Yeah, summer budget!!

Now that my spring 'budgeting' is nearly over, (one week to go!), I can confirm that, yes, over ordering is my problem. Bills are getting paid, money in the bank, debt reduced.

Not ordering two weeks out of every month has had the unexpected side effect of making it very clear to me what I REALLY miss if I don't order, and what I just sorta kinda miss, and what I don't miss at all.

Sales weren't impacted by this experiment, as far as I can tell. If I were to keep doing it for more than 3 or 4 months, I suspect it would've. But I am so well stocked, that I doubt very many people noticed.

But my cash flow noticed.

Technically, if my Summer sales come in at the usual 20% higher, I should now be able to keep to a budget that is 20% higher than what I've been spending in the spring, and still get the same cash flow benefit.

The problem for me is in the execution. I've always had a difficult time moderating. Easier for me to deny myself 100% for two weeks, than cut all my orders by 50% for 4 weeks. Not sure why, but it's happened so many times I'm not fighting it anymore.

So....I found out what I really shouldn't skip:

1.) Evergreen graphic novels. No excuse to run out of Watchmen, or Preacher, or any other proven sellers. Since I maintain a very wide selection that is just one or two copies deep, it almost requires that I make an order every week.

2.) Magic. The magic players are fairly demanding. They don't know from reorder difficulties, they just know they want what they want when they want it. Some requests I can't fulfill, such as rare singles, or specific theme decks, but running out of decks or packs of any major brand is really not an option. Especially since I'm now the only game store in town -- don't want to inspire anyone to say, "Damn, Pegasus is always out. I can do better than that!"

3.) Sports cards. When I have a couple or three active buyers, they want what's new. I can skip a week or two, here and there, but making them wait longer to itch their need, is dangerous.

Of the three categories above, magic and sports cards take giant chunks out of the budget. Graphic novels can be managed in smaller numbers.

Things that I found two weeks have very little effect.

1.) Board games and RPG's. I tend to order the better sellers in ones or twos, and they usually sell at a pace that can stand skipping a couple of weeks here and there.

2.) Books. I very purposely didn't align myself with the 'best-seller' model of bookstore. So if I sell 2 out of the 5 Vonnegut novels I carry, I probably still have more Vonnegut's than most stores.

3.) Toys. Absolutely can be ordered when convenient. I'm searching out the single toy offers whenever possible. I preorder the McFarlane toys; so that is accounted for already. And I rarely want to do reorders. There is so much stuff that simply freshening up the product on a regular basis keeps the sales up.

Refreshing the product is the key to all the above three categories. I like to reorder proven sellers, but it isn't crucial like graphic novels, magic and cards.

And then there is all the ancillary product:

1.) Standups. I finally ordered the stand-ups, a bunch of Star Wars, new Indiana Jones, and so on.

2.) Gag gifts. I want to order the funky stuff from Accouterments (Albert Einstein toys, Death Mints, candy rubber chickens -- important stuff like that) as summer starts.

3.) Cartoon books. I usually stock up on Asterix and Calvin and Hobbes and Far Side and so on before summer and before Christmas.

4.) Dice. There are really cool looking dice that I can get from a company called Crystal Cast. Fancy gem dice, metal dice, and all that stuff that gets my crow brain to go; "Oh, shiny!!"

And finally, the sale product. This stuff isn't 'necessary' at all. But boy does it help the cash flow when it sells. I have to treat this as a completely separate project, in a way. If I get an item that is one third the price, I can take three times longer to sell it. Plus its a great multiplier of freshness; especially since most of it wasn't ordered by me the first time. To tell the truth, I can't see much difference in sales velocity between middle of the road pre-ordered product and re-ordered sale product.

So, now that I identified what is necessary, and what is just wanted, I can make some better decisions hopefully.