A Vendor's story

One of the joys of working as a vendor is that I get to meet other vendors and trade stories ranging from good to worst situations of dealing with a lot of people and store personnel and their policies. Due to the company I work for I have to leave out a few details like the stores name as well as the vendor and who he works for because this is his story I am telling. But the rest is all there.

A few months ago this vendor had a huge sale going on with at least 3 pallet displays throughout the store. By Friday at 5 PM he was still working the store and looked like he was going to be there for a couple of more hours. He had about 4 pallets of product in the backroom and the way the sale was going, with customers buying up everything in sight, he figured he would be out of everything by morning. He talked with the manager, who was heading home and an off-schedule delivery was going to come in the next day.

As the vendor was loading a cart to start filling up all the displays again, the female assistant manager and a guy on the stock crew were complaining about the vendor’s product in the backroom. They went on and on about how he had too much merchandise and how it doesn’t really sell at all. The assistant manager stated that she was going to turn down all of his deliveries until all the merchandise was gone or picked up. The stock crew guy was basically a parrot repeating everything she said.

He told them he had another delivery coming in tomorrow morning. They both went ballistic, threatening to kick him out of the store, call his boss as well as telling the store manager. He paid them no attention and carried on with his job. Close to 8 PM as he was leaving the store, all his back stock in the backroom was gone and the 3 pallets on the sales floor were down to 1 pallet. As the vendor was leaving she came to him complaining about empty shelf spaces and being out of certain items which he just smiled and went home.

He showed up at the store the next morning as the delivery truck arrived and he said it was a very different atmosphere. The assistant manager was there but she didn’t talk to him or to be more precise, she stayed far away from his as she could. The receiver told him that after he left last night she called the store manager to complain and tried to get the vendor kicked out of the store. What she didn’t know is that his wife came in to do grocery shopping and called him about the condition of the store. Mainly because the vendor’s boss came into the store about hour before the vendor went home and called the store manager to inform him of the condition of the store, the assistant manager threats and to confirm the delivery would be there as early as possible.

So when the assistant manager called her boss, he already knew the whole story. And by the end of the phone conversation she wished she hadn’t called him. The receiver said that she was in her booth before the store opened and heard the manager, who came in on his day off, chewing out the assistant manager. He even went after the stock crew guy and threatened to fire them both if they screw-up again. And by Sunday night, all 10 pallets that came in the day before were all gone with about 6 more pallets coming in Monday morning. The vendor says he still works that store and the assistant manager still stays away from him.