worldoflace: The Creation, Development of a successful small business initiative

Part 3

MERCHANDISING and control of production levels and stocks

Our response to all these points was to create an individual merchandising technique which offered flexibility, utilising minimal floor/sales area, yet was capable of displaying a variable number of products, which could be merchandised with little or no disruption to the existing sales floor personnel To ourselves, the beauty of our envisaged “Elizabeth Cooke Nottingham Lace concept” was that the product range presented no risk to our manufacturing (standard batch sizes/quantities) for distribution to the individual sales outlets requirements. Yet these outlets were so varied in their individual activities, footfall, and clientele choices, we needed to answer the routine replenish of an outlets diminishing merchandise with stocks of the products sales which would become popular within their own individual location and customer activity levels

Our problem was multi-fold –

First, we had to persuade the individual Distributor managements to trial our products.

Second and just as important, where and how the products could be located and merchandised within their existing, often limited, sales floor area.

Third who could be relied upon to ensure merchandising was always actioned regularly and effectively (with due regard to the effective positioning and replenishment) of each individual product best suited to sales potential of each differing, selected/nominated outlet

Forth How to ensure that each Merchandising location could be provided with their own relevant restocking routine

Fifth Create a marketing/supply situation which functionally appealed to everyone, avoiding risks to all parties

Six Design a Sales Price/Profit margin and Payment Routine which was acceptable and removed risk to all parties

The answer we arrived at, was quite unique.. .. ..

We suggested to Distributors that

We provide/loan one “special” floor standing rotating merchandiser (requiring only ONE SQUARE M of floor space) delivered, fully stocked with our regular, routine merchandising within their premises.

Thus there was NO investment /risk to the Distributor (other than by thieving ) as the goods always belonged to ourselves

In return for this service our INVOICES against actual replenished sales - verified by the Distributors staff (at the time of merchandising) were ALWAYS paid promptly on a monthly basis

A WIN WIN situation for ourselves and each sales outlet ensuring that the important aspect of this total initiative provided both the Distributor and ourselves with agreeable/acceptable profits whilst removing the risk of investment in overstocking and wasteful cash flow .

We achieved al this this within the actual resources we created within our established Nottingham base

MOST IMPORTANTLY from our perspective this situation/agreement enabled us to schedule and produce batch quantities of each product, in the confidence that we would never “over manufacture” any one particular design - for the varying and cumulative sales levels of each Distributor ensured we could always balance the content of our product manufacturing with the flexible requirement of sales.

Now how did the sales and work-in-progress stack-up

We could achieve this quite easily by adding/subtracting/replacing the actual quantities of individual products on each individual merchandiser, thus catering for each individual /specific sales outlets demand.
A positive situation which could readily with accommodate any/most change in the overall/seasonal demand .

Here are several relevant images