Subj : IMO if retail did finer management.. To : Arelor From : Ogg Date : Tue Nov 28 2023 01:15 am Hello Arelor! ** On Monday 27.11.23 - 15:06, Arelor wrote to Ogg: >> It's hard to do even for a smaller shop, like mine. At one >> point i looked into stocking CDs, but the distributor had a >> rather large minimum order requirement, and "non-returnable". >> Under that scheme, stock would just grow and grow ... A> That summarizes 99% of the products I deal with. You also need to contend with expiration dates on meds, no? A> My point is if you have steady sales you can estimate you A> are going to sell 800 collagen units per year, and if you A> do, you won't buy 1200. If you calculate you are gonna sell A> 20 boxes of cough tablets, you order a number close to it A> so you don't have to get rid of it badly after Winter. My point is that it is not always possible to estimate what and how much of it is going to sell. For example, I started carrying wall calendars and planners a few years ago. I just picked a handful of designs. I didn't sell too many at all, and the rest were waste. I just ordered a reasonable minimum, just 2 copies of each design. I tried again the following year, and there was more interest, and I even ordered more for the same year, but I still ended up with product to discard. 2020 was the worst year; no one seemed to be interested in wall calendars or planners at all. It was a big process to return what I could get credit for. 2021 was a bit better because I discovered some indigenous art designs and people seemed to like their unique look. The following year, 2022 was another disaster. Instead of processing the calendars for credit, it was just easier to throw them out. I am not carrying calendars this year - although some people have asked me when I was going to get my 2024 stock. For the most part, I'll just stick with product that I can return without too much fuss and bother. --- OpenXP 5.0.57 * Origin: (} Pointy McPointFace (21:4/106.21) .