Buy Early, Buy Often – A Cliché or a Smart Retailer Practice?

Buy Early, Buy Often

A Cliché or a Smart Retailer Practice?

By Philip C. Wrzesinski

Buy early, buy often. It is a phrase retailers have heard so often that it is almost cliché. Write smaller orders but write them more often. Don’t wait until you can write the big order. It sounds like a ploy, but sometimes it is the absolute best advice.

Take 2021 for example. First, the supply chain issues meant you needed to buy early just to get into the queue for goods that may or may not even show.

Second, the media was predicting a serious lack of product for Christmas and whipped the general public into a panic. For most retailers this was a boon as October became the new December.

The stores that bought early and often, sticking to what was in stock and available to ship, fared the best.

But what about this year? Inflation, war, and elections have people hunkered down. The media isn’t whipping anyone into a shopping panic. Barely anyone is even mentioning supply chains (and those that do are crying wolf since last year turned out better than predicted). Everything points to a late Christmas instead of an early one.

SUPPLY CHAINS

Lockdowns in China. Potential strikes in Long Beach and Europe. Overflow now congesting east coast ports. Lack of truck drivers to deliver the goods. The supply chain issues haven’t improved over last year. Delays in receiving containers vary from three weeks to three months or longer.

While your vendors are working as hard as ever to mitigate the delays and uncertainty, there is still so much out of their control.

One thing buy early, buy often does is help your vendors forecast their inventory needs better. They see the trends of what retailers want and can adjust earlier to make sure they have what you need. This is true every year, but even more so when hard decisions must be made because of supply chain issues.

You are doing your vendors a favor which, in turn, helps them better support you.

TRENDS The other thing buy early, buy often does is help you see trends earlier. Even in years where most customers wait (like this year is shaping up to be), there will always be early shoppers. Those shoppers help you fine tune your mix for the holidays.

The key is to be strategic in your orders. Use them to gauge customer interest and be ready to adjust on the fly.

OVERSTOCKS Because of last year’s supply chain issues, many of your vendors stocked up early this year (or received huge orders late last year after the selling season was over). There may be some opportunity buys available to you if you buy now.

Ask your vendors for stock updates. Order only what is in their warehouses. Keep the assortment lean and wide, then go deep on the products that trend well or have great opportunity for margin. TALK TO YOUR REPS Your sales reps know who is shipping and who isn’t. They see it every day. They also know what products are trending, are running out, are having issues. Their top vendors are communicating this with them regularly. Talk to your reps to find out where you need to order deep and who will be able to supply you the best.

BEST PRACTICES The two things buy early, buy often does best is first keep your inventory nimble. You can adjust more quickly to trends and outof-stocks when you write more orders. You can’t sell what you don’t have, yet the longer you wait to write a big order, the more items you won’t have.

Second, it improves your cash flow. The math shows conclusively that smaller orders written more often keeps more money in your bank account for all your other bills. In a year where customers are expected to be late, more money in the bank now makes a lot of sense (cents?).

NOT A CLICHÉ Buy early, buy often is not a cliché. It is a smart business practice. It takes extra work on your part but makes a world of difference in your ability to keep your store fresh and stocked with all the right stuff.

When the customers do arrive, you will be ready.

2023

Be sure and join us at Marketplace & Academy in Columbus, Ohio in June 2023.

Marketplace & Academy in Columbus will feature a new floor plan to make the show floor more inviting, along with new educational opportunities for all!

ASTRA will continue to work with the Black Inventors Hall of Fame that also presented at Marketplace & Academy in Long Beach.

Save the Date! June 11-14!

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2023

Booth Sales will open the second week of October, with Sponsorship Opportunities opening in late October. Attendee Registration opens in late December. Summixt Expo will be sending out the space draw schedule.

And don’t forget all of the other things that we love at Marketplace & Academy, such as the Game & Kit event, Toy Sync Battle and our opening night party!

Visit exhibit@astratoy.org for more information.