Part 5:
The intricacies of planning for future seasons, especially considering the impact of events like Christmas, Chinese New Year and even unseasonal weather, requires meticulous attention to detail and forward-thinking. Over the years, I have learnt the importance of strategic planning and how to anticipate and respond to market demands.
I often get asked why retailers sell Christmas product so early. My answer, “because they have to”. Some customers do start shopping early but not enough to justify the amount in branch. However, I have seen the impact of holding back the stock in the warehouse, gridlock. One year the Head of Operations decided to delay the push of stock into the branches by a week. What happened? The entire logistics of the company came to a standstill. The increased volumes of cages that were sent out later were not able to get unpacked because the empty cages from the previous delivery were still waiting to be picked up. Branches did not have enough people to work through the stock that was arriving and as a company, the orders that were due to come in had to be postponed. This had a huge impact on the sales and profit that year. Unsurprisingly, the year later we were back to sending stock out just that little bit too early. That was an expensive lesson to learn.
It’s not just the capacity in the supply chain that needs to be considered, but more often than not it’s the weather. Working in areas that are affected if the sun shines or if it is bitterly cold makes my role particularly difficult but also rewarding. It is not possible to know what the season is going to be like before placing the entire order for that year. This is where it is so essential to balance what stock to order with the potential sales forecast and the risk to profit if the sales don’t come through.
One of the biggest challenges in my career came during the Covid-19 pandemic. As mentioned in a previous article, predicting the impact of the pandemic on retail, particularly school uniform sales when it wasn’t clear when schools would be shut, was a daunting task. I had to make quick, informed decisions to adjust our orders and ensure that our suppliers remained financially stable so that we could react quickly to what was happening at the time. Communication was key. This experience highlighted the importance of flexibility and proactive communication.
Understanding the ‘right time’ is tricky, but if you put yourself in the shoes of the customer and think about what they are looking for when whilst using the data from previous seasons, you shouldn’t end up far wrong.
