Will You Sell Out Before Christmas? A 10-Minute Holiday Stock Check

By Vladislav Gerasimchuk, founder of Extensions Market, which builds EZstock

The holidays are the busiest weeks of the year for many small shops, and they can cost you money in two ways. Your best seller sells out on December 10, and every shopper after that leaves with nothing. Or you order too much and spend January marking down boxes that didn't sell. This check takes about 10 minutes and needs no spreadsheet. It helps you avoid both.

Why check your stock now?

Black Friday is November 27 this year and Cyber Monday is November 30. Christmas shopping starts right after. An order you place in early November has time to arrive. An order placed in mid-December may not, because December is busy for suppliers and delivery companies too.

So now is the best time for a quick check, while any fix is still easy.

Step 1: Start with your best sellers

Look at your orders from the last month, or your sales reports in Shopify, and write down the 5 to 10 products that sold the most. If you sell gifts, add anything that sold well last December, even if it's quiet right now.

You don't need to check every product. Running out of a best seller costs you the most, so start there and leave the rest for later.

Step 2: How long will your stock last?

For each product, divide how many you have by how many you sell in a week. The answer is how many weeks it will last.

Say you run a small candle shop. In early November, three of your products look like this. The last column assumes December is twice as busy as a normal week:

Twice as busy is only an example. Your own orders from last December show how much busier your shop really gets. If this is your first holiday season, plan for more than a normal month and check again each week.

Step 3: Ask your supplier one question

Send your supplier a short message: "What's the last day I can order and still get stock before Christmas, and how long is delivery taking right now?" While you're at it, ask whether they close for a few days over the holidays.

Then compare. If a product will run out before a new order could arrive, it needs reordering now. In the candle shop, the pine soap lasts about a week at December pace. If the supplier needs two weeks, it's already running late, so it goes on today's order. The gift box lasts four to five weeks, so it can wait for next week's check.

Step 4: Reorder only what you'll sell

It's tempting to order big for the holidays. Every unit that doesn't sell is your money sitting on a shelf, though, and in January it often sells at a discount, if it sells at all.

A simple rule: order enough to last until the delivery after this one, plus a small cushion for a busy week.

In the candle shop, the cinnamon candle sells about 30 a week at December pace. If you can get another delivery in four weeks, you need about 120 candles, plus 30 as a one-week cushion. You have 60, so order about 90.

For slow sellers, skip the reorder unless you're about to run out completely. You can add them to the January order. If you'd like to size the cushion more carefully, our safety stock guide shows a few ways.

How can you save money on the order?

A few small habits keep more cash in your pocket:

• Order together. Put everything from the same supplier into one order. Many suppliers deliver for free above a set amount, so check how close you are before you send it.
• Ask for a better price on bigger orders, but only for products you know will sell. A discount on something that sits on a shelf doesn't save you anything.
• Ask about paying later. If your supplier lets you pay in 30 days, you can sell some of the stock before the bill is due.
• Check the price against last time. If it went up, ask why, or compare with another supplier before you order.
• Spend on best sellers first. If cash is tight, put it into the products that sell fastest and turn back into money soonest.

Step 5: Get a heads-up before something runs out

Pick a "reorder at" number for each best seller: the stock level where you'd still have time to get more. For the pine soap, that might be 15. When stock drops to that number, it's time to order.

You can check by hand every Monday, or let an app watch it and email you. Either way, set it up before Black Friday, when you'll be too busy to look. Our guide to low stock alerts has more on picking the number.

What if something sells out anyway?

It can happen even with good planning. A few friendly ways to keep the sale:

• Mark it as sold out, so you never sell something you can't send.
• Point shoppers to a similar product on the product page.
• Offer a gift card to gift buyers who need something today.
• Collect emails for a back-in-stock note, and give an honest date.

How EZstock helps, and what's free

EZstock is a Shopify app that does this check for you every day. The free plan includes:

• A low-stock dashboard that shows which products need reordering
• A daily low-stock email, once you switch it on in Settings
• Up to 5 purchase orders a month, saved as PDFs for your supplier
• Unlimited suppliers and products

Add each supplier's free-delivery minimum, and when you build an order EZstock tells you how much more to add for free delivery, so you can top up the order instead of paying for shipping.

Every new store gets all features free for 14 days. On the Growth plan ($49 a month), EZstock also works out how many days each product will last and how much to reorder, from your own sales.