Behind the scenes
Black Friday Week 2024: all updates from Digitec Galaxus
by Jana Pense
Black Friday in the shop: scenes from the Zurich store
30.11.2019
Translation: machine translated
Pictures: Stephanie Tresch, Thomas Hutter-Lerch
Black Friday is more than just bargains and leaked lists. Black Friday is a challenge for the employees behind the cash registers of this world. A look behind the scenes at Digitec-Galaxus retail.
Black Friday. Friday, 29 November 2019: Shortly before 9 a.m., the employees of the digitec shop in Zurich joke one last time. As soon as Adrian Maier, Store Manager, turns the keys in the lock, it's time to go. What the shop employees don't know yet: The number of orders is around 150 per cent compared to the previous year.
These are some stories of the people who handed you your iPhone, TV or blender.
Adrian Maier: The man with the bow tie
Adrian Maier is an impressive figure in the shop. He wears a black suit, black trainers, a black shirt and a black bow tie on Black Friday. It makes an impression and he radiates authority.
"Black Friday: we're all wearing black today," he says in a loud and clear voice. He adjusts his bow tie.
Today, he's not behind the cash desk, but further forward at the ticket machine. Because that's where the biggest bottleneck is. Every customer who enters the shop has to take a ticket and then wait. The rules on any normal day are clear. A customer with an order number takes an e-ticket after he or she has scanned the pick-up invitation with a barcode on it.
This takes too long.
"I have placed an order but no order confirmation," says a young man.
"No problem.
"No problem, take this and we'll sort it out at the till at the front," says Adrian as he almost automatically prints out a V-ticket for sales advice and presses it into the man's hand.
"We can find the order number faster at the front than here at the machine," says Adrian and turns to the next customer. He asks for the pick-up invitation.
Eleven hours later: Adrian has asked hundreds for order confirmations and pick-up invitations, only pausing for a sip of water or two, quickly grabbing a bite to eat.
"Maybe I took a quick breath, but I only remember pick-up invitations," he jokes and grins. Even after eleven hours, he hasn't lost his sense of humour or the volume of his voice.
Adrian rounds up his employees after settling up, mopping up and closing the laptops in the shop. He doesn't say much more. But one thing above all: "Thank you."
Caroline Maurer: the pink shoes
Caroline Maurer has committed a sin. On Black Friday, the employees of the Zurich shop imposed a dress code on themselves: Black. Before the door opens at 9 a.m., a young man says that he even made sure his socks were black. The answer: you can overdo it. But the shop employees' eyes fall on his feet.
Pink shoes. With stains and grey haze. Caroline is in need of an explanation.
"I only washed them a fortnight ago and they already look like this again," she says. Laughter. But she doesn't quite get away with it.
The situation is actually quite easy to explain. Because Caroline made a conscious decision to commit the fashion sin. Her job isn't just to scan a few barcodes and say things like "That's 269.90. With a card?". As soon as a customer pulls an e-ticket and is assigned to Caroline's checkout - she often works at checkout 2 - the order number pops up on her screen, complete with the product the customer has ordered. Plus the location in our warehouse where the product is located. She greets the person with the e-ticket, asks if that's all, says "I'll get that quickly" and leaves.
She walks over 12 kilometres per normal working day. Sometimes she just carries an iPhone, but sometimes she has to get help to load a TV onto a trolley.
"Two things are important here: a bottle of still water under the till and comfortable shoes," says Caroline.
Her mum did say that she could borrow her expensive black trainers. Because there's something about black in black. Caroline laughed. Running shoes are part of the outfit in all digitec shops in Switzerland. They have to be comfortable and functional. Black? Whenever possible.
"There's no way I would have worn trainers," she says. On Black Friday, 12 kilometres is the minimum. With the increased number of orders, the time pressure and the overcrowded warehouse, it is of the utmost importance that she doesn't have to worry about her own well-being.
Eleven hours and a few bottles of Valser water later, Caroline can sit down. Take a deep breath. In her hand: a bottle of water. She lifts her feet quickly so that the broom can sweep under them. The customers who have picked up over 5,000 products in one day, sometimes having to wait, have left their mark.
Thomas Lerch: The invisible man
While Adrian and Caroline are serving customers at the front, troubleshooting where necessary, a sound fills the warehouse of the Zurich shop: "Beep". This is the sound that the barcode scanners make when a product is booked in. The device beeps at least twice per product. Once the barcode of the product itself. Then the barcode of the shelf. The data is transferred to the system and when Caroline operates an e-ticket at the front, she knows where to pick up the product.
So that the beeping doesn't stop and doesn't slow down, someone has taken over the management of the warehouse, which otherwise works automatically: Thomas Lerch.
The man from Bern, who has his cantonal coat of arms tattooed on his shoulder, looks into a "relatively empty" warehouse at 9 a.m.
"It's still quite good. It can only get worse," he says. The statement is laced with humour, but also concern. He knows roughly how many lorry loads will pass through his warehouse today. He will never see the people who have bought the more than 5,000 products. He is responsible for ensuring that everything is stored as quickly and efficiently as possible. He will have customer contact again on another day.
"On a normal working day, two trucks arrive. Today we expect five to seven."
Towards the afternoon, he notices the crowd. The shelves are full. iPhones are stored in boxes halfway down the aisle. Other products remain in mesh trolleys. The barcode scanners and the system behind them can handle it, but Thomas and his crew are doing traffic planning. How do they manage to keep the aisles as wide as possible so that a trolley with a TV can still get through and the employees at the front have the shortest possible routes?
Source: Thomas Lerch
In between, the beeping of the scanners. Because the noise must not stop.
"As soon as there's no more beeping, we either have a big problem or it's closing time," says Thomas.
This comes after eleven hours. The scanners are recharged and Thomas takes a sip of water. His Black Friday job is done. Time to recharge his batteries too. Because on Saturday, Thomas passes on the following information to the team in the warehouse: two to three lorries with around 3,000 products are on their way.
Angela Mare: the last course
"If this is the first Black Friday... it's going to be exhausting, but you know your job," says Adrian Maier in the morning. One person he doesn't have to say that to is Angela Mare. The southerner stands out in the shop. She has a tattoo on her left arm and her trademark is the striking eyeliner that frames her brown eyes.
This Black Friday is her last at the Zurich store. She handed in her notice months ago. She could actually have apologised. She shouldn't have had to stand behind the till - she likes till 12 - on Black Friday. But she put on her black trainers one last time and logged in for the last time just before 9 a.m.
"Sad? Of course I'm sad," she says, pointing to the eleven tills where her colleagues are getting ready and looking at Adrian at the ticket machine, "How can I leave these people without feeling sad?"
Life sometimes plays out differently. She stays in sales, but no longer in the digitec shop.
The first tickets are printed out. A woman heads towards them. Angela laughs broadly and says "Hoi" with a long O and asks what it might be. Over the course of the day, she can review her job. Practically every case she has had in the past few years comes up again today. But faster. Rejected tickets, ID checks, "I'll pick this up for my girlfriend", "How am I supposed to get this into my car?" and much more.
Angela masters it all and doesn't think about the end of the day. Her last one.
Eleven hours later, Adrian turns the key in the lock of the Zurich store and it's wiped clean. Angela falls silent.
Adrian ends the day. He thanks the team and hands out biscuits that he has baked especially for his employees. That's part of the job. Then he thanks Angela personally. Applause from the people in black. One of their own leaves.
Angela puts on her black winter jacket with faux fur trim. Her last walk.
Feierabend.
Journalist. Author. Hacker. A storyteller searching for boundaries, secrets and taboos – putting the world to paper. Not because I can but because I can’t not.
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