I just left working an outlet, so I can tell you anything you want.
What you probably don't want to hear is that, most of the time, there is no plan.
I'm smart, honest, and was a valuable employee. I was able to take on tasks on my own without direction. And, as honestly as I can be, I can tell you that in many of the outlets, there really is no shady, ulterior motive or preferential treatment.
Shipment schedules? They do come in "all the time". One or two shipments are scheduled for each weekday, from two different sources. But, if staffing is low and the processing team starts to fall behind, the shipments get held. And they don't necessarily come back to the store in the same order. And most employees back there just grab a random purchase order, process that, and move on to the next one. Unless there's a specific directive from a manager (i.e., attack all the footwear because it opens up the most space the quickest), there is no rhyme or reason as to what gets processed when. There's too much of it and not enough people to plan it out that carefully, and for the most part, management just wants it on the floor and doesn't care about the order.
Bulk buyers, at least at my store, only wanted deep discount stuff they could flip for double. The "hot" product was never their target. So, there was never a reason to cater to them. Again, that's the norm across the country, although I know that some of you near stores that get better product more consistently may see different scenarios, so I'm not saying you're wrong - it's just not the majority of places.
And, as I've said in here before, we really don't care about phone orders. I know you don't like to hear that, and I apologize for your feeling that way, but we are much more focused on the people in store. If you have never been in the store that you're calling, then you can't know what's happening on the other end of the phone - what you may interpret as a lazy employee may be a cashier with 8 people in line in front of them, and they want to get off the phone and help the people with money in their hand that may come back into that store, rather than help a phone order that may be a one-time customer. Again, not what a lot of you want to hear, but I'm trying to be honest.
Of course, there are DEFINITELY bad managers out there. Which is why I'm an ex-employee, because I couldn't deal with the incompetence and the stress that came with it for a part-time "fun" job. I'm a teacher pursuing a doctorate (the job just helped pay for grad school), and decided enough was enough.
Hope that helps some of you.