Last year, I tried to be careful in my purchasing, looking for the best margins. Our sales were down from the previous year, but not outrageously. I just figured we were experiencing a slow decline from the Covid peak of 2022. 

This year I decided to quit chasing margins and concentrate on what was selling and being aggressive about keeping it in stock. So far, we're up by 20% over last year, and we'll almost certainly going to have a best year by more than 10%. 

A few percentage points in margin pretty much gets washed away by that much of an increase in sales.

I always seem to come back to the conclusion that I should just order what sells and keep ordering what sells and pay whatever I have to, within reason, to keep it in stock. 

Lesson learned once again.