That’s it. November 17, 2009, marks the day when I officially decided that I am bored with companies licking their wounds as pertains to this recession. The Dow is back up in happytown, and while things aren’t rosy yet in the employment numbers, I really think that there are many consumers who will spend some money this holiday season if retail outlets let them.
Let them, you ask? Sure! During a recession, it is possible to find some fantastic deals, but it can also be an absolute nightmare to find the things you need when you need them. There’s nothing more American than convenience, and my hope is that retailers get it together before holiday shoppers get their bruised credit cards out in a couple weeks.
To the image above, I have been trying to buy a popular book for 4 weeks now, and Amazon had a 4-week backlog. Barnes and Noble? Out of stock everywhere, and this is a popular book!
Now, behind the curtain, we know that retailers have inventory models they use to manage reorders. Some of these models are sophisticated, and some of them (I know as a matter of fact because I have seen them) are not. Your garden variety retailers are managing inventory based on a hunch and manual stock checks, some with an Excel file, some with Access databases, and some with cobbled-together web applications. But one thing each of these models has in common is a stock-outs risk tolerance. In brief, there is a trade-off between how much inventory you carry (which has a cost, of course!!) and how often your customer wants something you don’t have.
Naturally, this year has been marked with lower inventories and greater risk of stock-outs, but my beseech retailers to get off the bench. Stock up, get ready. You don’t have to go overboard, but let’s turn those dials, baby. The holidays are coming and those books aren’t selling themselves.
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