5 steps to clear your stocks fast

December 12, 2022 8:50 pm

When having a retail business, it’s ideal to always have your shelves fully stocked – but what happens when those shelves start to get overcrowded? The problem is particularly painful for small businesses, which struggle to record and harness customer data to optimize their inventory management.

Carrying some overstock is often a necessary component for running a retail business. Yet, even for those who carefully plan their purchases and stock items based on experience and quantifiable data, overstock happens to the best of small business owners. In this post, we’ll cover some strategies for dealing with excess inventory so that you can still make money on your overstock or gain something beneficial to your business.

1. Assess your situation

First step you need to take is assessing how much it’s costing you to keep your overstocks – whether you’ve had to invest in extra storage space to accommodate it or it’s just reducing the efficiency of your business. If excess inventory isn’t costing you too much, and it’s something that you think you can still sell or use with a promotion, then it might be worth hanging onto. If you decide that you do need to get rid of your inventory, you have the option to liquidate it through a specialized company; if that doesn’t work, you can either donate or destroy it. The last option is not sustainable and is typically reserved as a final solution.

2. Optimize your promotions

You can use excess inventory to drive traffic to your business through highly discounted sales. You have to be ready to make a very strong offer, to be able to actually get rid of your stock.  Another option is bundling with another potentially more desirable – but make sure you create bundles that actually make sense together.

Whether you opt for bundle deals or deep discounts, you should look to promotions as a way of getting people to your store, whether online or in-person. Once they are there, they will start buying your other products, which also helps ameliorate the problem of excess inventory. But keep in mind that a disadvantage to running big promotions is big labor costs: large sales typically require more manpower to operate the actual preparing the promo materials, bundling and the extra influx of customers, so be prepared to accommodate them.

3. Try liquidators

Discount retailers are an option for brands that are liquidating inventory, but there can be a barrier to entry for businesses that don’t have existing relationships with these kinds of retailers, especially as these usually deal with increased seller offers. Top liquidator companies like ARLL can be another great option for businesses that don’t have existing relationships with discount retailers.

Some businesses may worry that liquidators dilute their value – but that kind of thinking can hold them back from making good money on their excess inventory and gaining new customers. In the majority of situations, inventory doesn’t go up in value, so it’s in your best interest to liquidate and move on to the more productive products.

4. Operate closer to home

The overstock problem many businesses have recently faced is partially due to the changing consumer behaviors that resulted from the pandemic and supply chain inconsistencies. But it’s also the result of inventory strategies that just don’t work with the way that consumers operate today. If you purchase your raw materials too far in advance and from too far away, it gives you too little time to react to consumer’s changing behaviors.

5. Donate your inventory

If you have exhausted all the above alternative options and nothing works, donating is always better than throwing items out. Your business may also just want to do something nice for the community. Whatever your reasoning, donating can come with a number of benefits. You can write blog posts on your website, hang pictures in your store, or notify customers of the work you are doing through social media and email. All of this will help build a good reputation for your business and keep your customers engaged. Donating excess inventory or performing charity work can help your business build a strong rapport with the community and it’s a better solution to just ending up destroying the merchandise.

We’re here to help you find the best way to clear your stocks fast. To learn more and receive a personalized offer, please contact our team.

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