The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Obsolete Dress Shirts

I usually don't write about stuff I do at work, but today's an exception. I'm working in the store! Playing with the goods (pun! pun!).

My assignment:
Scan, locate, and mark the correct price on obsolete and clearance men's dress shirts in the Ballston Hecht's (I work in this store everyday, but in the corporate offices above the store).

Technical note: Hecht's defines obsolete merchandise as styles where no store has received a brand new shipment of that style in 1 year. To make identification of obsolete styles easy, the company assigns a price that ends in a 98¢ or 08¢.

The Bad:
Hecht's has an overstock problem cause our policy is to buy merchandise according to company budget not to available store floor space. As a result, a good portion of merchandise we sell never sees the light of day (say 10-15% of the stock). Anyone with two cells in their brain knows budget $$ have no relation to the amount of space available for merchandise! (Sorry....the logistical planner in me is showing - it's very frustrating for me to see such gross inefficiency.)

The Ballston store has 800 pieces of obsolete dress shirts; 600 of which are designer brands (P. Ellis, K. Cole, G. Beene, Claiborne, etc.). That's a lot of dress shirts! And considering the fact that the MSRP is between $40-$50 and the mark-down price is between $1.98 - $14.98, Hecht's is losing out on some HUGE margins. I guess that's why we got bought, huh?

The Good:
I find about 300 of the 800 obsolete dress shirts. And since my male co-workers are always in the market for additional dress shirts, I take down sizes and put aside attractive shirts for their review. Aren't I helpful?

Results:
I find two 16 ½ 34-35 shirts for one co-worker. One is a pretty sea blue K. Cole shirt for $4.98; the other is a plain white G. Beene for (get this!) $1.08. He uses a coupon (Hecht's always has coupons!) on the white shirt and before our 25% employee discount, the shirt costs 86¢ (after discount it will be 65¢)!

I also find a 16 34-35 white dress shirt for the department manager for $1.98.

So send me your sizes, so I can look for good deals for y’all the next time I'm in the store. I have access to the stockrooms too! I already know Fagnostic is a 16 34-35.

The Ugly:
Polka dot dress shirts = Run for the hills

What I learned about dress shirts:

1. Avg. American male has a 16 - 16 ½ inch neck
2. Majority of obsolete dress shirts are size 17 ½ neck
3. I’m fond of stripes and the color green

Conclusion:
If you have a big bull neck, come to the Ballston Hecht’s store for a great selection of reduced dress shirts. And they're not all ugly! Great steals…

Pics will be posted of good and ugly dress shirts as soon as I ever spend any time at home to upload the pics from my Clie.