Latest / The Resilient Retail Game Plan - retail insights, retail trends and best practices / Get more sales with less stock!

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Get more sales with less stock! · The Resilient Retail Game Plan - retail insights, retail trends and best practices

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  If you've ever looked at your bank account and thought, where has all
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  my money gone? Or stared at your stock and wondered how you're going to get
• 0:08
  it under control, then this episode is for you.
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  I'm pulling back the curtain on what actually happens in a stock doctor
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  audit and how it helps you go from guessing and stressing
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  to feeling calm, clear and in control again.
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  Welcome to the Resilient Retail Game Plan. I'm Catherine Edley and in the
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  next few minutes you're about to get powerful real world retail strategies
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  from insights shared both of my guests and myself, backed up by
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  my 25 years in the retail industry. Keep listening to learn how
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  to grow a thriving, profitable product business. Let's jump
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  in with this latest episode. A little bit of background if you
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  like. What is Stockdoctor? So Stockdoctor is my done for you
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  service where I work with a very carefully hand selected
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  group of people who've got similar experience to me. In other words,
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  they have got decades and decades of experience in big
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  retailers and I work with them to
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  deliver a service to retailers which is a done for you
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  service. So it could be retailers, could be ecom brands.
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  And it is basically about a stock doctor is
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  somebody who comes into your business who takes a look at your sales and stock
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  and gives you direction on what to do next. And the way it's
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  different from what else I offer is, is that as I mentioned, it's
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  a done for you service, which means that it's great for people who
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  are time poor, which is, let's face it, a lot of us
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  in particular a lot of our Stockdoctor clients are bricks and mortar stores. It
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  works just as well if you're E commerce.
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  The thinking behind Stockdoctor was that I have
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  my membership group and my course for people who are
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  maybe working towards the fat limit or getting more established in their business.
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  And I also have Retail by Design, which is my mastermind program
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  for people who are established over six figures,
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  ambitious product business owners who want to do more.
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  And then what I felt was that there were a group of people
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  that what they really just needed was someone to come in and tell them what
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  to do with their stock. And my original thought was to create
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  another group course, but I realized quickly that a
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  lot of the people that I spoke to, I did quite a lot of research
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  in 2024. I did all this research
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  and what I determined was that the people who really needed the help just frankly
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  didn't have the time. And so that's where the idea of a Done for you.
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  Service came up. Now, there are apps that you can
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  get. There are ways that I myself teach in
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  terms of managing your stock. In fact, my book Tame youe Tiger, which
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  is a really great place to start if you want to know more about stock
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  management. I felt that I had created all of the
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  ways that I could help in terms of giving information. And
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  as I said, there are apps where you can pull data out and have a
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  look at what it's telling you. But what I felt was really missing for a
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  lot of people was they just needed somebody who is an expert in this
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  sort of thing to come along and tell them what they needed to do.
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  Because for a lot of people who have created product businesses,
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  their real strength is the creativity. And of course,
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  many people are very competent in numbers as well. But lots of people would also
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  say it's not their most favorite thing to do and as a result, it
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  would either get pushed down to the bottom of the list because let's face it,
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  we all cherry pick the things that we want to do the most when we've
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  got limited time. What I also found was that it was just taking them a
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  really long time to sit down and they also still didn't know what to do
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  with the information that they had. So lack of information is not the
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  problem. Most business owners have access to
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  hundreds and hundreds of reports. And so I wanted to create with Stock
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  Doctor a service where someone who knew what they were looking for could
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  come in, take a look at your business, and very quickly give you
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  actionable direction. So what do I need to do? Where is
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  my stock stuck? How much stock should I have? How much should I be buying?
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  And basically to be able to really
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  just get the answers that they needed and then move on with their day. So
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  not giving you a long list of to do's, but all of the things that
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  you have to do anyway, like ordering more stock or coming up with promotional
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  ideas for your business. You are able to do it with a very specific
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  list that you've been given of actions and so therefore
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  you know that you're going in the right direction. So that's the thought process behind
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  Stock Doctor And I have to say I'm delighted that it
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  has been really successful. We launched it with a beta test
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  in 2024. I've been slowly, slowly talking
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  about it more in 2025. We've had lots of
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  clients going through now and having some great, great results. We
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  did a big piece of analysis earlier in the autumn
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  to have a look at what the impact has
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  been for these people to do Stockdoctor. And what we found was after
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  six months they were seeing on average
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  10% more sales compared to a baseline with 10%
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  less stock. So 10% more sales, 10% less stock on
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  average. That was the average result, not even the most
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  impressive result. And as a result
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  of more sales less stock, we actually were able to attribute
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  an additional 5,000 pounds of profit
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  to their per 100,000 pounds of revenue after
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  the cost of the program. So it has been absolutely
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  fabulous and fantastic for business owners. And they've been able to
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  really reduce their stockholding, which not only frees up space,
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  but it also helps with things like for example, one of the
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  clients who got a big tax rebate because one of the crazy
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  things about stock is that it can show as profit on your
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  profit and loss. So they were actually taxed less because they
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  were showing less stock, which not only made their bank balance look better,
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  but also meant that they had a lower tax bill. So the impact of
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  stockdoctor has been phenomenal. And it's a program that I'm really very
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  proud of. And another change that we made this year
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  was that we originally had it that you signed up for six
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  months support first off up front.
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  And I do believe that six months of support is the very best way to
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  get the support and the transformation that you're looking for.
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  However, we also introduced the option to
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  start off with an audit.
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  So the stock doctor audit, it's a really fabulous offer, the
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  stock doctor audit. It allows you to get a really great
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  understanding from your stock doctor on where your business
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  is at, what your plan should be put together, a plan going forward,
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  and then also understand what actions you need to take.
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  And it's a one off piece of work. You can book an audit. If you
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  want to find out more about any of this, by the way, go to resilientretailclub.com
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  stockdoctor so you can sign up, you can have the one time
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  session, you can have the audit, you can get all of the learnings from that.
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  And then if that's enough for you to keep going, then you can go
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  on your merry way with all of this information that you've gathered. However, you
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  can then also transition on to the monthly,
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  the monthly support, which is in my opinion, the
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  absolute cherry on top. And it works so well because then going
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  forward you get that update from your stock doctor on a monthly
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  basis. So let me tell you a little bit about the audit because if there's
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  one thing that I know about working with hundreds and hundreds of
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  small business owners over the last eight years is that people have a
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  lot of fear and a lot of inner embarrassment, to
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  be completely honest, about people seeing their numbers. And it's
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  something that I think is a real shame because I think it's a real shame
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  people have a barrier to getting help with their business.
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  But I also totally get it. It's like when
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  somebody comes into your kitchen unexpectedly and you think, oh my
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  goodness, is it tidy? Have I done the washing up? And I
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  think a lot of people feel like that about their businesses. They think, oh my
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  goodness, don't, don't judge me. I think probably one of the phrases I hear the
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  most from people is just don't judge me. And I'm here to say
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  that we absolutely, 100% do not judge you.
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  So everybody who works with me in stockdoctor, as I said, they come from a
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  similar background to me. Some of them I worked with during my
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  corporate life. And it's brilliant to be able to work with them again in
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  this small business owner life. And they
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  are all united by a passion for small businesses. They absolutely
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  love working with small retailers. And they've got that
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  amazing combination of backgrounds from people like Clark Shoes,
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  Anthropologie, Ganny, to name just a few.
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  They seem behind the scenes of the big guys, but what they're really excited about
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  is working with small guys. But they also understand the challenges of small
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  business, the reality of it. And nobody is going
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  to judge you. That is the number one rule of Stockdoctor is that it
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  is a judgment free zone. So the first thing you
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  do for a stock doctor audit is you would
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  meet with your stock doctor and it's usually somewhere between
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  45 minutes to an hour. And it's an
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  opportunity for the stock doctor to go through a whole series of
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  questions to understand more about you and your business.
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  So the stock doctor will be looking for information about a few different things.
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  They'll want to know what your business does, how you
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  sell, where you sell, how you market the business. They want to know how
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  you get your products. Is it from, are they manufactured for you?
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  Are they ones that you buy in? What kind of lead times do you have,
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  what kind of minimum order quantities are we talking about? And how
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  do you, as the business owner, break down the business?
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  And what I mean by that is, is if you are a
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  lifestyle store, how do you break down your products? Do you think
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  about them as, say, home fragrance and fashion
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  and jewelry and kids, or do you break
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  them up in a different way? And that's going to become important a little bit,
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  and I'll explain why. So this first kickoff call is so you
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  get to know them. You are as much as possible
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  assigned the same stock doctor throughout the process. So the person that you meet for
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  your audit will become the person that works with you on a monthly basis.
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  So you get to know somebody and they important, more importantly, get to know your
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  business. So they'll want to know those, those types of
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  questions about the business, about, as I said, about the stock,
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  about the suppliers, about what's working for
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  you, what questions you might have. One of the key things that we determine in
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  this first session is just really, why have you come? Why now? Why have you
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  come? What's important to you, what would be really helpful. And it's also an
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  opportunity to ask questions and also find out. Some people, for example,
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  book an audit and what they want is they want the external view, but they
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  also would like to know a little bit more about how stock management
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  works in general. So they will share what it is that
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  they want to get out of this process
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  during this time as well. It's also an opportunity for the stock doctor to
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  make sure they could get access to your back end. So I'll be completely
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  honest. The majority of people that we work with are on Shopify.
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  So Shopify, we have a partners account, which means that we
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  can access just the analytics. That's the only thing we access in Shopify,
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  we get access to it and then we are able
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  to get in and to look at your numbers and look at your data.
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  And that's a big part of what we do during the audit. If you're not
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  on Shopify, we have used people
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  who are, for example, On
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  Squarespace, on WordPress, we have looked at
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  lot. On Square, we've looked at lots of different backends. So we are
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  familiar with them. But I would say most people are on
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  Shopify now. The only time it doesn't work to do a Shopify
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  stockdoctor audit is if you don't have any physical
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  records of your stock. So, for example, sometimes people
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  will contact me and they'll say, I really want to get my stock under control,
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  but I don't actually have any record of it.
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  That is difficult. So you do need some kind of data, even
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  if it's a spreadsheet. I have worked with people, for example, who've got spreadsheets where
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  they record everything, and that is, that's
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  workable. But ultimately you do need to have a point of sale system of some
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  description but other than that,
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  as I said, we can work with most systems. So once
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  we've got access, then what the stock doctor does
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  is they go away and they work their magic. Usually
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  we set a date for a follow up session and that's usually
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  within sort of eight to 10 days to give the stock doctor time to
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  really dig into the business. And what they're looking at
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  is a few different things. The first thing that they're going to do is pull
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  together sales history. So they're going to start pulling the sales that
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  you've taken historically, looking at the seasonal patterns,
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  looking at the different sales channels. So for example, if you have different
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  sales channels, they may also either get access to those systems.
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  For example, if you've got wholesale numbers, then
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  they may either. Well, actually usually they may just ask you to send them that
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  information, but they'll start putting together a picture of the business across
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  all of the sales channels so that we put that into our
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  sales channel, our sales forecast, which
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  allows us to look back and then also to set goals going forward, which becomes
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  really important. From that they are also able to create a
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  stock plan. So one of the questions I often get asked
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  is how much stock should I have? And that is one of the questions that
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  people often want to know the answer to when they have the audit. And the
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  answer to that is always, well, it's related to your sales. So we work out
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  what your sales, what we would forecast for your sales, and therefore what your stock
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  plan would be. Then there is a
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  deeper piece of analysis that goes on, as I mentioned earlier, how you break
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  down your business. So let's go back to this idea of being a lifestyle store.
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  And you've got home, you've got fashion, you have got
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  jewelry, and you have got kids. So
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  that is how you think about the business or the, the kind of
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  departments, if you like, the different departments. And I would say
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  ideally what you want is probably around six to eight departments
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  in your business that you can then look at and then understand how they are
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  doing. So within that, the stock doctor is then going to go in
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  and take a look at your data and basically see. And a big piece of
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  the work, to be honest, for the audit is actually working with your data
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  and getting it cleaned up. So
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  basically having a way of analyzing all of
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  your stock, but looking at those patterns, looking at those bigger blocks, looking at those
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  departments as opposed to looking at just individual items.
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  So the stock doctor goes in, does all of that work in the back end?
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  But sometimes it's easy to actually update it
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  in Shopify or to give you the option to update it yourself.
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  Otherwise it would be a question of us downloading that data and crunching it in
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  the background. But essentially what you end up with is an
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  overview of the big building blocks for the business, what is
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  working, what is not working within that. They are then able to dig in
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  and start talking about the bigger blocks of the
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  business where perhaps there is stock stuck, things that you need
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  to hone in on, things that you need to understand better so that you can
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  move on and buy correctly. So
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  that's a big piece of what they do. And then they're also going to be
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  digging into that and analyzing what are your best sellers, which
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  suppliers are your best suppliers, which price points are working really
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  well for you. How has that shifted across the year? How is that varied
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  to last year? And it's really brilliant at
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  uncovering where there may just be issues that you simply weren't
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  aware of. For example, we had one customer
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  who they looked at this and they discovered that their
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  kitchenware had really increased in the stock on the last year,
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  but the sales hadn't increased. Therefore they were able to have a look
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  at the shop floor, rearrange it, pull that forward and start pushing that stock.
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  So they got more out of it. It's not necessarily saying, oh, you've got too
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  much of this, discount it all. In fact, all of the stock
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  doctors are very much focused on full price sales where possible,
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  but they will give you direction on where you could do targeted discounts that
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  are not brand damaging, that will enable you to clear through stock that
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  is otherwise stuck.
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  So then what they do is after they've spent all of this time digging into
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  the back end, they're using their years and years and years of industry knowledge
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  in big retailers to look at your business with one
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  goal in mind, which is how do you make your stock stock work harder and
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  how do you put together a really strong sales plan?
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  And so they will then present back to you and you will
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  have another session with them where you are getting the feedback of
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  the plan, you are getting walks through your numbers and also
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  you are getting the handed back to you the sales and stock plan
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  so you know what you need to be aiming for in terms of sales going
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  forward and what your stock should be as well as a whole list of
• 17:29
  recommendations of things that you should do to either buy more into areas
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  that are working or to clear through stock that isn't working. We
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  also have people who are very familiar with fashion, which
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  is has an extra level of Complexity because you have to work with
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  for example, seasonality and making sure you're not left
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  with too much dead stock at the end of a season. And
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  people who between the stock doctors, they cover all kinds of different
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  product areas and are used to working with both bricks and
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  mortar. So many of them will have worked with the big chains of bricks and
• 18:03
  mortar stores, but then also online and understanding the
• 18:07
  challenges of online as well. So you get given back to you
• 18:10
  the plan of how much you should buy and how much
• 18:14
  and when you should buy it, what you should be aiming for. You get a
• 18:17
  whole list of recommendations and then you also get a really good
• 18:20
  understanding of where you may have stock that is stuck
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  and where you may have the opportunity to do more with the stock that you
• 18:28
  do have. So it is really fabulous. It's very practical. You'll also
• 18:31
  get a written up email after the session so that you know exactly what you
• 18:35
  need to do. You don't even have to take notes if you don't want to.
• 18:38
  You can come along, listen and take, take in the
• 18:41
  information. And essentially an expert has looked at it and has said
• 18:45
  to you, this is where you're at, this is what you need to do. And
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  as I said then we have lots of people who will continue on to do
• 18:52
  the month to month support. And that is brilliant because
• 18:55
  effectively each month the stock doctor goes in, they update the
• 18:59
  data. So if you've got a sales plan, they'll say how much you actually took,
• 19:02
  they'll make any adjustments that are needed. So having a look at for
• 19:06
  example, you've really overperformed. Well then you'll need to buy more.
• 19:10
  Having a look at the different categories, how they're doing and what you might
• 19:14
  need to do. You are just there to listen to have it
• 19:17
  presented to you and then to go away knowing exactly what you need to
• 19:21
  do with your stock. So it's a service
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  I feel really passionate about. I was absolutely delighted to see the impact that
• 19:28
  it has on retailers and the people
• 19:32
  that who have been doing it for the six months and longer we have. Lots
• 19:36
  of people renew because they get used to running their business this way. Then
• 19:40
  they are seeing really great results being able to grow sales
• 19:44
  and also reduce stock. So boost that profitability, boost
• 19:48
  your cash flow, have more money in your account which is at the end of
• 19:51
  the day what it is all about. So if you want to know more about
• 19:55
  stock doctor audits, it is a perfect thing to do at this time of year.
• 19:59
  I know we're heading towards Christmas, but when better to have somebody take a
• 20:02
  look at your stock and tell you whether or not it's in the right place,
• 20:06
  what adjustments you could make. The great thing about Christmas sales is
• 20:10
  that if you do have chunks of stock that are sitting there,
• 20:13
  this is the great time of year to actually move them. And so
• 20:17
  there's so much you can do at this time of year. I would highly, highly
• 20:20
  recommend it. As I said, head over to Ms. Elite retail
• 20:23
  club.com.d the next step essentially is to have a call with me to
• 20:27
  check that it's the right fit for you. And I will always be completely honest.
• 20:31
  If it's not the right fit, I will let you know. And we get you
• 20:35
  matched up with the Stock doctor, we get your first call booked in and then
• 20:38
  we start the ball rolling. So before you know it, you can have a
• 20:42
  clear plan of sales and stock as well as a great list of actions
• 20:46
  that you need to take. It is not something that you have to do, somebody
• 20:49
  else is doing it for you. And you're getting not just great expertise but
• 20:53
  like really, really in depth industry expertise. We're talking
• 20:57
  about people who were running whole merchandising departments,
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  senior, senior merchandisers, so amazing industry knowledge which
• 21:04
  they're going to be able to apply and give you the insight into
• 21:08
  your business. And as I said, this is non judgmental. This is
• 21:12
  absolutely something that is here to support you. So
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  they totally get the reality of running a small business. And it's the brilliant
• 21:19
  opportunity to really combine the big business expertise
• 21:23
  with cheering on and supporting small businesses to be more
• 21:27
  resilient. Because let's face it, what makes you more resilient, that's having more cash
• 21:30
  in the bank and having a really clear idea of what you need to do
• 21:33
  to drive sales and to get your stock under control.
• 21:37
  Thank you so much for listening. If you've got any questions about Stock Doctor, if
• 21:41
  you just want to know if it might be right for you before you even
• 21:43
  book a call, then you can always drop me an email or a DM on
• 21:46
  Instagram. Resilient Retail Club. And if you want to hear an interview with
• 21:49
  a previous stock doctor client, then check out episode 237 of the
• 21:53
  podcast where we interview Victoria from Ready Money Beach Shop. You
• 21:57
  can also hear an interview with one of our stock doctors, Paola, in
• 22:01
  episode number 240 of the podcast. Don't forget to
• 22:05
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• 22:08
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