You have a beautiful website that you have spent hours creating. A logo that has gone through four iterations, and you finally landed on 'the one.' Your engagement is scheduled (most of the time). I am glad that you have those things accomplished, but those activities/actions are not directly tied to a sale.
Running Father's Day items two days before the holiday :( because you got distracted by the previously mentioned items or life itself that happens, does not help drive sales. Or maybe you stocked up on screen prints because you "just knew" everyone would love them. Now you are trying to sell two days after the holiday, but no one is biting in the destash groups.
Product curation and organizing your product drops timely are critical for your business to be profitable. Focus on putting the right product, at the right time, in front of the right audience, before getting distracted by all of the "fun" aspects of running your business.
Organizing your product drops can be made possible by following 6-Ps: Plan, Pick, Prep, Present, Purge and Produce.
Plan
Look at the calendar for upcoming holidays/seasons for the rest of the year and note when you want to start running these items. Then, plan out when you want to end this run. While you're at it, please do me a favor and go ahead and plan out your vacation time. Make a note of the holidays/seasons you will be unavailable. Then, decide if you want to skip that theme or make plans to shift to accommodate sooner or later.
Pick
Whether running bleached tees, using screen prints, or creating a tumbler, you need to pick out the designs you plan to run. If you are using a screen printer, check their stock or be familiar with their restock policy before running. If you are printing/cutting your own designs, save the svgs/pngs to your computer in a dated folder.
Prep
Time to knock out those mock-ups. Add your watermark to the mock-up to protect the vendor and digital designer's work. You do not need to purchase designs ahead of making a sale. The mock-ups will be what you use to show what is available. You can choose to offer as is (color shown) or provide a color chart with their available options. Schedule these mock-ups, so you are not scrambling throughout the week. If you have a website, add them to your site.
Present
As your products are dropped, be very attentive to your audience. Do they have questions? Are they confused about how to order? Do they have any similar requests? Fortunately, you planned out your drops ahead of time, so we know these themes will be timely!
Purge
Before the season ends, let's purge those leftover screen prints in a destash group. If you have premade items that didn't entirely sell, let's mark them down slightly and get them sold! You do not want to be left with the unnecessary inventory at the end of the year. Inventory with the IRS means products/materials that haven't been sold. Read more about the confusion with inventory here. Turn your inventory into COGS (Cost of Goods Sold) 🥳 by getting it off your books.
Produce
It's time to make that order! Ship to your customer within your TAT. Timely shipment will allow it to arrive in time for the customer to enjoy their item for the season.
So what
After reading, you may feel more aware of the importance of planning your product drops ahead of time. Running your small business should not feel like a constant game of catch-up. If you are still unsure where to start, I created a product for you!
2024 Product Drop Organizer
This Google Sheet is loaded with over 100 vendors for different categories of items with their Facebook groups and websites all in one place. I have laid out 2024 for you to see at a glance what themes you should be running. In addition, there are reminders of when to put your themes on sale and destash in enough time.
Want to take it a step further? Check out the monthly tabs listed with daily, weekly, and monthly observances to plan your product drops.
We don't have a business if we don't have the right thing to sell, to the right audience, at the right time. Let's fix that <3