Cherry pick.

There's a huge difference between this slowdown and others that Pegasus Books has experienced in the past.

I'm am fully inventoried. I'm able to replace the evergreen product within budget.

I probably should just cherry pick for the foreseeable future.

The question is, what does it mean to 'cherry pick?'

Does it mean just replacing the evergreen product, and bringing in the best of the new product?

Does it mean buying decent product when it gets cheap?

Or both?

That's going to be my dilemma going forward. I recently ordered a bunch of what I considered decent offerings at really low prices. None of it sold. Meanwhile, the evergreen product -- which I'm paying full wholesale -- has continued to sell well.

I hate to shorten the window to only the near term. Getting more of the same stuff I already have seems like it could eventually come back to bite me. But at the same time, ordering stuff that may sell eventually but not in the near term, even if relatively inexpensively, is expending money at a time when I maybe should be conserving it.

Back in the mid-90's, which the collapse of all the 'bubble' product, I started to ask myself, "If I don't order this, will anyone noticed?" Which is a very different thing than asking myself, "If I order this, will it sell?" The latter represents a risk in the short run, the former a risk in the long run.

The difference this time is that I have plenty of great inventory in stock. It's not like I'm depriving the store.

So far, in cases like this, I've always set myself a budget and then tried to order the best material I could within that budget. The irony is that if I set a strict budget, I'll end up spending that entire budget no matter what.

I'm going to try something different this time: just cherry pick, both sale product and evergreens, and see how much I really need. Keeping an eye on sales, and having a vague 'outer limit' to how much I can spend.

I'm thinking that way, I may actually come in under budget.