quite well here, and once again I'm being told to send people to the competition? ARRRRRGGGGGGHHHH!

I'm slowly coming back down from my frightful fits of "passion". I'm not exactly apathetic about all this now: I'm still wondering what I'm going to say when people approach me (and they will) looking for the D yogurt they love. But something big has come along to take at least part of my mind off the madness.

My store sold more per square foot in fiscal 2009 than any other in the banner. A sorely-needed expansion/renovation has been promised, repromised, and promised again. The space next door was bought a year ago and gutted soon afterwards. Nothing happened. And then, after a month or ten, nothing continued to happen.

Until now.

no audio, but I don't need Muzak to like it

I'm not sure when exactly this is happening, but it will, and it's the best thing to happen to my store. We're ten years old, and we look it. Not that we're dirty or anything: we're dated, which is almost as bad. (Stale Co?) This place is state of the art. I'm going Wednesday with my boss and some colleagues to see it for myself, and I don't mind admitting my grocery geekiness when I say how excited I am.

One of their (soon to be our) philosophies centers on quality, a higher quality than you'll find in most discount banners at a cheaper price. We also believe we'll be granted local autonomy, meaning local vendors or vendors reflecting the local market wherever possible. I doubt this means I can bring my D yogurt back, but I can hope...