Why do we never learn how to keep all our best lines in stock all the time? It's happened again this year. Just when we need a huge influx of goods to fulfil mouth-watering orders, we are confronted with the news that all the ports from Macao to Mandalay are jammed up with cargo. Not only that the evil shipping lines are seizing the opportunity to hike up the prices of sea freight and pile on a fee for sailing though pirate infested oceans and the gently innocuous Suez Canal. Since all the goods on board are already sold, there is no way the simple importer can pass on some of these costs. Hence there is a very real risk that you end up being a busy fool - doing lots of business and not covering the cost.
Worse still for the highly seasonal items like gadgets and toys which don't get loaded, don't get shipped and have to be unstuffed from the containers and flown in under pain of penalty from legally wired-up customers who threaten to put you out of business if you miss the delvery dates. How unjust! We had a pretty good idea of what the customers were buying back in the Summer and we placed courageously large orders on the back of the early omens. But weeks slipped away and forwarders sent regular bad news which we passed on to our wholesale customers with genuine apology because it is in nobody's interest to make multiple deliveries and string out consignments.
As it approaches Xmas we learn that angry customers of our clients are demanding delivery and even trying to remove the floor samples from the shop where they made the purchase. And whose fault is it? Mr Nobody.
When it all settles down, probably half way through January 2010, we will have spent a king's ransom on phoning customers to ask if they can take delivery on Christmas Eve or New Year. The goods are still desirable, wonderful
and keenly priced so how can they be flavour of the month in November and turn to ashes in December?
I have exposed a perennial problem but somehow this year it seems worse simply because things have improved so much generally in the last 3 months. The shops have realised they are without top stock and those who have been putting off buying have turned to us trusted suppliers to fill their window displays so how heart-breaking it is that we are running out of stock at such a busy time.
All we can do is try harder next year.