In a perfect world, your retail partner would have the right quantity of stock for every item in every store. Reality, however, gets in the way. Weather, seasonality and other variables impact what consumers are buying and have a dramatic effect on your product sales. In order to have the right amount of stock and to make sure that you are maxing sales throughout the year, you have to have a plan for those variables.

Know Your Products

Define which of the products you are selling are seasonal and sensitive to weather events. Knowing which products are vulnerable to weather will help you reasonably forecast and plan when seasonal and weather related items will be hot sellers. For example, gardening and outdoor activity products are influenced by seasons, and demand for umbrellas and sunscreen are affected by weather. You don’t want to miss out on sales when there is demand for these types of items because of out-of-stocks.

Identify Opportunities

In the US alone, Walmart estimates that out-of-stocks are a $400 million problem. Use a software tool like krunchbox to help you optimize your inventory. Krunchbox calculates the optimal stock by article and store — taking seasonality and weather as well as minimums, maximums, models, rates of sale and more into consideration. Krunchbox identifies sales opportunities and prioritizes those opportunities, leveraging the data to allow you to make immediate improvements based on weather and drive incremental sales.

Take Action

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It’s important to seize your sales opportunities and adjust your supply chain so that there is the right amount of stock before a weather event happens. Retail is dynamic, and by being proactive rather than reactive, you’re already prepared and not out of stock when the weather hits. Suppliers grapple with complex and constantly changing demands and factors, so it can be a struggle to quickly assess priorities and take action. Krunchbox helps you identify opportunities as they come in and make decisions in real-time, so that you can take action and impact your business quicker than ever before.

Get started making inventory decisions that maximize sales! Try krunchbox with a two-week demo. We load your own retail data into our software so that you can experience the full benefits of krunchbox for your organization and see the ROI for yourself.