A Billion Little Projects

      This week I have worked on many small and unrelated projects. It has really helped to keep my focus this week having new projects to work on. For starters, I've been calling various buyers to resolve order issues. Our Fall 2013 order due date was January 4th and we are still just receiving orders (an entire month late!). A major issue now since the orders are late, is that none of the styles, sizes, and colors that these accounts have ordered are available. What is done is done in production, and unfortunately, since these accounts submitted their orders so late, there is nothing we can do about it.
      Last week we finally sent out our baselayer seed samples, and either the reps or I will be following up with the buyers within the next few weeks to get their feedback on the product. When we sent out the samples we had 77 packed manilla envelopes that would have taken hours to get shipped out of the post office. To avoid that issue, we found a website called Stamps.com and used their services instead. It's a USPS site that allows you to weigh your own packages and print your own shipping labels from your printer (just like you can do on Ebay if you have ever been a seller). You have to become a member, but it's such a nice website to use for people/companies that are constantly making shipments.
      I also worked on some Photoshop work for an event we have coming up, The Polar Plunge. We work with one of our specialty accounts on this event. My task was to create 3 cards in Photoshop with different key words, using the account's logo and The North Face imagery. The key word on each card was indicative of what prize that contestant would receive. To receive their prize, they will have to visit our specialty account before the date indicated on the card. The concept is that the contestant will receive a gift for their participation, while this will also increase store traffic hopefully leading to more sales.
        Another task I worked on was interpreting Macy's variance reports to find the highest booked styles to be used in a Macy's lookbook. The Macy's lookbook will link in-store merchandise in other stores and their Macys.com stock via bar codes to ensure the consumer can easily get whatever style/color/size they wanted. I worked with one of my coworkers Eileen to interpret the Excel information and one of our reps Andrew (who handles our Macy's accounts) to verify the most popular styles and colors for Macy's.
       Throughout my experience at Full Circle Group LLC/The North Face I've really been able to work on my Microsoft Excel skills. I really think they should either include it more in our DSMR classes, or at least offer include a class in our curriculum that helps us understand and efficiently use Excel. I'm also learning a lot about the business, the economy, and the importance of weather patterns. Hope everyone is having a good week!