While Christmas 2019 is ramping up, I have been finalising orders with some suppliers for Christmas 2020 – for products where we can join production runs for retailers in other countries and leverage their volume for better pricing.
The challenge of ordering so early is the lack of data on trend opportunities appropriate top Christmas 2020. The thing is, we are not alone in the challenge. So, seeing what others are going harder on can be instructing to purchasing.
With our major and large competitors ordering this way, for independent small business retailers to be competitive on price and hero product and brand access we need to engage early as well. This is why I have been focussed on it over the last week with several suppliers.
This is an area in which the larger groups can play by leveraging critical mass of 200 or more retailers to order centrally and at sufficient volume to enable access to products that otherwise might not be available in less volume. Anything less and you are too small. While suppliers will order this way, it is less likely that they pass on benefits to individual stores at the time of offering access because of the cost of warehousing, pre-payment and more.
What has been particularly interesting through the process is the storyboarding by some suppliers, sharing access to forecasts of colour and texture trends for the 2020 Christmas season.