Thread regarding Lowe's Cos. layoffs

Background, my store in one of the "new" and apparently largest test markets for a combination 3rd party delivery (XPO) and cross-dock (XDT) appliance delivery process. Also, the bottom portion of this post is a copy/paste of one I did in another thread but is also relevant to this one. As for the "soft appliance sales" I have been sounding that alarm to my store management team for MONTHS and only now are they starting to take the situation seriously. Personally I believe they didn't really care till all the senior managers (i.e. store managers / ASMs / DM) in our market suddenly discovered that their end of year bonuses were going to be lower or non-existent.

The problems started almost immediately when Lowe's abruptly laid off all of our in-house box truck delivery crews. Replaced with mostly untrained 3rd party crews who's apparent only requirement to get hired was that they could show up with a box truck. Often takes multiple re-trips to get even a simple task (like reversing a refrigerator or cloths dryer door swing or installing front loader pedestals) accomplished. In some cases we actually have to send a store employee out to complete the task. I could go on for pages and pages of all the customer complaints we are fielding daily at the store level related specifically to these crews performance and/or lack thereof. Don't take my word for it as all you have to do is look on social media for proof.

Next layer of problems is related to the half baked non-vetted software / processing issues. The Cliff notes version is that we still invoice in Genesis but the software ports into a Sterling order (most times) when tendered. Zero control when invoicing as to where the customer's order is eventually going to land. Only way to force the sale to stay in house is to sell the entire order as PL (pickup later), Orders getting split, often times involving multiple stores, and in some cases being directed to stores that are well beyond our delivery service radius. We have actually witnessed orders being routed to stores over 100 miles away from the customer's delivery location. Don't even get me started on the near total inconsistency as to how other stores process / respect their incoming Sterling orders. Sub-par order management occurs when orders get split like this and it is increasingly rare for it to end well for the customer when it does this. Canceled orders, different delivery dates, no customer communication, etc are now every day occurrences. Again, don't take my word for it just take a look at social media. Below is a link from a local news story which documents just one recent customer experience. Sadly that experience is no longer atypical.

https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2020/02/24/no-refund-not-a-dime-man-battles-with-lowes-to-get-washer-dryer-delivered/

Saving the best for last... PRACTICALLY NO INVENTORY! One of the things that happens when going to this "new" cross-dock delivery system is that most of your inventory is removed from the local stores and is pulled directly from the servicing ADC to the cross-dock where the 3rd party delivery crews pickup and deliver from. Problem is without that cushion of store inventory we started to run out of appliances before we even finished the 2nd week of our November 2019 Black Friday sales event. Three months later and we are still waiting on product to land at our servicing ADC. Certain items have yet to even arrive our Coastal Holding facility. Often times when product finally does arrive at the ADC it isn't even enough to get us out of our negative. Loosing sale after sale after sale after sale because we have no product!!! I have actually had customers ask me if we are going out of business after spending over an hour with them shopping for a refrigerator only to find NONE of the several models they were considering in stock. On many days the only sales I am able to salvage are ones involving SOS models which are side stepping our decimated stock/SOE supply chain. I can't begin to tell you how frustrating or demoralizing it is being a sales person and loosing a staggering number of sales for months on end due to lack of inventory.

Corporate talks a good game but WHERE IS THE ACCOUNTABILITY for all of these issues??? The 3rd party delivery and software/processing issues have been going on for over half a year and the inventory crisis for 3+ months. Please, your associates and your rapidly dwindling customer base is waiting for your response. Unless you are looking for Q1 2020 results even worse than Q4 2019 shellacking (see below) corporate better wake up and start solving the problems THEY created.

Lowe's vs Home Depot
Q4 Net earnings $509 million vs 2.5 billion
Fiscal Net earnings 4.28 billion vs 11.2 billion
Q4 Sales 16.0 billion vs 25.8 billion
Q4 comparable sales 2.5% vs 5.2% (total)/5.3% (US stores)
2019 annual sales 72.1 billion vs 110.2 billion
2018 annual sales 71.3 billion vs 108.2 billion

https://lowes.gcs-web.com/news-releases/news-release-details/lowes-reports-fourth-quarter-sales-and-earnings-results-9

https://ir.homedepot.com/~/media/Files/H/HomeDepot-IR/reports-and-presentations/quarterly-earnings/2019-q4-pr.pdf

NOTE TO CORPORATE: perhaps next quarter the company's interests would be better served by focusing on STAYING IN STOCK instead of BUYING BACK STOCK.

Until we have ethical corporate leaders nothing will change, only worsen. The only option is, quit!

Every area of operations is laced with unethical business practices, lies, fraud, manipulations, and more.

Im tired of the threats, and never any positivity. I sold 35k this week, and no one said a word other than I need to get more!

We were told they want all Specialists at pro to sell 1 mill for 2020. Guess how many 1 mill sellers we had in the entire district for 2019? NONE! ZERO!

The expectations are unrealistic, the demands are a constant harassment, and the threats are just empty and annoying.

Lowe's will NEVER improve under Marvin, Cant happen and wont happen. He is focused on such minutia while all fundamental services are broken - deliveries, systems, customer service.... all broken.

Ill be leaving asap, and I will watch as Lowe's burns. Imploding on itself from unethical liars. Unethical management is spreading like a cancer throughout Lowe's and Marvin is the host.

1. T. dept in Bangladesh, which is also the Subway Sandwich Mgr Training HQ, can’t seem to fix the antiquated system. Next week Lowe’s will instruct the stores to move the Internet storage area to a rented trailer in the parking lot. They have it all figured out

Soft appliance sales? You can't sell from an empty wagon. No inventory, canceled purchase orders; what do you expect? HD and Best Buy can get appliances to customers. I really believe that Lowe's has burned a lot of bridges with our appliance vendors. They beat them up over pricing, slow pay their invoices and expect top tier service. On top of all that we can't deliver anything! WTF are they thinking?

The Earnings Call transcript is posted on Seeking Alpha. Marvin is anemic. Blamed soft appliance sales on a compressed holiday season? WTF? A 5 week Black Friday sale? Corporate still living now in a HD Alternate Universe. Wall Street fools treat him like his something with id–tic questions. Instead they should have hit him hard. It is a sad joke at the stores expense. He is focused on Tech. Another joke.

Jim Cramer from CNBC has a man crush on Marvin Ellison. That tells you all you need to know about both of them.

Time for Marvin to admit his monkey see monkey do copy Home Depot business plan isn’t working.

Time for Marvin and friends to go; small hands joe, Taco Bell lady, his Indian friend from target, and anyone else Marvin has brought on board.

We need someone who has risen through the ranks and remembers Lowe’s from the good old days, when was viable. Not sure if anyone is left.

Stock price down again today, it can just be the corona virus, Lowe’s stock price fell another $5.50 against a HD drop of $2.20
In the earning report Lowe’s fell short on revenue for Q4 and same store sales was expected at 3.6% and was only 2.5%
Then Big Bill Boltz says in his statement that brick and mortar stores contributed to almost all of the growth, then take a look at how they are devastating stores and the people who got them that growth.

They talk about on line orders, this is an area where Lowe’s are falling badly, just read some of the comments, then look at customer complaints about on line sales. Then take some time and read HD,s numbers on internet sales.

Finally Lowe’s has gone on about its computer system for years and nothing has really changed, they threw a lot of money at sterling and it failed, I think the system we use, came from the Ark, no wonder Noah ran aground. HD is years ahead of Lowe’s, touch screen monitors, fast check out systems again using touch screen, easy order look up and so much more.

But as someone said, keep grinding away, until we are ground away.

Welcome to the new Lowe’s. We are proud to be the new Sears!
We have craftsman tools too!!!

What are the big 3 again?

1. Clean and safe stores (with all those top stock violations)
2. Have what you want (as long as it’s cheap c-ap from China)
3. Always in stock (well most always in stock)

My store is having a big pro paint push. They’ve built a big display of sherwin willams showcase and infinity down by the pro desk. Pros don’t want that, they want the cheap stuff to increase their profits. As a result when a non pro customer wants showcase or infinity the paint associate has to go all the way to the other end of the store to get what the customer wants.

Makes no sense but you can’t tell them that.

Absolutely, Just Keep GRINDING away......Right marvelous? We grind, you dine....

Just focus on the "big 3" team. We will climb the top of Everest right Joe?