Hobby Lobby business practices

[David]

Sight unseen I'm guessing that CNBC business show episode was a puff piece that didn't really challenge Hobby Lobby about it. Unless it had hard numbers and stats proving their point I suspect it isn't really true.

[TheTravellers]

Sight unseen I'm guessing that CNBC business show episode was a puff piece that didn't really challenge Hobby Lobby about it. Unless it had hard numbers and stats proving their point I suspect it isn't really true.

Yep, that's why I want a link to it (or to a show name and episode number, anything, really), want to see for myself how "efficient" it is. I get that not having barcodes means there aren't people entering them into an inventory system that matches up the barcodes with items, but that really only has to be done *once* for each item, then it's done. So at the start, it'd be a massive amount of work to get every item in there, but after that, it would turn into maintenance mode with just entering new items and deleting items not carried any more.

[Jersey Boss]

I might be wrong or off base but don't some "fundies" have superstitious beliefs about bar codes?
Pete's piece on HL is a clear case of why unions are still relevant in 2020.

[jerrywall]

Products at Hobby Lobby still have SKUs associated with them (or at least they did at one time so I assume they still do). So they could print barcodes off, and I assume they are taking advantage of having a computerized inventory. To be honest, it might be more efficient (although I assume much of this is driven by resistance to change). I've worked with both systems, and grew up in the grocery industry. Additionally, I worked in my college years as a night inventory takers for a company that would go into Buy4Less, Pier1, Hobby Lobby, etc, and do inventory. Some we'd do barcode scan, and some we're be doing manual count and enter. Guess which was significantly quicker? The latter. I'd have a 10key hanging on my hip, type in the SKU, and then the count. I could work down a full aisle in about 10 minutes that way. The scanning just saved the effort of typing in 6-10 digits of the sku, but you'd have to get it to scan which might take a time or two, so it wasn't as fast working down the aisle.

Now, for checking out I feel like the barcodes would be a little faster, but not much. The biggest advantage of them is more accuracy though, not speed or efficiency. An experiences clerk can type in a sku and quantity as fast as they can scan, but they can mistype the sku.

Of course, the big factor for barcodes is in warehousing and distribution. If they're not using them there, they're missing out on a lot of advantages. Of course, they're not really driven towards automation, so it wouldn't be a big surprise.

[Pete]

Green has said in interviews that he doesn't like barcodes because when you use a scanner at the register for inventory management, it doesn't take into account items that are stolen or broken.

He also said that by having employees perform sight counts that it teaches them what is available in the store.

[catch22]

They should have a union drive at the HL warehouse. Thanks for the article Pete.

[TheTravellers]

...

He also said that by having employees perform sight counts that it teaches them what is available in the store.

Do employees last long enough for that to be a positive? Seriously asking, because I'm not sure how long the average employee works at a retail Hobby Lobby store, and if they're only there 6 months (a figure I just pulled out of the air), why would they care enough to know every item in the store...

[Pete]

I think it's safe to say that plenty of people like working for Hobby Lobby, both at their main campus and in the stores.

I wouldn't assume that they have massive turnover.

[AP]

I worked at a hobby lobby in college and a large portion of the employees had been there for more than 5 years. My grandmother worked at a hobby lobby in the framing department for 20 years.

[jdizzle]

Do employees last long enough for that to be a positive? Seriously asking, because I'm not sure how long the average employee works at a retail Hobby Lobby store, and if they're only there 6 months (a figure I just pulled out of the air), why would they care enough to know every item in the store...

Yes.

[SouthSide]

My experience shopping at HL is that the price is printed on the product tag for the majority of the products. Usually the only time an item is hand-priced is if it is a name-brand product like Cri-cut or Crayola.

[Pete]

My experience shopping at HL is that the price is printed on the product tag for the majority of the products. Usually the only time an item is hand-priced is if it is a name-brand product like Cri-cut or Crayola.

Think about how limiting this is...

If a price goes up or down, you still have to hand-price everything as opposed to a keystroke in a database.

They have over 900 stores and growing and have thousands of items in each store.

[DowntownMan]

Think about how limiting this is...

If a price goes up or down, you still have to hand-price everything as opposed to a keystroke in a database.

They have over 900 stores and growing and have thousands of items in each store.

It seems to be working just fine for them apparently based on their growth and typical profits

[TheTravellers]

It seems to be working just fine for them apparently based on their growth and typical profits

"them" - the Green family. If I was employed by them and had to do that kind of manual crap with no chance of it changing and knowing how other companies do it, I'd be gone in a heartbeat. Luckily, I think they're scum and would have/will never work for them.

[Swake]

Think about how limiting this is...

If a price goes up or down, you still have to hand-price everything as opposed to a keystroke in a database.

They have over 900 stores and growing and have thousands of items in each store.

Seems ripe for fraud.

[TheTravellers]

Seems ripe for fraud.

Nah, according to this, employees touching every single item in the store helps prevent that:

https://www.okctalk.com/showthread.p...23#post1130023

[Martin]

Seems ripe for fraud.

[Teo9969]

Though others are catching up to their wages, haven't they been at a $15.00/hour base rate for almost a decade?

If minimum wage goes up, then they'll either have to make some new accommodations or find labor difficult to come by. I'd assume minimum wage will get hiked to at least $10/hr within the next few years, and I'd put my money on a $12/hr phase in.

[Pete]

They are having a very hard time filling warehouse jobs now.

[PaddyShack]

Think about how limiting this is...

If a price goes up or down, you still have to hand-price everything as opposed to a keystroke in a database.

They have over 900 stores and growing and have thousands of items in each store.

This actually has be beneficial for me. When buying certain items, such as party plates or cake decorating items, consumable items mostly, you can sometimes grab items at a lower price even though the newer products on the shelf have the higher prices. So I always tend to look through all of package to see if there are different prices in the lot.

[Jersey Boss]

Nice to see the benevolence of OKC toward the HL bible museum. Maximum payout with limited funds.


Museum of the Bible in Washington D.C. approved for Oklahoma CARES Act money because of its OKC headquarters | KFOR.com Oklahoma City
https://kfor.com/news/local/museum-o...-headquarters/

[foodiefan]

Nice to see the benevolence of OKC toward the HL bible museum. Maximum payout with limited funds.


Museum of the Bible in Washington D.C. approved for Oklahoma CARES Act money because of its OKC headquarters | KFOR.com Oklahoma City
https://kfor.com/news/local/museum-o...-headquarters/

[DowntownMan]

Nice to see the benevolence of OKC toward the HL bible museum. Maximum payout with limited funds.


Museum of the Bible in Washington D.C. approved for Oklahoma CARES Act money because of its OKC headquarters | KFOR.com Oklahoma City
https://kfor.com/news/local/museum-o...-headquarters/

Well that headquarters probably has plenty of employees who live in Oklahoma City. That’s what this funding will go to benefit and help.

[Plutonic Panda]

Minimum wages going up to $17 per hour

https://abc7.com/6422762/?ex_cid=TA_...yVPKQ68s3qxlJs

[rte66man]

Nice to see the benevolence of OKC toward the HL bible museum. Maximum payout with limited funds.


Museum of the Bible in Washington D.C. approved for Oklahoma CARES Act money because of its OKC headquarters | KFOR.com Oklahoma City
https://kfor.com/news/local/museum-o...-headquarters/

Had forgotten how much hate there is for HL on this board. Yes, all of their admin functions for MOB are here in OKC. I know because I had an offer for an IT position when they were first opening up. I liked what I saw and the money was good but I didn't accept because I got a better offer from another company. Executive, accounting, and IT are all here.