Dead stock is a waste of money and space in any retail business. In newsagency businesses, we tend to see plenty of dead stock in the stationery department. Too often, we see it in the card department too.
newsXpress provides contextual training to its members for sharing with staff. These short, snackable, videos relay training in a way anyone can understand. Here’s the latest (six-minute) training video on dead stock:
Here is a short video on how to easily identify dead stock using the newsagency software from Tower Systems, software used by more than 1,700 newsagents:
Working on dead stock is an easy win for any newsagency business where it has not been an active focus for a year or more. These videos are designed to encourage that engagement to release capital and space for more productive use in the business.
Why am I sharing this today? Primarily, to encourage all newsagents to work on dead stock. I know of one newsagency not that long ago where working on dead stock unlocked $15,000 in cash and a chunk of space. I know of another where the party buying the business contracted for a discount for old stock – they ended up paying less than half wholesale for 25% of the stock in the business.
This advice is designed to help newsagents today to run more efficient and valuable shops.
There is the bonus benefit from freely sharing this information of showing another way my businesses, newsXpress and Tower Systems, help newsagents to run more efficient and valuable businesses. It is important to me to show rather than tell. You can watch both videos without logging in or giving over your details, or signing up to some training course.
If you’re not a Tower newsagency software customer you can find out more here: https://www.towersystems.com.au/newsagency-software.html
If you’re interested in newsXpress, you can find out more here.
Now, if you think you don’t have dead stock, I think you’d be wrong. Every business I have looked at for dead stock has had dead stock. Yes, every business. Often this is because of a attitude of denial. Something does not exist if we deny it, right?!
You can easily see it it’s an issue in your business. In a couple of minutes you can see the value of dead stock. That alone is likely to have you making good decisions in your shop.
If you act and remove the bloat of dead stock you have a fitter, healthier and more focussed business.
But you have to act. As the leader of the business you have to act, even if it is to delegate the work. The videos are designed to be shared that way.
Go.
This was one of the hardest things for me to grasp in our business and is now my number one piece of advice. I kept telling myself ‘it should sell’ and would move it around the store thinking it needed to be in a different location. Sometimes this worked, but most of the time I just needed to let it go, clear the stock and use the space for trying something new or grow a category that is already performing well. Clearing dead stock will open up greater opportunities.
The Melbourne gift fair next week is a good opportunity to find the motivation to take back space from dead stock. Find something that you want but would normally say no to because you don’t have the space which we all say to ourselves too often. Change your train of thought to what do you have in store that’s not working that you could use the space for something exciting and new. There’s no guarantee that it will work but you need to be willing to take risks to find out what does work.