Every industry that deals with physical products runs the risk of overstock or understock. In the US alone under stock cost the retail industry alone 1.1 trillion dollars in annual losses. Proper management of your inventory will allow you to maximize your profit and at the same time minimize waste. It will be very important to place your order with manufacturers in China at the proper time.
Overstocking
Some of the side effects of overstocking product include:
- Storage Costs – This might may not affect you too much if if your dealing only with small parts, but once you order too much of a large part, you’ll need to rent space in warehouse for storage the costs can add up over time.
- Depreciation in value – In most situations the product or part will decrease in value over time. They may also lose value through rust, rot, mold, etc,. Another possibly is that the part may simply become outdated over time due to newer and more state of the art parts that replace them.
Understocking of products
Companies that consistently are understocked or out of stock with parts are perhaps trying to control their inventory too tightly. They may also not be paying attention to the inventory.
Results of an understock of parts is:
- Loss of Sales – You can’t sell what you don’t have. Customers will have to go elsewhere for the products.
- Missed Discounts – Most companies that run into understocked inventories generally place several orders of small quantities, trying to keep a tight control on the amount of wasted product. However, ordering in large bulk quantities allows you to get cheaper unit prices than several smaller order quantities. Additionally, shipping prices are cheaper when a few large orders are placed compared to several smaller ones.
- Lost Customer Base – Unless you have an extremely popular and unique product that people are willing to wait for your customers are going to be forced to choose alternative products – which means your competition. If you are consistently out of stock, you’ll most likely alienate your customer base.
Inventory Management – Tracking Your Inventory
Try to have at least a monthly and seasonal record of products sold. Keeping track of how much you are selling a product will provide invaluable information. Over time, especially years, this will allow you to establish and recognize new patterns and the amount of product needed.
For example, if I was selling kayaks, I’d probably notice that most of my sales came in the summer. If I sold 400 kayaks in June, 600 in July, 700 in August, and 500 in September, then over the course of the summer I sold 2200 kayaks. If I had years recorded of the amount of kayaks I sold, then I could look back and get some prediction on whether I could expect to sell more or less the next year, which would dictate how many kayaks I’d want to have on stock for the next summer. You will not want your money tied up with an overstock throughout the winter. The amounts you order will become something of a balancing act based on your inventory numbers.
Another reason to keep track of your inventory, and this is especially important with international trade, you need to order far enough ahead to make sure you receive your product in time.
Manufacturing in China
Production time in China could be 2 months for your product, then sea shipping could be another month, and you also need to account for delays too. You really don’t want to reach an understock of inventory and then have to wait 3 months for your stock to replenish. You will want to order 4 to 6 months ahead of time.
From product design to the packaged product
You will be guided from product design to finished and assembled packaged product when using GTS to produce your product in China. Contact us for a free quote. We make sure that your product arrives at the desired destination. Whether Germany, Great Britain, Italy, France, other EU countries, Canada or the USA, we are there for you to help you with the custom-made product. Your manufactured product will be assembled, packaged and shipped to the country and city of your choice.
