How much stock?

[Morgan]

I'm about to launch my on line card shop and I'm worried about the stock side of things. I've got about £300 worth of cards which is a lot of money for me and also I don't know how they are going to sell yet. Do you think this is enough? I'm worried I'll get inundated and sell out before I can order more - they are shipped in so take a while to get here you see.

Any pearls of wisdom - do you think I'm worrying about nothing?

 

[danmaull]

How long will they take to get a new lot in

 

[Morgan]

Weeks rather than days?

 

I'd suck it and see to begin with, yes it is a concern but it really is an unknown, it may be the case you get very little sales, if things go well it depends which cards are sellers.. if push came to shove and you didnt have the cards required perhaps a 'due to unprecedented demand temporarily out of stock' maybe offer a discount it prepared to wait.

Why the weeks wait though, seems a little long to get supplies?

 

[Morgan]

Thanks FPB - yes it is entering into the unknown for me......

Thanks everyone!

 

[SillyJokes]

£300 worth of cards sounds like loads as a starting point, particularly if you don't know if they will sell. It is extremely unlikely you will shift this amount in the first three months let alone in a week.

You will just need to watch what sells and stock up the fastest moving lines more than the slower ones - it's something you will soon get a feel for. It may also pay to get a stock system in place as soon as it feels like it's getting unmanagable.

 

[Morgan]

Thanks SillyJokes. I thought they would be delivered in a huge container it felt like I'd ordered that many so imagine my suprise when they turned up in a tiny box lol.

I'm sure you're right and that it will be a slow starter I just wondered if I was missing a trick or anything obvious being a newbie to this online shop keeping.

 

[steve23]

Hi,

You made me laugh when you talked about how you expected your items to arrive.

Ive done that loads of times in the past for different things - put an order in that seems huge to me then waited for the truck to arrive...

and it ends up coming in one box!

I think you are doing a wise thing and going with what you have.

My wife is looking to start an online business, and currently has £50,000 worth of stock - with more stock due!

She does not want to kick off until she has everything in place, but i dont agree with her, and think just sticking stock in a garage for no reason seems silly to me.

But shes the boss!

Fingers crossed your next posting will be "Help, all my stock sold in one day, where can i get some more?"

Best of luck

Steve

 

[garyk]

Yep agreed, just plain silly holding thousands of pounds of stock when you have no idea how much/how quickly it will sell. You see it all the time on DD with inventors getting x thousand of their product manufactured and managing to sell about 6! Measure your sales first and if demand outstrips supply, move fast!

 

[loub]

Yes I agree start slow and test the water. It may be a good idea to look for a local supplier as a backup so you can obtain stock quickly when needed.

 

[lesliedocherty]

Whats your website for the cards called, whats the competiton like ???

 

[Morgan]

Thanks everyone for your advice. Crikey 50K of stock is a lot of stock!!!

Thanks Loub but I'm on the only seller in the country so that's possible in this instance.

 

[Morgan]

Thanks leslie - I haven't launched or gone public yet :redface:

There is no online competition that I can find.

 

[tourismalgarve]

Thanks everyone for your advice. Crikey 50K of stock is a lot of stock!!!

Thanks Loub but I'm on the only seller in the country so that's possible in this instance.

Could be an online car sales or caravan sales, in which case, not really!

 

[deniser]

Are we talking greeting cards? If so £300 sounds like very little given that cards are usually wholesaled in 6s or 12s. At roughly £1 per card that only give you 25 or 50 designs. Is that enough for a choice to be offered given all the different occasions that need to be covered? Children's birthdays with numbers on, boys and girls, amounts to at least 20 designs on their own.

Or am I completely on the wrong track and you are doing specialist cards for only one occasion? Or not greeting cards at all?

I buy cards in for my shop just for the convenience of the customer so they can get the card with a gift and I tend to buy whatever the minimum order is for carriage paid - usually £100-150. They do arrive in a couple of days.

 

[Mister B]

I agree with everybody else...sell what you've got and see how you go.

If you are working to a business plan which is tied into financial forecasts, if you sell out then you you will hit your sales budgets which means happy days. You can always increase your orders as time goes by.

Mister B

 

[An Oasis]

I don't think there is an easy way to predict how much stock to hold. At the start we over stocked on certain ranges and under on others because there was do one in the market that seemed to know what quantities are the correct amounts.

As we keep expanding we are very reliant upon our suppliers to be able to import as and when we need, something that has been working well until the recent French and Spanish strikes.

However, at we are at the point where we have certain lines that hang around for a year before hiring, thankfully plants are an appreciating asset so that is not a problem but I doubt whether you can even really predict how much stock to carry or how diverse a range to stock.

 

[borobabe]

This is a problem I have got too, the quantities of stock I order for each range are quite high, so I am buying bits in as and when. High School Musical has gone well so there is more on the way but others have gone slowly. Its all guesswork really, and trying to see what the trends are (lots of seeing what my kids like/asking their friends etc)

 

[Page]

I suspect that it will take a long time to build up your business. But that does not mean that you should not have other plans in place.

Are your cards so unique that you can not have another supplier in place ready for if you need them. Places like Manchester, Birmingham, London will have cash and carry wholesalers. You do not need to go buying just be aware and ready just in case.

If you want to up your range you can also consider just buying at full retail from a local shop and putting them on to the site. This is a way that you can very quickly and easy test alternative ranges and also have a much larger offering. Then when things look as if they are going well and the business has proved itself you move on with how and where you are buying from.

A lot of people get carried away with thinking they need to be making money from day one. For most new businesses the most important thing is to be testing and moving, quickly and cheaply and without exposing themselves to to much risk. Not earning £££.

Why? Because to many will lose the £££ - don't join them! If the concept is right then you will still earn the £££ if not (which is the more normal) you will only lose the £'s.

(£50,000 you have got to try and stop her spending more unless this is an area that she has real knowledge of. Is there a plan based on real world knowledge or just a dream?)

 

[Jeff-Smith]

The key to success in business is CASH FLOW.

Circulation of Funds Employed COFE and Current Ratio are the things to watch.

Never bet the whole company on any risk.

A business can survive a long time without any profit but it cannot survive 1 day without any cash!

Morgan, your question is really dependant on whether you have enough cash to survive if thing don't turn out as you expected. If your £300 investment is not going cause bankruptcy, then you're OK. Consider your next few months as a learning curve for which you are investing £300 - cheap at twice the price!

Good luck mate.

 

[Morgan]

Thanks everyone for your replies - I actually asked the question a couple of months ago now so am suprised to see these replies . It's all good advice and interesting reading and I'm happy to say that it's going well and so far so good

 

[Page]

Must make interesting retrospective reading.