How to Identify Dead Inventory When I’ m looking through my inventory, I try to figure out what do I keep and what do I get rid of. Here are four ways I identify dead inventory:
D-Date of Last Sale. Your point-of-sale system will give you reports to identify the last date something was sold. Depending on a company’ s return policy, I typically look at what has not sold in the last 9 – 15 months. Now, I may not be getting rid of everything, but if we’ re going to bring in more inventory, space is crucial. Some companies may require you to bring in four to six copies of something. If I’ ve sold a few of those, I might just keep one copy. If I have six copies of a book that have been sitting on the shelf for 18 months without selling a single copy, I send all six back. And I may love the book, but I have to take the emotion out of it. It’ s money sitting there that I can use for something else.
E-Earning Its Space. Is it producing enough sales to justify its shelf space? That is going to be different for every book. There are some books that are just going to be those staples that you want to keep on hand, even though you may not sell a lot of them. For us, Mere Christianity is a title that we don’ t keep a lot of copies, but it seems like as soon as I sell out, somebody else comes in and asks me for it. It’ s the same with The Purpose-Driven Life. We can always tell when it was mentioned at church. You have to evaluate your inventory constantly and see what’ s moving at that time.
A-Available Elsewhere. Look at your inventory and see if there is a newer version available or if there is going to be one coming out. If there is a paperback version of a book coming out, get rid of the hardcover. Monitor customer interest. I’ ve held on to some books because I’ ve seen people talking about them on social media.
D-Demand. Are people asking for this? Is this something that I would reorder if I didn’ t have it today? If the answer is no, it’ s probably a return candidate.
My goal isn’ t to return more books; it’ s to make more room for things that will move. Returns are a profitable tool you can use to do that.
When to Do Returns While the frequency of returns often depends on the vendor’ s policy, the timing comes down to what works best for your business. Returns should occur at least one of the following:
• Monthly
• Quarterly
• Once a year
• When the publishers ask
I would say I am usually working on a few returns every quarter, but I’ m always trying to find a better system.
The size of the return doesn’ t matter
The size of the return doesn’ t matter. If you only come up with 20 books, you’ ve started somewhere. Using our simple math, 20 books at $ 10 is $ 200 you can spend somewhere else.
This just happened to me recently. I made a small return of $ 150 and placed a $ 300 order, so half of the order was covered by the return. When my order came in, we sold two of the products that same day, one of which was a Bible, so that was another $ 150 right there. Case in point: returns work. And now I don’ t have dead inventory sitting on my shelves.
I also like to figure out my returns when I have a rep coming in to go over all the new titles releasing in the next couple of months. I’ m usually overwhelmed, thinking,“ Where am I going to put all this stuff?” But this is a great time for me to review our inventory and see if any of the new books cover the same topic. If the book we have clearly isn’ t moving, we’ ll return it before the new ones come in.
Why Publishers Offer Returns Many retailers are reluctant to do returns because they think,“ I’ m hurting my publisher.” Actually, publishers would rather have healthy retailers than retailers overloaded with old inventory. In fact, I would suggest calling some of your reps and asking for their suggestions with your inventory.
Publishers would rather have healthy retailers than retailers overloaded with old inventory
When my mom passed away, it was sudden and unexpected, and I had not been working a whole lot in the store. It was October, and all of our Christmas products were coming in. My mom was not the greatest at returns, so we had a lot
14 CRA today / www. christianretailassociation. org