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> stock shelf-stable products in these stores and at some point in their shelf life, transfer them out to other stores for actual consumption Back in my days i
by throwawayqqq11 1y ago
> stock shelf-stable products in these stores and at some point in their shelf life, transfer them out to other stores for actual consumption
Back in my days in retail, we were ordered to put resupply as FILO into the shelfs. It makes sense to sell the oldest products first. So why the transfer shuffle?
- zrobotics 1y agoIt's still FILO, the shuffle is needed for multiple locations. The emergency store keeps (for example) 5x the stock of canned beans, and feeds an area with 4 regular stores. They have 5x more stock then they could regularly sell, so if stock wasn't transferred then the canned beans would expire before they were sold. They need to transfer their surplus inventory to the 4 regular stores they feed before that stock ages, since in regular use they won't sell them in time. Since I've had to deal with a similar issue professionally, maybe think of a retailer with 5 distribution warehouses and 50 stores. Normally you want to pick from the closest distribution warehouse to minimize transport costs. However, for food items that expire sometimes it might make sense to pick from the furthest warehouse if their stock is getting older, you need to optimize both for transport costs and the cost of having to throw food away. It's beyond a HN comment, and I'd have to review what isn't NDA, but the optimization math for such a scenario gets both really complicated and really interesting. Hope this clarifies why they would be moving stick though.
- estimator7292 1y agoThis is a pretty common mechanism in several markets. I worked in the big paint store chain in the US and the local setup was a lot like this. Every store had as much stock as they can physically hold, and no two have the same capacity. It was a daily occurrence to shuttle stock to and from nearby locations, and very common for a small store to have a nearby large store order and hold stock for a job too big for the origin store to handle. We also had commercial stores spread out which were in essence local warehouses. Those stores spent a large part of their time handling stock transfers. They held specialty products small stores rarely need and couldn't justify the minimum order quantity. It's a lot more efficient and much faster than having product shipped across the country.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- netfortius 1y ago> FILO Hard to address the consumers' tendency to "reach out in the back", to get longer expiration time products.
- HumanOstrich 1y agoThat's a paddlin'.
- walthamstow 1y agoHonestly it seems like I am the only one in my local Aldi who does this. I see people picking up fish that is three days older than the one at the back.
- clan 1y agoAround here it is quite common to do with dairy products. I however choose not to do so quite deliberately. I want to avoid food waste. I just check the date is "good enough". My regular shop has a good enough flow that I usually pick from the front. Food waste is a trending concern around here. But I think you and I who cares about shelf life belongs to the same minority. The majority has enough other worries and does not spend bandwidth to care as it is usually good enough. I consider fish a "fresh" item and care more for looks and smell. Same as with vegetables. But I hate people who prod everything - that is detrimental to the product.
- Cthulhu_ 1y agoSome dairy products here - milk mainly - moves so fast there's only ever one expiration date available, lol.
- conorcleary 1y agoAlso can't rule out the 'OCD' types who don't want a gap left in the shelf where they've taken the product, so they remove one from the back
- 1y ago
- willvarfar 1y agoIsn't selling older products first first-in-first-out (FIFO) instead of first-in-last-out (FILO)? </hn programmer pedantry>