A question regarding original stock

[S_G_Parkinson]

I am creating an e-commerce business selling women's clothing and I was wondering roughly how much stock I should have on hand at the beginning. For example I was thinking I may need at least 20 different variety of shoe and around ten or twenty of each in different sizes?

(please note that if I needed to order new stock at any time it would take around a week to arrive from our source in China)

 

[Fred_the_frog]

I am creating an e-commerce business selling women's clothing and I was wondering roughly how much stock I should have on hand at the beginning. For example I was thinking I may need at least 20 different variety of shoe and around ten or twenty of each in different sizes?

(please note that if I needed to order new stock at any time it would take around a week to arrive from our source in China)

I guess it depends on how much money you have available. Are you expecting lots of sales in the first week?

I think it's just guess work.

 

Unless you have done some *extremely* good marketing then it is likely you will have few sales in the first couple of weeks. Fortunately shoes won't go off so you're not time limited but you want to minimise the possibility that you'll end up with unsaleable stock at the end of the season.

You only really need to make those decisions about your stock levels for the first few weeks.. I would suggest initially getting a few of each variety in the most common sizes for the first few weeks because after a few weeks you can start to base your ordering on your sales.. That will enable you to order in higher stocks of better selling products and to reduce your stocks and prevent over-ordering on products that are not selling well.

A lot of decisions, at least initially are judgement calls, but you should use your sales information as you move forwards. It's incredibly valuable information and a lot of people don't make best use of it.

 

[gemd89]

Do you have a shop or are you just selling online? How will you get traffic to your website? Have you set up a facebook page? Are you selling on ebay to test the market?

I think without knowing your advertising and where you are selling it would be hard to advise.

Can we have more information?
Gemma

 

[LoyaltyCardNetwork]

I would say buy very little stock, otherwise you would just be wasting money. I know it is exciting to buy lots of stock and it might now seem the business will do well, but before you know it, you realise that you are selling much less than you thought and will start giving out your stock for free to family and friends. Don't buy a lot.

 

[deniser]

I would buy fashion in ones per size until you know what sells. That way you can't make expensive misjudgments when you are buying.

 

[faradaykeynes]

owning the stock is good for Google product feed as well, as drop-shipper sites cannot add products to Google products. Stock is very crucial to business, over or under stock can serious effect on business. If you are heavily promoting your business then make sure you have enough stock to hand.

Get to know your products and customers, listing every thing and trying to sell online wont make you unique.