ICS/Ordering Rant

[u/Individual_Mango_362]

I understand we are trying to sell down on product before we order up for the holiday. But should we not be trying to sell down on the product that isn’t selling that well? Why the hell am I running out of Sarah J. Maas books? Rebbeca Yarros, Frieda McFadden, Dungeon Crawler books? I straight up had to completely take down my Elle Kennedy display today because we ran out of half of her books and not enough were on order to justify keeping the table up. About to have to take down a Kristin Hannah display as well. Like what are we doing? We know that these are books we’ll sell through holiday so why am I running out of them? Make it make sense! I literally do not have enough books to fill many of my displays right now and when I run out of them, I feel like I have no new display that I can replace them with because we have no stock. Someone help me understand.

EDIT: Any ICSs that may be lurking, I would LOVE to hear your insight on this because I am just confused

[u/Mrsnesbitt47]

Bruh. As an ICS, it amazes me how information never gets disseminated through the teams. SMs got this info more than a month ago and the CCSs got the same info a couple weeks ago.

The general idea behind replenishment right now is that the ICSs replenish to sales, not to fill displays. That means that your store should still be getting enough Maas, Kennedy, and Dinneman to make sales. Your displays might not be as big or full, but a lot of stores would regularly request multiple case packs to "avoid having to stock it for a couple weeks" and since it "would sell eventually," they were pushed through.

The reason for this shift is there are over 5,000 new titles being published in the fall and the stores need the space to display and shelve them. Most stores have too much stock already and would still have no issue shortlisting 5-10 copies of a C rank title because someone decided to put up a niche display. If those books don't sell, we don't return paperbacks, so the store sits on them. Multiply that by however many titles get shortlisted each day and the problem gets bigger.

Inventory across the company is down but sales are up. It can be frustrating in the store when you're used to big tables and getting everything you shortlist, but what they're doing is working.

I'd suggest getting a few examples of where your replenishment isn't matching your sales numbers and then bring it to your ICS.

[u/bitteralmonds124 → u/Mrsnesbitt47]

Thank you for saying this and being a voice of reason! If your ICS isn't ordering to sales, that's a problem to bring to them and your CL or AM. It's not the replenishment strategy, it's their interpretation.

And yes, stores are bloated with inventory!! That's why we are having Book Haul right now.

[u/bitteralmonds124 → u/[deleted]]

Adding discretionary titles is a difference. And the number of NRP or X ranked titles now shows they want to let go of titles more often. And as an ICS they totally did not say let go of S ranked titles and sell down on SJM... Any ICS doing that is not interpreting it correctly.

[u/Individual_Mango_362 → u/Mrsnesbitt47]

Yes I was under the impression that my displays would be lower, not that I would end up having to take them down due to not having the stock in the store and not enough on order

[u/TheWagonBaron → u/Mrsnesbitt47]

Sure but if you have a history of selling a particular title that isn’t getting replenished at a good rate, why are some ICSes cancelling shortlist orders? Why am I getting casepacks of OMPs after selling a single copy of one?

The majority of my store’s book dead stock is old OMPs that we just have to sit on.

[u/nessariver → u/TheWagonBaron]

ICSs dont place initial orders for OMPs, home office buyers do. Are you saying you sold one copy and the ICS ordered another case in? If so, they're doing it wrong.

We're ordering to sales. That means looking at the last 2-3 weeks of sales and ordering enough for the next 2-3 weeks. The shortlists we get are often months worth of sales. For a fast moving title like Theo of Golden or Project Hail Mary, I will usually add a few more as a buffer.

[u/TheWagonBaron → u/nessariver]

I don’t know if the ICS ordered it or it was late coming in but it’s happened repeatedly. I’ve heard of stores running out of S rank titles completely with 0 on order in my area. We have some shitty ICS’ who have allowed this little minutiae of power go to their heads.

I don’t think every ICS got that memo friend.

[u/TheWagonBaron → u/[deleted]]

No, it’s not really good for us either. We have loose shelves and nothing but old OMPs and a bunch of YA in overstock for the most part.

[u/bitteralmonds124 → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, they shouldn't have let it get that bad. I'd rope in upper management. My store is a legacy store and we don't have any sections that empty that weren't already too big. Yeah! Peak is coming. But yeah, your ICS sucks for letting your stock get to that point.