The Season Known As Christmas Is Already in Progress

While some stores do rather strategic planning in the late summer, others are continuing to ‘ramp up’ their inventory position in anticipation of a busy Christmas season.

Those busy days will come, but in many ways, they’ve already started; in fact, for some customers, Christmas shopping is already a done deal.

The tendency is to forget that there are only so many days left in the year and you can only realistically sell so many copies of any given title between now and Dec 24th.

After today, there are 64 calendar days left to shop.   However, in our industry, most of us are closed Sundays, which leaves only 55.   With suppliers closed on Saturdays, that means there are only 46 working days for the people who provide you with goods, and in the case of Ontario-based suppliers,  most don’t ship the last 2 days (Ontario and Quebec) or 3 days (Manitoba and Maritime provinces) or 4 days (Western provinces).     That means that if it’s going to happen at the wholesale level, it’s only going to happen within as few as 42 working days.

Here’s some advice from someone who’s been at this a number of years:

1. Buy aggressively only in cases where supply may become a problem towards the end for whatever reason.
2. Buy carefully, even conservatively, but keeping a close watch on monitoring inventory; closer than you would the rest of the year.
3. Watch for areas you might be going out of stock on categories as well as individual titles.   If everything suitable for a particular demographic runs out at once, you’re in trouble!
   
4. Increase inventory of higher quality leather Bibles towards December 1st, then let stock slide back to January levels.    You want to make the Christmas sale to that discriminating customer, but you don’t want to have too much capital invested in this department at year-end.
5. On the other hand, remember that the January customer deserves a decent selection of goods, too.   You’ve got to have, at the very, very minimum, a copy of each of your top 250 books always available for purchase after January1st.  (500 in larger stores.)
   
6. If it hasn’t sold by December 12th, reduce the price then.   Don’t expect you’ll have enough traffic in January to catch your post-Christmas reductions.
7. In Canada, rules like these need to be tempered by a close watch on the dollar situation; at least with books.   If the Canadian dollar starts to fall (and cost prices start to rise) be thankful you got the deals you did, and move on.   Make sure your pricing allows for flexibility if your payment is going to be made a later date, and therefore a later exchange rate.
8. Staff are busy with extra volume and hours at the store and additional seasonal church and home activities.   Why not have your annual staff party in January?   (We did this last year!)  If the cost is something you want to expense in 2009, find a restaurant that will allow you to prepay the event.  (Without locking in a date if weather’s a concern.)
9. Looking for bargain books for that January event?   Look no further than your own inventory.   Use the date codes on price tags to note inventory that didn’t move and reduce accordingly.   If you decide to reduce things below cost then do so in December so the lower price is reflected in your inventory.    If they’re really past their sell-by date, consider applying a write-off code to them before inventory also.
10. You may not have to lay off staff after Christmas.   Ask all your existing staff what their expectations, need-for-a-break status, and holiday plans are.   Some staff may be willing to pare down their hours allowing you to keep people you’ve invested hours in training.