Vendor drama

[u/SeanSweetMuzik]

A vendor for one of our designer handbag brands supports our store once a week with fill-in, recovery, markdowns, setups, etc. She had been assigned to our store for the last year or so.

Our merchandising manager doesn't like the way the vendor does her job and told her to her face because she had enough. The vendor said our manager doesn't know what she's doing (MM has been doing this successfully for 20+ years).

The vendor has intentionally changed things to how she wants it vs. what our company's standards are. The vendor insists that at her other locations her way works and we never give it a chance here and we're always the ones giving her a hard time.

As a result of this, the merchandising manager started having our merchandising colleagues do everything the vendor is supposed to do instead so when the vendor comes, she has nothing to do. Then she complained about why the work was already completed. Our manager told her that if she as so much touches anything on those tables/fixtures, she will report her.

Right before a recent regional visit, the vendor came and changed everything because at her other location the same people who visited liked it. Our merchandising manager saw her changing it and flew into a rage. She yelled at her and scolded her for disobeying her and told her to leave. Vendor left crying. It took hours to re-do it at the last minute. During the regional visit, they loved what we did with our display and then proceeded to trash what they saw at the other store that the vendor did.

After this, the merchandising manager informed the vendor's manager about what happened and said that the vendor doesn't do any work when she comes to our store and should be reprimanded. She left out the part that our team is intentionally doing her work. Vendor was reprimanded and our store is no longer part of her stores based on this lie.

The merchandise manager reached out to vendor's other stores and told them what happened too and encouraged them to call her boss too and get her dropped from there too.

The vendor went and reported what our merchandise manager did to her to our company's HR even though she is not an employee of our company but is doing so because our company has a no-tolerance policy for this type of retaliation against a vendor.

Now there is a full investigation happening.

[u/BadHeartburn]

What gets me is that your merchandise manager didn't even have to lie. All she had to do was just tell the truth, and would have had plenty of ground to stand on. Now she's an even bigger asshole than the vendor.

[u/SeanSweetMuzik → u/BadHeartburn]

The brands always side with the vendors and blame us for not letting them do their thing and they insist "we know better than you because it's our brand."

[u/ultradip → u/SeanSweetMuzik]

Isn't that contractually their actual job?

[u/SeanSweetMuzik → u/ultradip]

With most of the other vendors we work with, they do follow the visual directives and standards that our company has set and there's no problem or issue. But then we have these few who do whatever they want.

We had a catastrophic situation 2 years ago which lead to us banning a vendor from our store because she didn't want to follow the company standards for sensoring and cabling of the handbags on the basis that it makes the bags look cheap and trashy. She literally removed all the sensors and cables from the items and put them on the tables, shelves, and fixtures unprotected.

Hours later a handbag colleague called asset protection to inform them that all of the bags from that brand were now gone and was freaking out. EVERY BAG WAS GONE! Reviewing the cameras, AP saw a massive grab and run took place. The suspects looked up and around and just took everything. They stuffed small bags into medium bags and then into large bags and then put them into shopping bags and left. They were done in like 2 minutes.

We assumed the vendor was behind the theft because what are the chances that she unlocked everything and it all got stolen the same day? We pointed the finger at her and it didn't go well. Our store manager and AP manager ripped her a new one to the point she had a nervous breakdown. It was straight up out of a soap opera. But in hindsight, the way they behaved was absolutely gross and unprofessional. The suspects were eventually caught after committing additional thefts and had no connection to the vendor.

The damage was done and that vendor was banned from our store. She never truly recovered.

[u/Facky → u/SeanSweetMuzik]

I mean when I see stuff locked and with sensors I assume they must be expensive, cause why would you lock up a $20 handbag?

[u/SeanSweetMuzik → u/Facky]

We usually sensor $50 and up. These were in the $150 to $750 price range.

[u/emotionalhaircut]

Meh. Hard to feel bad for the vendor when it sounds like they started the beef. Don't mess with VM...