One of the challenges that faces retailers is knowing how to choose stock that their customer will buy. With so much choice available to them, customers themselves often say that "I don't know what I'm looking for" or "I'll know it when I see it" which makes it hard to predict which stock items will sell and which ones will gather dust on the shelf. Go to full article

At the end of summer we held a two day end of season outdoor furniture sale at our warehouse. It was the first time we opened the warehouse to the general public so we really didn't know what to expect. As described in our Wholesale Insights article, Planning the Warehouse Clearance Sale, we learned a lot of lessons along the way, both during the planning phase and during the sale itself. After the sale, we reviewed our action plan to identify what worked well, what we will keep doing, what we would like to do better and what we will stop doing. Go to full article

Graham and I are both planners, so having an action plan for a warehouse clearance sale is automatic for us. We also like to review the plan after we implement it, so that we are able to make improvements based on recent experience. At the moment we are getting ready to hold a warehouse clearance sale. Here are some of the lessons we have learned so far, along with the actions that we will be putting in place for our next clearance sale. Go to full article

Every trade show comes with lessons for the exhibitor on how to successfully market your products to retailers. Sometimes the lessons are new and sometimes they are reminders of lessons learned in the past. Here are four of the lessons that Graham and I have learned or re-learned at our past few trade shows. Go to full article

Graham has just returned from visiting the factory in China where The Bartender is manufactured. He was over there to oversee the quality control. Here are some photos. Go to full article