this winter has been pretty scary....with sales down a bit ..and expenses at the highest of the year......meaning seasonal heat costs....taxes and some big insurance bills which seem to come early ....oh, and the economic disaster our state and the country is in.!!!!
besides all that, we are naturally hurting this time of year because of the garden iron.,..which is bought now and earlier and doesnt sell until later.... we have about $$$20,000 bought and paid for and ready to sell.... so its good...but not this week!!! i hate to sound whiny but did i mention the weather? which has actually hurt us too....
.but one plot is working...and has brought in quite a bit of money........we do have a huge messy inventory so this might not work for all stores....but we have looked hard at the inventory and simply marked down a lot of items....i prefer marking down to a big sale.... sales all the time seem bad to me...this has brought in a lot of money that was just sitting there....
we've marked down
- old stuff i wont be reordering....both the bad and the tail ends ...
- things that are too high by the customers judgement....lots of this i probably realized were losers when they first came in.... stuff from catalog pictures.......why let it just sit there looking boring and overpriced?..
- any damaged...
- any that i priced in haste when it was just in and looked better than it really was...this has cleared out lots in the rough room....
we've dug deep:
also we have dug into the corners and the storage places and into the hidden spots that hold some of the things that are in limbo....
like parts meant for projects we never got around to... .....i want anything we have bought to be out and for sale...im kind of a pack rat and son jon is really bad in the packrat department as well, especially with the architectural parts and all his hardware ...so i have found lots of little piles....
doing this has helped a lot, bringing in new money and also it really shows how some of our buying choices worked out.......and also shows you who your best companies are..and of course it spotlights waste....as in when you realize half of some order is still around and in bad shape...
i want to always have a huge and varied inventory....its our good thing....and this spring, cleaning it out a bit has really helped us pay some bills....
on the other hand, im definitely buying lots of
new fresh merchandise!!!
i dont want to look full of last years leftovers!!!
the best thing i hear from the customers is ....you never know what they are going to have...and this place just goes on and on......
so i know they want our big inventory ....
its our big draw....
and being able to thin it down a bit and turn some of it into cash has helped us get thru this spring and made the store a bit leaner and hopefully stronger.....and with more money to buy more stuff!!! which i always love to do....
some business places on line are talking about monthly budgets....i dont follow this , we dont sell much in march but i have to buy tons of spring and summer things then.... i cant relate march buys to march sales....and i have to get lots of things in big bulk....to save on shipping and to get a better price.... and in the case of the garden iron , i get 2 huge loads , because thats the only way i can get it delivered....
so i guess its a continuing
wandering not lost situation....
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