Make sure you set yourself a stock budget at the start of every season and review it monthly.
Plan out your product line carefully into the lines that continue for ever and the lines you want to sell out of. This will help you to forecast.
Don’t commit to everything upfront. Work with your suppliers to understand lead times and the lines they always have in stock.
Start to target your products on the “sell our rates” you want to achieve. This is the percentage of stock you want to sell out of by the end of the season. For your high seasonal heat lines this number should be very high.
If you have a sized business take time to scrutinise your size profiles to ensure what you are selling lines up with your buy.
Planning your Merchandise strategy (how much stock you need to support your sales) is crucial especially at the moment when trade can be so unpredictable. Excess stock is becoming a big problem throughout Retailing and unfortunately this has led to the demise of many big High Street Retailers. Having a clear strategy and being considered in where you are putting your buys is now a crucial part of Retailing. Min2Max can help you get your stock in the right place and free up cashflow.
Is your shop clean and tidy, the glass & signage clean and the window displays engaging? Do you have new and exciting products to sell?
Does your window attract your target audience? Ask customers for feedback – what brought them into your shop today?
Is the store accessible to pushchairs and wheelchairs? Can customers access the store easily?
Get online and engage on social media, pick one or two channels that you feel connect with your target audience. We can support you with ideas and ways for building your social following.
Measure your conversion! (The number of purchases made divide by the number of people who enter the store) Evaluate a good day – what actions did you take? What did you do differently?
Be super clear on the customer segment you are appealing to.
Buy your product to suit this customer
Visually present the package to encourage interest throughout the store/website
Create a trading plan to understand the highs and lows of the season and how you will attract footfall
Strategy is important to ensure you can stay on track and true to your business. It is very easy to get caught up in the next new thing however if this isn’t consciously considered as part of your retail strategy you could be making expensive unprofitable mistakes.
Each retailer has a different trading season, it is paramount to have a clear picture for your business and plan accordingly. Quite often too much stock is purchased and delivered at the start of the season, reducing cashflow. This can also reduce the seasonality of your store and the return visits of your customers.
MIn2Max can help! We can conduct a deep review of your business and find the opportunities that you might be missing.
Please click to sign up for my free sales and stock planning e-mails focussing on coming out of lockdown.This weeks focuses on stock hibernation. Great feedback so far so don't delay.https://min2max.co.uk/sign-up-for-our-free-newsletter
Having been in the Merchandising field for longer than I care to mention I have seen many Retailing trends come and go. Some have stayed some disappeared quickly without trace into the black hole of buying and merchandising lost forever. There is one though that has made a massive impact and it has to be said is the reason may businesses face turmoil over the coming months.
The principle of bringing in new collections every six weeks to sell out and bring in the next -or as I lovingly call it STOCK PHASING. The view that the consumer continually needs newness and freshness to engage them and give them that call to action to buy. It makes the assumption that the Consumer is like Pac Man needing continual power pellets to keep them fed and energised otherwise they disintegrate to nothingness. You definitely need a neon yellow boob tube, then a hot pink one, then a spotty one then a.. (you get my drift!). This was made even more challenging in the sector I come from, which was very slow moving high, multi-sku product. Planning those stock packages in and out was a continual battle in getting the availability right whilst trying (desperately! trying to sell out) which invariably never happened.
So has the consumer ever really shopped like this? Even prior to the Global pandemic the amount of stock building up and heading to landfill suggests not. The need for companies that purely specialise in exiting stock for brands also tells us otherwise. Companies were unable to turn their stock into demand. Will the pandemic cause a rethink and actually help us go back to simpler times where we invested more in quality wardrobe staples and it felt like a treat to buy a new outfit? We are starting to see bigger brands stating the desire to move to two collections a year and to lose the multiple-pre collections. They are also looking at a higher mix of “evergreen product” which as the name suggests means the product will be relevant for seasons rather than just 6 weeks. Companies are now actively planning to hibernate stock (M & S and Next) so they don’t have to burn through it at huge discounts but where appropriate to plan it in for the next seasons collections.
Whilst there will still be a need for “heat” high trend led product the balance of how much this makes up of a collection definitely feels like it is shifting. All of this drives the hope of a more sustainable future. My new favourite programme is The Sewing Bee and I love the transformation challenge where the contestants take an old garment and transform it into something fabulous. Perhaps that’s the future…
Please sign up for my free weekly e-mail offering stock support tips and techniques to get your business in great shape as we come out of lockdown.
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