Dealing with stock control with an online store

[ASLCreative]

I am in the process of setting up and online store and was wondering how other members deal with stock control through their online store for dye sub products.

Normally with an online store you just specify the quantity for a particular product - e.g. 10 black t-shirts or 15 boxes of chocolates. When the stock hits a certain level you reorder that item.

However with dye sub you have a core stock of a particular type of product which gets distributed over a range designs.

Question is:

Do you allocate x mugs per design (treating each design as a separate product)?

or

Do you set the online store up so that every design has say 100 mugs, and every time somebody orders a mug, the quantity of mugs available across all designs decreases accordingly?

Example:

I have 100 blank mugs in stock.

Designs A-J on the website all show 100 mugs as being available.

Mr Smith buys 1 mug of design A, 1 mug of design D and 1 mug of design F - now all designs are showing 97 mugs being available

then Mrs Brown buys 2 mugs of Design A - now all designs are showing 95 mugs being available.

I then reorder when the total stock of mugs gets to say 40.


Would love to hear how other people approach this.


Thanks

Andrew

[arko]

I suppose its all down to you having pre-printed mugs or not? Unless you had different coloured mugs or a standard print.

[socialgiraffe]

Out of interest why put quantity available?

I am not a shop owner and do not sell direct to public via websites but from a shopping point of view I don't particularly care how many you have in stock, just as long as you have enough for what I require.

As an example, say your stock level drops down to 40 and all of a sudden I come along and require 45. If I see that you only have 40 in stock I would probably click off the website and find someone that does have the stock. However if I did not know you did not have the stock available I would order. You get the order, realise that you do not have enough blanks so simply order more. They will be with you within a day or so and consequently you will be able to fulfil the order.

I know its different for the likes of suppliers to the trade in that they will put "out of stock", but that is different as they are selling to people that are selling on. You however I presume are selling to the public where "out of stock" is like swearing at them :-)

[arko]

I am not a shop owner and do not sell direct to public via websites but from a shopping point of view I don't particularly care how many you have in stock, just as long as you have enough for what I require.

As an example, say your stock level drops down to 40 and all of a sudden I come along and require 45. If I see that you only have 40 in stock I would probably click off the website and find someone that does have the stock.

Good point! Yes, I can see the logic in that. I have actually done this myself!. An order I placed on eBay stated that they had 10 Burger-Van graphics and then they mailed me to say they could only supply 8, I then placed the order (worth £92) with the other firm that supplied them. (although it cost me £3 more!) It probably does make sense just to have your own stock/inventory system in place rather than make it public, or have an enquiry system when someone needs to place an ordwer for say over 20 pieces.

[ASLCreative]

Out of interest why put quantity available?

I will not be showing quantity available for each design, but I do need quantities for a few designs as they are limited editions.

You get the order, realise that you do not have enough blanks so simply order more

That normally works, but sometimes the suppliers have run out of stock as well - a good example is white water bottles. A few of the main suppliers are out of stock of the white 400/500ml at the moment. The earlier I am aware of suppliers being out of stock the better.


What I need is to have an automatic trigger that lets me know when I need to order more stock.

The problem with living in Northern Ireland is that it takes an extra day or two to get stock delivered (very few couriers offer reasonable rates on next day delivery) - so the earlier I know stock levels are getting low the earlier I can place an order.


In the end I have coded a hack that automatically deducts the amount ordered from the product as well as the design.

E.g. 100 mugs - somebody orders 3 different designs - the number of mugs gets reduced by 3, each design gets deducted by 1. I then get an email when the level of mugs in stock gets to X units.



Andrew

[ASLCreative]

or have an enquiry system when someone needs to place an ordwer for say over 20 pieces.

I like that idea, simply because when selling to the public, you have to be wary of credit card fraud - one of the signs of credit card fraud is large quantities required quickly (it is the merchant that foots the bill for credit card fraud in the form of a chargeback).

Andrew

[bms]

The problem with living in Northern Ireland is that it takes an extra day or two to get stock delivered (very few couriers offer reasonable rates on next day delivery) - so the earlier I know stock levels are getting low the earlier I can place an order.

It's not the suppliers, it's the courier companies :) When we send goods next day to Northern Ireland they taken by plane so they get there in time. On a 48 hour service they go by road so next day delivery is much more expensive than the 48 hour service.

[bms]

I like that idea, simply because when selling to the public, you have to be wary of credit card fraud - one of the signs of credit card fraud is large quantities required quickly (it is the merchant that foots the bill for credit card fraud in the form of a chargeback).

Andrew

...but if you match the delivery address details to the card holders details then this is much reduced if not eliminated.

[socialgiraffe]

Hi ASLCreative

I see you point about designs that are limited edition and obviously you would need to show how many left. But that is surely more down to the limited edition part instead of how many blanks you have left.

The other thing to bear in mind is that if a potential customer requires 20 units and you list your item for £10.00 without any sort of enquiry button for bulk orders, you could potentially lose out. I would doubt if a buyer of 20 wants to pay the same as a buyer of 1, and I am sure you would rather they contact you so you can seal the deal.

I agree that deliveries to N. ireland are a bit of a pain and there has been many concerts I supply where the company has had to pay for a man and a van to drive them there in time (Merchandisers get fined about £2k if a product that was promised to be on sale is not, even if they run out of stock on the previous nights concert). But that is just a logistics concern. If you are averaging say 20 mugs a day then you know that when you are down to your last 100 blanks you have 5 days to order more and ensure that stock is replenished in time. You can always put something like "please allow XX days for delivery" This will not only give you a bit of time in producing the item, but also means that if you are running low, you can hold the single orders up a couple of days just in case you get a bulk urgent order.

Completely off topic I know but I was once at a logistics company that handle one of the biggest stars on the planet. For one particular tour they showed me a signed poster that was limited edition of 100 units. Print probably cost less than £2.00 and all they had to do was sign them. Poster was sold for £75.00 unframed and £150.00 framed (bulk framing for these guys costs about £10.00. But here is the bit that I thought was a tad outrageous. They had additional back up posters all signed etc ready just in case the first 100 sold out. These were not exactly the same image but was still of this particular artist and still signed and still could be claimed as limited edition.

[ASLCreative]

It's not the suppliers, it's the courier companies :) When we send goods next day to Northern Ireland they taken by plane so they get there in time. On a 48 hour service they go by road so next day delivery is much more expensive than the 48 hour service.

Martin, I know it is the couriers not the suppliers.

From my experience it all depends upon which courier is used, where the courier's hub is, the number of packages the supplier sends with that courier and what time the package is entered into the courier's network.

Rates vary from £4.95 to £25.00 per box up to 30kg.

One company I deal with sends it next day for £4.95 providing I place the order by noon - that way it is entered into their first collection in the afternoon which means it gets on that night's lorry for Dublin (their courier sends everything to Dublin where it gets sent up to N. Ireland the next morning).

I don't mind that everything is 48 hour delivery, I just have to work with it - hence why I want stock control monitoring.

Andrew