My First Day

Today was our first day on the job. Megan, Catherine, and I all met outside of Hudson Belk - Menswear this morning at 10 o'clock to meet Cynthia excited for what the day had in store for all of us (pun intended). The first thing that we did was meet the staff at the store in Menswear. After meeting the staff Cynthia showed us what she does every Monday. She comes in and checks over the numbers. Numbers comparing this weeks sales to last weeks sales, numbers comparing sales from this day to this day last year, and also all the numbers comparing this particular stores numbers to that of the other Polo stores across the country.

After assessing the sales figures we re-arranged items and fixtures around the store to try and push it out the door better. As this is my first experience in retail with apparel I didn't realize so much went into what outfits went onto the manikins or where different things in the store were located. Today we also learned what an acceptable folded mesh shirt looks like according to Polo standards (we got a lot of practice with this since we re-folded the entire mesh wall and some). Towards the end of the day we looked at the Polo Big and Tall area; this was located in a separate area from the shop where we were most of the day. Cynthia told us that for the most part this area ran itself which blew my mind. It was a kind of self governed area that had a very niche market and very few people perused this area. This area is the second biggest/best big and tall offering in the area! I was shocked to hear the sales numbers on big and tall as it was much more successful than it appeared.

That concluded our first day at Crabtree Valley Mall. I'm looking forward to coming back to Crabtree Friday to see if sales jumped in the areas we intended it to by moving merchandise around. Tomorrow we're heading to Triangle Town Center to work our magic over there as well.