Meet Mads, sales assistant (Area manager)
Name: Mads Egon Nielsen
Age: 43
Position: Sales Assistant, Biltema Næstved
Why did you start working at Biltema?
Well, I trained at Toyota as a spare parts clerk. I then applied for some different jobs because I couldn’t stay where I was an apprentice. I sent an application to Biltema Næstved, but they didn’t need anyone at that time. My former manager saved the application, and he called me a while later and asked me to come for an interview. I was interviewed and got the job, and I’ve been here ever since.
Do you enjoy working at Biltema?
I really enjoy it – I have some good colleagues and a good manager. I am able to influence my work. It’s freedom with responsibility and I have some fun tasks.
What do you enjoy doing the most?
What I find most exciting is optimising my department. To optimise shelves, find the right locations for the goods, identify the big sellers and place them in the right places on the shelves so that we can sell even more goods. That’s what’s most exciting – constantly optimising the department.
That’s what you enjoy the most?
I really enjoy that.
What do your tasks consist of on a typical day?
My main tasks are in my department, which is AUTOMOTIVE, and I have been there all the years, so I know more or less all the 3,000 article numbers.
As I said, my main tasks consist of making my department sales-ready for customers, filling up goods, merchandising the goods, helping customers, cashier work, and slightly different things.
In the morning when we meet up, we usually take a quick walk around the department and see if there are shopping baskets or trolleys on the floor, and we make sure it looks nice. After that, we begin to stock up from the warehouse, which means that we take a pallet in from the warehouse and fill up the shelves.
On Monday we get new products in Næstved. So on Mondays and Tuesdays we are mainly busy with new items that come from the warehouse in Sweden. And sometimes on Wednesdays as well, depending on how many items we get. After that, there are two to three days where we can restock from our warehouse for the rest of the week. Our routine here in Næstved is that all of us who are responsible for the department take returns that come during the day and fill up the shelves, and if there are any gaps on the shelves, we go to the warehouse to find the item and restock the shelves.
Do you feel that you have developed here at Biltema?
I do. I must admit that I’ve always been a quiet person. It’s getting better year by year, but I’ve become more outgoing. Because you become more confident in the things you do. The more customer contact you have, the easier it gets to talk to people. I have really developed and I think you can also confirm that with my manager and colleagues.
Did you get good training and follow-up when you started?
When we started, we spent time in all the departments and learning about the products, so yes we definitely did.
There was recently a major milestone in your employment – what was that?
Yes, on 2 December 2022 I celebrated my 20th anniversary at Biltema Næstved. So time really flies. I remember my first day at work when my old manager showed me around. The store looked completely different back then. Both in terms of the products and the layout – where the tills were and the store décor. So, a lot has happened in those 20 years.
I think when I started, we had 11,000 article numbers and now we have more than 20,000. So we have doubled the articles numbers in Biltema. It was a relatively fast development. It is a lot of fun to be a part of this development and to be able to say that you are the person who has been here the longest and that you helped start up the first store, because Næstved was the first Biltema store in Denmark.
