Last few days this week before Kirsten is back from holiday. Today I had the responsibility again of compiling the reports. This week I was less daunted by the task of it but I came in early all the same to allow myself the time in case of any problems.
Having the responsibility of compiling the reports has been really insightful and I have enjoyed having something I can take charge of and have the satisfaction of finishing. Understandably they cannot give me too many responsibilities at Animal and although I have found most of the tasks they give me beneficial I have felt much more part of the team at Animal having the responsibility.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Sunday, November 27, 2011
This weekend was the Animal Sample sale. I have never been at Animal when they have had a sample sale so I was particularly excited to get some bargins for myself and for christmas presents. As I am classed as staff I was able to invite +3 to the sample sale too so I was able to take my boyfriend and her mum and partner. They are HUGE fans of Animal so I was in the good books :)
The warehouse where the sample sale was held was just massive and the whole area was filled with boxes. Being staff I was able to turn up to the sale at 8am so I made sure I got there for that time and it was lovely and quite so I was able to take my time.
At 10.30am the general public came and it got very busy very quickly so I was glad I was able to grab the bits I had beforehand.
Between my boyfriend and I we managed to grab some great stuff and we didn't realise how much we had quite bought until we got it home and sorted through it......!!!!!
The warehouse where the sample sale was held was just massive and the whole area was filled with boxes. Being staff I was able to turn up to the sale at 8am so I made sure I got there for that time and it was lovely and quite so I was able to take my time.
At 10.30am the general public came and it got very busy very quickly so I was glad I was able to grab the bits I had beforehand.
Between my boyfriend and I we managed to grab some great stuff and we didn't realise how much we had quite bought until we got it home and sorted through it......!!!!!
Monday was my day to shine. I was in at half 7 to get a head start on the work. I was looking to do a good job and make sure all the reports were exact. I worked my way through each of the reports checking as I went.
With getting into work so early I managed to get the reports finished just before lunch so I set the presentation pack to print as I popped out to get some lunch so that when I returned I have time to staple the packs all together and get them distributed before the trade meeting at 2.
The trade packs went down well in the meeting without any mistakes which I was pleased about as I had been very careful as I know how important it is for the reports to be exact.
In the trade meeting it was discussed why Animal is down on sales in the year. The one thing that was mentioned is that the VM is not the reason for the stores not performing as the sales are coming in from the garments hung in the prime VM positions. Both the Retail Manger Nikki and the Area Manager Cat travel around a lot of stores each week to make sure the stores are presentable and the VM is there to entice customers.
Personally in my time at Animal I have gotten to know where the stores are located and for me location is key. Many of their stores are off the main strip of shopping town centres so the footfall passing the shop is not there. From my own observations I believe that the location of stores are not in the key areas they should be and with sales on the retail side not performing I think what should be done is that they close most if not all of their stores, they focus on their wholesale and build up the brand again and then pick a few key locations to be re-opened making Animal a brand to be desired and people visit the locations for the stores.
I know that it is easy for me to conclude this and that in principle it is a much bigger job but I think it needs to be done now while there are still customers following the brand before they loose their market and they then have to build up the customers again from scratch.
On Tuesday I came into work but was not feeling 100%. I ran thought the best seller reports for top 10 units and for etail and saved these down to PDF's to be sent across to Chloe Crosby to be sent out to retail and I also saved PDF's of the cut down version to be sent to the finance manager Richard Bouch.
As I was not feeling too well I left work at lunch to go home to rest so that I could be feeling better for the following day. Unfortunately I went home and was off most of the week Ill. I think it may have been largely down to the previous week and having a lot of stress with my partner having surgery.
On Friday I was back at work and I had my usual job of prepping mondays reports. Once I had done this I was sent up to Product Development in design by Nathan to help with clearing the SS12 samples to the archive area. For this job I was assisting the Junior Garment Developer, Katie. The job itself was just a simple one of putting the clothing into order of what company made the sample and then to transport it to the 4th floor for it to be hung in archiving so it was still available to review as needed by design. The main challenge came when we came to move the rails of clothing and we found there was no lift between the 3rd and 4th floor so it was then a lot of manual work to shift it. I saw this as a good bit of exercise and got stuck straight in.
With getting into work so early I managed to get the reports finished just before lunch so I set the presentation pack to print as I popped out to get some lunch so that when I returned I have time to staple the packs all together and get them distributed before the trade meeting at 2.
The trade packs went down well in the meeting without any mistakes which I was pleased about as I had been very careful as I know how important it is for the reports to be exact.
In the trade meeting it was discussed why Animal is down on sales in the year. The one thing that was mentioned is that the VM is not the reason for the stores not performing as the sales are coming in from the garments hung in the prime VM positions. Both the Retail Manger Nikki and the Area Manager Cat travel around a lot of stores each week to make sure the stores are presentable and the VM is there to entice customers.
Personally in my time at Animal I have gotten to know where the stores are located and for me location is key. Many of their stores are off the main strip of shopping town centres so the footfall passing the shop is not there. From my own observations I believe that the location of stores are not in the key areas they should be and with sales on the retail side not performing I think what should be done is that they close most if not all of their stores, they focus on their wholesale and build up the brand again and then pick a few key locations to be re-opened making Animal a brand to be desired and people visit the locations for the stores.
I know that it is easy for me to conclude this and that in principle it is a much bigger job but I think it needs to be done now while there are still customers following the brand before they loose their market and they then have to build up the customers again from scratch.
On Tuesday I came into work but was not feeling 100%. I ran thought the best seller reports for top 10 units and for etail and saved these down to PDF's to be sent across to Chloe Crosby to be sent out to retail and I also saved PDF's of the cut down version to be sent to the finance manager Richard Bouch.
As I was not feeling too well I left work at lunch to go home to rest so that I could be feeling better for the following day. Unfortunately I went home and was off most of the week Ill. I think it may have been largely down to the previous week and having a lot of stress with my partner having surgery.
On Friday I was back at work and I had my usual job of prepping mondays reports. Once I had done this I was sent up to Product Development in design by Nathan to help with clearing the SS12 samples to the archive area. For this job I was assisting the Junior Garment Developer, Katie. The job itself was just a simple one of putting the clothing into order of what company made the sample and then to transport it to the 4th floor for it to be hung in archiving so it was still available to review as needed by design. The main challenge came when we came to move the rails of clothing and we found there was no lift between the 3rd and 4th floor so it was then a lot of manual work to shift it. I saw this as a good bit of exercise and got stuck straight in.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
This week I have been up in Sheffield with my partner while he has radiotherapy surgery.
On Friday I went into work to prep the reports ready for Monday when I would be doing the weeks reporting. I only stayed at work for a few hours to get the necessary tasks completed as I am the sole carer for my partner I was worried and I wanted to get back to him to assist.
On Friday I went into work to prep the reports ready for Monday when I would be doing the weeks reporting. I only stayed at work for a few hours to get the necessary tasks completed as I am the sole carer for my partner I was worried and I wanted to get back to him to assist.
Friday, November 11, 2011
The rest of the week consisted of my other jobs to complete. Kirsten had put together my jobs in a week planner so that I but also Nathan, the Buying/Merchandising Manager, knew what I had to work on whilst she was away and he can then also give me other jobs for himself or other departments if I was not too busy.
My jobs for the week consisted of:
Tuesday - Top 10 Best Sellers to be done for Units and Etail.
- ICON invoices/credits print and file & check and sign off.
Wednesday - WSSI's
Thursday - ICON check and sign off
Friday - Put together the bits for monday and prep all the sheets for Monday reporting
Once these tasks were done I had other smaller tasks to get through if I had the time:
Go Pro Comparisons - check out competitors prices on GoPro Camera's and Accessories.
Tidying the Sample Area - SS12 samples are starting to be delivered so I need to stack the boxes of samples neatly away until we can pack away AW11 samples.
Adhoc tasks for Nathan
Support Sean in Etail
On Tuesday I made my way through the tasks some which I had been doing anyway but others were something I was taking on while Kirsten was away so I wanted to make sure I was confident in the jobs.
On Wednesday and Thursday I was up in design to help with the product development team. They assigned me to packing up all the SS11 garments in archiving. The area for archiving is on the 4th floor. I was on my own up there as it is not manned by anyone. I soon got myself into a rhythm of working. I had to pack one sample of each to be sent to the warehouse for further archiving. If there were duplicates of a garment it was to be boxed ready for the sample sale in a couple of weeks time.
As it was so quite on the 4th floor I remembered to bring my ipod in on the Thursday to keep me company.
On Friday Kirsten was back and my job today was to get all the sheets prepared for Mondays reports. Kirsten left me to get on with the reports and as I had done with the Mondays reports I had previously put together a to do list for Friday.
I was getting nervous by this point as this was my last day with Kirsten before I would take over while she was on holiday. I wanted to make her proud as well as do a good job for my own development.
My jobs for the week consisted of:
Tuesday - Top 10 Best Sellers to be done for Units and Etail.
- ICON invoices/credits print and file & check and sign off.
Wednesday - WSSI's
Thursday - ICON check and sign off
Friday - Put together the bits for monday and prep all the sheets for Monday reporting
Once these tasks were done I had other smaller tasks to get through if I had the time:
Go Pro Comparisons - check out competitors prices on GoPro Camera's and Accessories.
Tidying the Sample Area - SS12 samples are starting to be delivered so I need to stack the boxes of samples neatly away until we can pack away AW11 samples.
Adhoc tasks for Nathan
Support Sean in Etail
On Tuesday I made my way through the tasks some which I had been doing anyway but others were something I was taking on while Kirsten was away so I wanted to make sure I was confident in the jobs.
On Wednesday and Thursday I was up in design to help with the product development team. They assigned me to packing up all the SS11 garments in archiving. The area for archiving is on the 4th floor. I was on my own up there as it is not manned by anyone. I soon got myself into a rhythm of working. I had to pack one sample of each to be sent to the warehouse for further archiving. If there were duplicates of a garment it was to be boxed ready for the sample sale in a couple of weeks time.
As it was so quite on the 4th floor I remembered to bring my ipod in on the Thursday to keep me company.
On Friday Kirsten was back and my job today was to get all the sheets prepared for Mondays reports. Kirsten left me to get on with the reports and as I had done with the Mondays reports I had previously put together a to do list for Friday.
I was getting nervous by this point as this was my last day with Kirsten before I would take over while she was on holiday. I wanted to make her proud as well as do a good job for my own development.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
This week is about me getting to grips will all the reports and feeling confident in putting them together on a Monday and checking the information entered it updated correctly. Kirsten is not on holiday until the 15th November but next week I am having to have a week off to travel up to Sheffield for my partner to have radiotherapy surgery so I have only got this week to make sure I am confident.
On the Monday I was left to do the full reports by myself so I came in at 7.30 in the morning to allow myself additional time so I had the time to take on each report. I had previously typed up my to do list for the Monday so I had a list of what to do and in what order. As I ran through the reports there were a couple of times where I had to check with Kirsten as I had not fully remembered so I made additional notes on my to do list so I had every tiny detail so I did not forget whilst she was away.
On the Monday I was left to do the full reports by myself so I came in at 7.30 in the morning to allow myself additional time so I had the time to take on each report. I had previously typed up my to do list for the Monday so I had a list of what to do and in what order. As I ran through the reports there were a couple of times where I had to check with Kirsten as I had not fully remembered so I made additional notes on my to do list so I had every tiny detail so I did not forget whilst she was away.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
The rest of the week was spent on a collection of different things.
I had the SS12 packs to complete to be sent out to the stores. These did not have to be sent just yet but Kirtsen had asked me to work on them when I had the time to get them ready so they can be sent out in the next week or so.
One of my tasks for the week was to log the markdown prices using System 21. This system is the online pricing system used for creating orders and changing prices.
At the end of the week Kirsten sat with me again to run though the process of preparing the sheets ready for updating the reports on a Monday. It is not as easy as clearing the spreadsheets as there are a lot of formula's created within the reports and in many cases I had to copy TW (this weeks) formulated values and and paste them into TW-1 (this week -1) so the right information is held to the new weeks information to refer against.
By preparing the reports on the Friday it means on the Monday that there is less rush so making sure the information has updated and been entered is correct and allows time for checking.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
This Monday Kirsten was in the office so before the trade meeting I was back to completing the top 10 best sellers. Once I had completed all three of the the best sellers in values, units and etail I then created them inot PDF's and sent them to Chloe, the Retail Operations Manager, to be sent out to the retail team and also and amended copy showing just the picture and style code to the finance manager.
In the trade meeting today we reviewed how the pound off in store was going, sales seem to have increased so retail manager Nikki has agreed lets move with this and add additional items to the pounds off to keep it running if its bringing in the pounds. This week there is going to be quite a few late night and VIP events so this should see and increase in sales this week with any hope, Christmas window will be in stores as of next Monday to hopefully get the Christmas buzz around stores.
On Tuesday Kirsten set me the task to put together a SS12 pack to be sent out to stores. The packs include a SS12 line book, a SS12 collection catalogue, dropped lines, revised styles and the Anniversary watch information.
In the trade meeting today we reviewed how the pound off in store was going, sales seem to have increased so retail manager Nikki has agreed lets move with this and add additional items to the pounds off to keep it running if its bringing in the pounds. This week there is going to be quite a few late night and VIP events so this should see and increase in sales this week with any hope, Christmas window will be in stores as of next Monday to hopefully get the Christmas buzz around stores.
On Tuesday Kirsten set me the task to put together a SS12 pack to be sent out to stores. The packs include a SS12 line book, a SS12 collection catalogue, dropped lines, revised styles and the Anniversary watch information.
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