Centennial Supplex Shirt

[eaglescout1996]

First off, I have to say, this isn't a love/hate thread about the new uniforms. They're here and that's it.

 

I had my first experience with the new Centennial Supplex shirt last week and I had a couple of questions. My wife's cousin (12 years old) wanted to join a Troop, and since his mother was injured on the job last year and has been rehabing, we thought that as a Christmas gift we'd pay for his registration, Boy's Life, Uniform, and book.

 

We ended up with the Supplex uniform, and when I took it over to my mom's house to sew everything on, I noticed that the material was very delicate. It pulled very easily, and that was just from sewing on patches and turning the shirt inside out and whatnot.

 

Since the only option we had were Centennial shirts, we went for the Supplex since he lives in Florida and we knew it would be a lot cooler, but I'm affraid of long term wear.

 

The cotton/poly blend on the ODLR shirts, held up great when I was a kid, but I noticed that with the pockets "open", the velcro would "snag" the synthetic material and pull.

 

Has anyone had the same dealings? What do you think long-term wear will be, will they hold up?

 

 

(Rant On)

 

To be honest, I was quite annoyed at the Central Florida Council's Scout Shop last week. We weren't sure on his size, especially since he's grown a couple inches in the last year, so we wanted to take her cousin to the shop to fit his shirt and pants instead of purchasing up in Atlanta and giving them to him for Christmas. I called to inquire about Holiday hours and if they had ODLR shirts and the old style Switchbacks in stock. I was told yes, and that they'd being going through invetory the week after Christmas. I wanted to give him the old style uniform since I knew all of the Troop would have it and it would be a lot lighter on my wallet. By the time we got to the store on Wednesday, the employees had already "counted" all the old merchandise and had it boxed to ship back to National, and would not open it up for us. Instead of paying $30 for a shirt and pants, I had to pay $90. Not only that, but they had been counting insignia, and made a big deal about opening up the zip-lock bag the "Eagle" patrol patches were in so we could purchase one, and then scratch out the 13 and write 12 with a Sharpie. On top of that, they didn't have any new books, and the one old book was written in.

 

My wife and I don't have children, and as a Commissioner I always hear about how expensive it is for kids to join....now I know! Between everything (uniform, registration, BL) we've spent at least $160, not counting a book or my used camping equipment I gave him (with a few new items thrown in). Uniforms need to be cheaper for kids!

 

If I can purchase a Brooks Brothers shirt made in the USA (North Carolina) cheaper than a Boy Scout shirt made in China, something's wrong.

 

(Rant Off!)

 

 

[NJCubScouter]

Your statement about boxing up the old shirts to send them to national makes me wonder, what is national planning to do with the old shirts?

[Eagle92]

96,

As a former supply geek, I can tell you that A)those employees you encountered would have loved to sell you the merchandise as they are there to help, but B) they can lose their jobs for not following national's policies, i.e. not packaging and shipping back, and C) Inventory is the WORST part of the job.

 

Officially inventory is only 1 week, December 26th through Dec.31st. BUT there is no way in Hades that it can be done in that time frame, and the shop I worked at and others I would I talked to would begin the process in November. Lots of paperwork, counting and recounting and recounting. and recounging yet again. Yep it looks easy to take an item out the bag, and remark the bag with the correct number of items in it. But I can guarentee you that it does cause problems in the inventory system, and that ALL of those items, both in the stockroom will need to be recounted at least 2 times, and sometimes 3.

 

Yep inventory is a PITA, and is one of the few times that ALL shop personell get together at the same time as it is a mandatory event. had one person play hookey one day (caught doing after Christmas shopping instead of working), and that person was terminated.(This message has been edited by eagle92)

[eaglescout1996]

92,

 

Not having worked retail, I'm sure inventory is a PITA.

 

I was just annoyed, knowing I could pick up a shirt, pair of pants,and a pair of switchbacks for a 1/3 of what a new shirt and pants cost.

 

Which brings me to NJ's question, what are they going to do with all the old uniforms?

 

Do you think they'll bring them all back to a central location and sell them on scoutstuff.com?

 

In the last couple of months I've ordered the old poly/wool shirts (1 s/s, 1 l/s), and although the website said they were in stock, they didn't ship because they were out.

[Eagle92]

A few ideas come to mind about their plans.

 

1) They may collect and sell via scoutstuff.org as they have been doing. Personally i am surprised stores still have the ODL items in them as I was told EVERYTHING had to be sent back.

 

2)With the shorts, they may add a Jambo logo to them and sell them. When they did away with ODL shorts, mod 2 (the longer ones without the useless cargo pockets) they collected them, added on a jambo logo, and sold them prior to, during, and a little after 2001 jambo.

 

3)destroy them. yes this is not being thrifty, but I've had to throw discontinued merchandise in the dumpster one time. Also knwo a few folks who went dumpster diving

 

Almost forgot option 4) collect them and distribute them to those scouting organizations that need uniforms. Apparnetly there are a few scouting associations that need some help and a "Sleeves for Scouts" program is in place with the International Division.(This message has been edited by eagle92)

[gcnphkr]

I've not had any issues with the Supplex shirt like you describe. Sewing the POR patch on the sleeve pocket is inconvenient and the "Boy Scouts of Americ" on my shirt gets a comment on occasion. Other than the letters it is held up well. The pants, not so well, starting to wear through the seat.

 

As for the removal of the ODLR Uniforms. Clearing old stock is difficult. The sizes that people buy are generally gone quickly and all you are left with are the very small and very large. These end up sitting on the self in smaller shops until they eventually get removed from inventory and are thrown away. Sending these into a central supply is generally the best way to handle it. There they can reduce the amount of discount and minimize the loss. Once they are in the boxes I can understand not opening them up for you to see if Billy Bob can fit into that 10 youth shirt. What they should not have done is told you they would not be starting until after Christmas and then get started anyway. Why would any store do inventory before Christmas? Surely even Scout Shops get a holiday shopping boost.

 

If it is taking multiple recounts over several weeks (or even days) to do an inventory on these stores they need to either suck it up and hire RGIS to come in a do it in a few hours or change the inventory methods. There in no way the number of SKUs in a typical Scout Shop can justify weeks for inventory.

[Eagle92]

Jet,

When I worked for supply, everything had to be hand counted, no scanners were used and it made for a pain. For most merchandise a scanner could be used and would probably speed things up, BUT all those pins, i.e. CS Sports and Activity pins, mothers' pins, rank pins, ad nauseum b/c of they way they are sold (i.e. without barcode tags), it's not possible to use a scanner on them. Also guess where most of the time doing recounts would be spent: yep the pins.

 

As stated above the various pins would be the #1 reason for recounts. the bulk of the time was recounting those blasted pins. We would find pins in the wrong containers,underneath the shelves, ont he floors underenath uniform pants, etc.

 

The other area would be the campign merchandise beleive ti or not. Sleeping bags would be the biggest as the BSA would call a bag by one name, but the manufacturer's labe woudl call it something else, which got very confusing. Not to mention discontinued bags still in the store, but were somehow not listed on the inventory sheet.

 

Recounts would be done when a discrepency between the computer and counter occured. If the recount produced a different count from the first count, then a second recount would be done. If there was still a discrepency the the assistant manager or or manager got involved.

 

 

[Eagle92]

Want to clarify something in reference to finding pins. Yes we would do a sweep of the store to make sure everything was in it's place. But customers would still move things around, and sometimes thigns wouldn't be found until after you moved things to count, like the pants. Also sometimes you would find pins in cracks that you couldn't see unless you are on the floor counting pins.

[The Blancmange]

I have never seen any other retail establishment that needs to shut down for a week for inventory. When I was in college, I worked nights for an inventory service. We would go into stores much larger than any scout store and complete the inventory in one night while the store was closed.

 

Obviously there is a cost associated with this service, but there must be a cost to having a week worth of lost sales, while still paying the employees?

[gcnphkr]

So they are recording and balancing stock levels on SKUs not a straight forward dollar inventory. Typical inventory for accounting purposes just looks at the total dollar inventory for a department to determine shrinkage. Old stock is removed and depreciated then the remaining dollar value is calculated. If a Lifesaving MB patch is counted as a Leather Working MB patch no one cares as long as the value is the same. In the old days what you describe would have been done manually every order cycle, although never to the extent you describe. I used to feel sorry for the HBA lady having to count her makeup every week. Now with computers, bar codes, scanners it is done less frequently, again never to the detail you describe. Except for high dollar or low stocking level items, adjusting a single SKU's on-hand by one or two is cost prohibitive.

 

The recounts you describe just seem like a waste. One day as young manager trainee I was working with our invoice clerk balancing delivery receipts and invoices. We were 5 out of balance. We must have spent a half hour chasing that thing. The manager stopped by to see how things were going. He looked at us in disbelief, took the form, added the nickel to one of the columns and walked away.

[trainerlady]

Jet

 

I just completed my first full inventory as a full time employee (have done 2 as a part-timer). We DO count, recount and triple count every single pin, book and MB. It DOES matter if we are off by one Lifesaving badge to the negative and by 1 Swimming to the positive even though the value is equal. If it was only so easy as to make over overall value analysis balance and be done with it.

 

Our counting process was done in 3 1/2 days (almost 4400 different items in my store, most f which don't have scan codes), the computer nightmare lasted 9 days. Seems the dimwits at NDC thought it'd be good to switch software vendors a month before inventory. Then oncce we got that program running the day before back sotrage areas were to be counted they sent out SKU correction sheets. 6 pages of change this number to this number and delete all references to the original number in your system. That was the first day and a half of the computer terror.

 

On top of the hassles for each store the entire system of stores is linked by the internet. Every store must be certified by their territory manager before any store can reopen. So even though my store is done in 3 days, we have to wait for the TM to certify we are correct. It can take him a few days to drive around his territory. If Hawaii is slow, Maine can't open (don't know why, at this point could careless).

 

As for renting a service, a high ranking NDC official was quoted as saying "if they can't count it, they don't deserve to sell it" last year. Trust me even if the employees had to pay for the service we would, we tried. We weren't even allowed to rent scanners and do it ourselves, tried to do that too.

 

AS 92 stated not getting with the program like it of not is a termination offense. Yes the system is stoneaged, but it's what we have. I can't afford another $5 on my son's uniform to upgrade the system, and I'm sure that'd be the line given you were ask NDC why they are operating in the stoneage.

 

1996

THe old uniforms were no longer cheap as you had eluded to. They had gone back up to between 50%-75% of their original price. The bargin basement prices went away on 11/1/09. We were told that they were being donated, don't know to where. The memo that recalled them came in late in the day 2 days before your visit to the Scout store. so it's possible that the staff didn't get the message until the day before your visit. They had to be returned with a UPS pickup stamp of no later than 12/23/09. Only certain items were recalled ( a bummer for those of us that had to count them again). The shorts weren't part of the recall.

 

I apologize for your wallet lightening and poor service/attitude at the store you went to. You just caught the staff doing something most of us hate, at a time of year we'd all rather be with family and friends. Not prepping to come in at 8:00 the morning after Christmas. Several pepople had to change or lose vacations due to the schedule announced in late October (it wasn't what we expected or were used to). So again I'm sorry for your poor store experience.

 

Happy New Year All!

[Eagle92]

Trainerlady,

YOU GOT TO GO TO WORK LATE ON THE 26TH? lol

 

We would come in about 6;30-7:30Am and would stay till about 8PM. Only breaks we got would be for lunch, dinner, and when the computer's slowed down. That could be frustrating. Long days.

 

As for NDC bringin in new programming, it could be worse. the first year as a FTer, they implemented an entirely new system, both hardware and software, about 2 or 3 months before inventory. Good news is this: Supply actually has technoweenies who know what they are doing, so when SCOUTNET kept crashing, Supply was still functioning.

[eaglescout1996]

Trainerlady,

 

I really appreciate it, I'm sure I caught them at a bad time. It just irked me that they were too busy to be of any real help because they were too focused on counting.

 

Oh well, we got the uniform, I sewed everything on (it's it right place...with numbers touching the CSP!), and he enjoyed opening up his gifts on Christmas. Right now he's looking forward to his first "real" meeting on Tuesday....no harm, no foul.

 

I hope everyone has a wonderful New Year!

[gcnphkr]

trainerlady,

 

I feel so sorry for you. Inventory can be bad enough without this sort of nonsense. If this is typical of your P&Ps it is a wonder we don't have to pay more than what we do.