This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The Structure of the Book Publishing Industry in Canada Pub 371 (Fall 2017)
Louise Ho
An interview about the inventory process at Chapters Indigo.
Keywords: Inventory, Book Trade, Interview
Hello! I’m Louise, and I’m conducting an interview with one of my mangers from Chapters Indigo. As an employee of Chapters, I’ve been interested in the inventory process and how the books that come into our store are categorized. I think that it will be very valuable to my classmates to understand how a bookstore operates; particularly during the busy Christmas season which I will touch on for a few questions. I’m not a part of the tasking team so I’m intrigued by how this process works; I’ve only ever seen the team coming and going and I’d like to know all about the hard work that goes through maintaining a solidified structure that is reliable during all seasons.
I will be interviewing a manager at the store who is willing to give me some time to answer my questions. She’s been a part of Indigo/Chapters for more than a few years so she is more than qualified to answer any questions that I may have pertaining to the company. Her name is Zory. I initially wanted to interview three of my managers, but due to schedules not aligning and one of them transferring to another store, I was only able to interview only one. However, Zory knows her stuff just as well as the other two do so this interview will provide great answers for my questions. My managers are normally on the floor during store hours but all three have been a part of leading the overnight and/or morning teams during tasking.
Before we begin, would you mind telling us how long you’ve been with the company, and what you enjoy the most about it? Why did you decide to join Chapters?
Similar to how there is a policy to what staff should wear on the floor, what is the clothing policy when you’re in tasking? What is the inventory policy vrs. on the floor?
How do you know which items should be ordered more frequently than others? How do you gage the quantity of a certain product? Do you follow trends to keep up with frequency?
What happens when your orders do not arrive? How do you deal with missing inventory when something should be on the floor?
How do you track a product? Similar to how Amazon allows you to track an order, how do you track a product coming into the store that will arrive in the receiving area?
What’s the organization like in the back? How is product organized (by shelving? Boxing?)?
What is the team atmosphere like to those on the tasking team? How do they function to get items from the back to the floor before customers come in (especially when there are lots of things to put out)?
Is there a difference between the overnight time and the early morning team?
What’s the magic number to a tasking team—that is, how many people do you think are enough to get the job done? Does it vary during the seasons, such as the holidays?
Do you think that the receiving area is adequate enough to keep up with demand? Do you think it could be smaller or bigger or is it just the right enough size? Do you ever wish there were more carts, or boxes, or anything else to help with the influx of product?
Have you ever found it difficult to maintain and keep up with shipment? How do you deal with that?
How do you count inventory? You must get boxes and boxes. How do you normally make sure that everything has arrived and that the quantity number on the box, if any, is valid without opening each box?
How do you deal with internal theft?
What about shrinkage? Could you please explain what that is and how to reduce it?
How are orders processed?
How do you decide on which books to order, and from that, how do you decide the quantity? Is it your choice or is it the publisher’s choice? The bookbuyer’s choice?
When do you usually place reorders?
How do you decide when is the best time of year to release new product onto the floor?
What is a forecast model? What is the ideal forecasting model?
If there is an error in inventory, how do you overcome that?
What do you do if there is too much of a product (as in excess inventory)?
How often do you visit the Indigo warehouses to see if you can gain any advice or tips from them, or just to see what their receiving area is like?
How do you work efficiently to get the job done? How are jobs divided amongst the team?
Fun question: What would your dream receiving area look like? +adlib extra fun questions
The ending of the interview was mainly adlib, so they were improv fun questions when we wanted to discuss more- I left this in the recording because I wanted to demonstrate that the dynamic at work is both professional but that doesn’t mean that we can’t have fun at the same time. The ending was still pertaining to the store’s atmosphere, but I was interested in the favourite authors that Zory would like to see in the store, since I’d hammered her with many questions about technicality. It was good to relax and it ended off the interview well, I think.
The conclusion was my after thoughts of the interview—I really enjoyed it and it provided a lot of insight that I didn’t know about since I’m not a part of the inventory team. Even though I was aware of some of the points made, I wanted to let my classmates know about what I know as well. It was a learning process throughout so it made me enthralled by the answers that were given, because I did not know some of the information that was provided. I’m pleased by the way it turned out, although I felt awkward at the beginning of it because I’ve hardly ever conducted interviews. It was also my first time using a Zoom Microphone, as well as trying to conduct a long interview. Despite that, I felt more comfortable as the interview went on, as Zory made it comfortable and when I was settled in that helped a lot as well. There’s no doubt that the other managers, if schedules weren’t an issue, would have given me the same results as well. :)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
© Louise Ho, 2017
Available from: http://journals.sfu.ca/courses/index.php/pub371/issue/view/1