It’s hard to believe we’re at the end of August and are on the brink of the prime candle-selling season. All of us here at Candles of Eden hope you had a great summer and hope you still have plans to enjoy it further – it’s not officially over just yet. We also hope you have found the blog postings, on planning and managing your inventory, helpful.

Today, we’ll wrap up all we talked about concerning inventory and what you need to do to prepare and monitor your inventory for the busy selling season. It’s an opportunity for you to get an overview once again of all we talked about. You can go back to individual postings as you wish to get more details on how to manage your Candles of Eden and other quality products.

This month we talked about aging your inventory. We mentioned that you should consider any product that is on your shelves for three months or less as “current”. Next, any products sitting on your shelves or displays for four to six months are products you should consider in the “stale” stage. In addition, any products that rest on your shelves for more than six months are products you should consider “old”. Not having all your money tied up in old and even underperforming stock, lets you buy the quality lines such as SoyLuscious® Soy Candles that will deliver you the cash flow you desire.

One posting was on your stock-to-sales ratio. We mentioned a ratio of four to one is reasonable. That means each month you have four times the amount of inventory on hand as relates to your sales for that month. If you sell $750 of Candles of Eden products from your spa or store a month, you would want $3000 in stock each month.

Another posting dealt with sales-per-square-foot. To come up with sales-per-square-foot just take your “net” annual sales and divide that number by your total “selling area” in square feet. If your net annual sales are $400,000 dollars and your selling are is 1,000 square feet then your sales-per-square-foot are $400. Work to increase steadily that number each year.

We dealt with Gross Margin Return on Inventory Investment (GMROII). GMROII lets you know how much you are getting back in return for every dollar you invest in inventory. You calculate GMROII by taking your “Gross Margin in Dollars” and dividing it by your “Average Inventory at Cost”. If your gross margin in dollars is $55,000, and the average inventory at cost in a department that will produce that margin is $15,000, then you will see a $3.66 return on every dollar of inventory investment.

We did one posting on making your employees inventory specialists. This posting dealt with many specific issues, and you may want to reread that one again. Another posting dealt with operating your business according to departments and classifications so that you are applying structure to your business. Inventory departments and classifications present your merchandise in an organized and efficient manner. You group like products into departments and promote each department according to its own special characteristics.

We also discussed having a selling plan for your inventory. We talked about increasing the exterior visibility of your SoyLuscious® Soy Candles during prime selling season with outside of store advertising. We mentioned your interior advertising – promoting to customers once they’re in your establishment.  We mentioned the third aspect of your selling plan- having trained and knowledgeable staff that are up-to-date on all the features and benefits of your Candles of Eden candles and accessories.

Another posting concerned giving each inventory classification their 15 minutes of fame. Customers love variety, and they love seeing displays that change regularly with new and vibrant colors and different product lines. When you give each of your inventory classifications time in the limelight, you keep your store environment fresh and interesting.

We had a posting that dealt with forecasting inventory requirements. Forecasting inventory requirements for your SoyLuscious® Soy Candles and other product lines is not rocket science. It is using historical sales data, past unusual activity, your own promotions plans, and those of third parties relevant to your business, and other data, wisely. You put it all together to come up with an educated “guesstimate” of what you can expect in terms of sales.

On top of all of the above, we had a posting on displaying your inventory and all that entails. We also had one on not purchasing inventory based on price alone. With all of these postings the month has come, and is almost gone. All of us here at Candles of Eden wish you and your families a safe and enjoyable Labor Day weekend. We’ll be back in touch with you all on September 1.