So DH has decided that we will run a one-week sale every month, on selected slow-moving products. It's not a bad idea, but it's an idea that should have been done 10 years ago, not now. At this point it's not going to make any appreciable impact in our inventory quantities, and that's what we really need - a serious depletion of existing inventories.
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I'll work on the email for this sale today, my target date is the last week of January. We'll continue to work through items every month, but that's too little and too late. We need something like this every week or two, and even that won't make a really big impact. |
Like any business, there are things that will sell a lot (bread, eggs, milk) and things that will sell only when needed - so much slower (brownie mix, spices, beef jerky). Good marketing is understanding the balance of those products - having enough of the top sellers, and not overbuying the slower sellers. We got sucked into the Swarovski whirlpool, and we're paying the price now, as we want to reduce inventory quantities.
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We're starting out with our odd sizes of our best selling seed beads - our Delicas. We'll move from there to three other groupings of products that he wants to move out. That will take us through the end of April. I want to be out of business by the end of June. Yeah. Right! Like THAT's going to happen. *sigh* |
Going through our records, Swarovski crystal beads are more than 1/4 of our inventory dollars. That's a HUGE amount. And, since Swarovski has changed both their beads and their marketing strategy, I'm not even allowed to sell them under the Swarovski name any more, even though they are demonstrably their product, in their packaging, and made 100% by them. It's a very fine tightrope that we have to walk with that product now. The days of dear Sonia coming in and buying several $1000's of 8mm cubes, or Patricia coming in to purchase $500 of large bicones and rounds are behind us. Now we've got a LOT of inventory that isn't justifying its' cost.
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We've been an authorized dealer and reseller of Tandy leather products and tools for more than two decades now. Although we do sell a lot of leather, we never really sold a lot of the Tandy products - at least not enough to justify the products that we brought in. At that point Tandy had closed ALL of their retail sales locations, but they re-opened them about 15 years ago and that was death for our side business in their products. |
It's that way in a few other departments as well - our Tandy Leather products, our books, and our larger thicker leather. How we're going to sell all of this down enough to close this year is a mystery to me. I can see one-week deep sales bringing IN business, but it won't help us get OUT of business - at least not at the level that I see as mandatory. Frankly, right now, I don't know what to do. I do know that Chickie need surgery and won't work for us more than this year, and neither of us will work exclusively with DH - he's impossible to work with on a daily basis.
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Chickie started working for me during my first year at my Mall of America location. She was in college at that time. She moved away after we closed that store, going to Florida for graduate school, and we caught up again when she moved back. She started working part-time, then moved into full time when her other job fell through. She's been with me ever since. She's fabulous, and I totally understand where she's coming from. Her health HAS to take priority. |
So, as far as getting out of the shop, I'm at my wits end. Totally and completely. I'll do the photography and sales email for our first Inventory Reduction Sale, but I'm not expecting any miracles here. I'll do the photography today, though. I want this sale to run the last week of January. We'll see how we do. *sigh* Thank goodness I'll get to cook a bit today - beef stew! Yummy. Have an excellent Friday and I'll be back tomorrow for my final post of the week. Slava Ukraini and חיים לישראל.
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