Calls It Like I Sees 'Em.

A friend of mine who still works in management at one of my former employers recently asked me if maybe my critiques of the retail industry are a bit too SCATHING of late. In answer to that, let me share with you a quote by the venerable GEORGE BERNARD SHAW:

"The power of accurate observation.....is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it."

I rest my case. Any questions?

Monkey Business Management Secret #22

Good morning boys and girls! We have a new word for you today. It is called:

"Channel Stuffing."

Can YOU say "channel stuffing?" boys and girls? SUUUURE ya can!

Channel stuffing means that your corporate inventory is desperately overloaded, so you force your wholesalers, dealers, and branch stores to take it all off your hands and fill their own back rooms with it.

The advantages are obvious. Excess inventory looks like you can't run your business, which in turn drags your stock price down. In some states, it also gets taxed. Moving it out helps you to artificially inflate sales figures, which makes the stock price go up.

Other words for this include:

• Front Loading
• Dock Floating
  
• Phantom Warehousing.
• Sales Cramming.
• Freight Relocation.
• Logistics Legerdemain.
• Fraud.
  

In my several years in the retail business, I have repeatedly seen this happen. It's a shell game that district managers and regional executives play to inflate their own sales figures and also to help their corporate bosses look good.

But of course, I could be mistaken. What do I know? I'm just a peon who gets fired at Christmas.