Skeletons emerge from closets, vampires rise from coffins, and ghosts roam the streets as Halloween creeps up in Australia as this largely American tradition, which has turned into a worldwide phenomenon, continues to gain popularity down under. We see that participation has risen steadily each year as Halloween gains mainstream acceptance. What was once seen as an American novelty has been embraced by Australians, young and old.

For Halloween, retailers need to be exact in their ordering. This type of stock can be tough to get rid of after Halloween. This is one of those holidays that interest the public in brief.

New research shows Australians are more eager than ever to participate in Halloween festivities this year. Total spending is forecast to reach new heights.

Millions of Aussies Catching Halloween Spirit

A spook-tacular 5.3 million Australians now celebrate Halloween, according to data from the Australian Retailers Association and Roy Morgan here. According to it, an extra 300,000 people compared to the 5 million that dressed up, carved pumpkins and went trick-or-treating last year. I have little reason to doubt it, as it was pretty accurate the previous year.

Halloween Spending to Hit $490 Million

Australia's total spending on Halloween is predicted to reach $490 million in 2023.

That's a bone-chilling increase of 8.1% compared to last year.

So where is all this money going? Aussies are splurging on:

• Costumes - 49% of participants purchase a new costume, spending an average of $31 each
• Candy - 39% stock up on lollies and chocolates to hand out on Halloween night, driving over $100 million in supermarket confectionary sales
• Decorations - over one third (36%) decorate their homes with fake cobwebs, skeletons and jack-o-lanterns
• Parties & Events - bars, restaurants, cinemas and more cash in on Halloween's popularity by hosting themed events

Aussie Adults Lead Halloween Growth

While children in creepy costumes may come to mind when you think of Halloween, Australian adults are actually driving this trend.

Australians aged 35-49 years old are the most avid Halloween participants:

• 40% of this age group plan to celebrate Halloween
• That's up 3% from last year.
• It equates to 1 million 35-49-year-old Aussies enjoying Halloween this year - a 190,000 increase.

Parents are helping boost Halloween's popularity by allowing and encouraging their children to join in the celebrations. Mothers and fathers enter the spirit by dressing up and decorating homes.

Beyond parents, young adults without children are embracing Halloween, too. It's becoming a popular date night and a chance to show off creative costumes.

If you want to know the sort of stuff the public is interested in now for Halloween, you should look at costumes, witches' hats, Halloween makeup, masks like Frankenstein and ghosts are popular nowadays, and as always, Harry Potter stuff. One of the pluses of Harry Potter stuff is that it sells well after Halloween.

If you want a quick and instant way of finding out what stock sold in your shop in previous years on Halloween.

Go to Register reports.

Now pick "Top N Stock Sales for a Given Period."

In the form, put in the following dates: 25/10/22 to 31/10/22. A report will come out with what sold over that week. 

As time is running out, could you do it now?

Nowadays, we cannot do face to face meetings, so online webinars do all our training.

It does have some advantages, such as being convenient to attend, and participants who come can save a lot of time as there is no travelling. 

Anyway, here is the latest one for those that could not make it.

Click here for a webinar on Stock Controlling reporting from your point of sale software.
 

Today, we are struggling to cope with the impact of pandemics on our supply chain. It has become more than a severe inconvenience that is affecting profitability.

On top of the supply problems, many suppliers struggling with shortages are quietly increasing prices and substituting old formerly unsellable stock. So prices are going up everywhere except in official Treasury figures.

What happened to us lately is interesting. We ordered two items for around $ 18 unit price and with a shipping cost of $15. But what happened was we were charged the two shipping costs of $30 in one parcel. They never did that before.

You must be cautious otherwise, you will not notice the price increase or replacement.

Older legacy systems with inadequate stock tools cannot do this. Here's a valuable screen if you need to check

Stock maintenance> History tab> Price change

What it does is provide a product history for each barcode and price change over time.

It is worth studying as this screen will be invaluable for you over the next few months until we get over this supply crisis.

Recently one of my customers got fresh stock. They updated their prices to the new prices. Then they placed under the old shelf price the new stock. A customer appeared with the item and demanded that the shelf price be honoured. What my client did was observe the shelf price. It was a good customer, repeat business etc. Then they removed the shelf price. He did end the problem as the customer came back and wanted more at the old price.

This generated a discussion as happens when a retailer displays the same item at different prices.

This situation is common in retail. If you visit bargain sites, you will find many examples of pricing errors in stores. Often with comments that buyers need to grab the items before the retailer realises the mistake.

Now I am not a lawyer, but this is my understanding.

Most Australian consumer codes state that you must sell your product at a lower price or withdraw it from sale until the price can be corrected. Things will get murky if the product is advertised or you did not make a mistake.

If it is a mistake, you are not obligated to honour the lower price. This is because the sale is considered an offer. So before the deal is done, you must agree with the customer offer to buy. Thus you have the right to explain that you have made a pricing error and reject the customers' offer to buy the item.

What I have noticed is that some majors include in their terms lines like

We reserve the right to cancel an order that we have accepted at any time for any reason.

The best solution is to find the incorrect prices before the customer mentions them. In this, we can help. We have a quick and easy way to check stock prices for what you have on hand.
 
Go to reports. There is an option Quantity On Hand and Price check; click on that.

For this exercise, we exclude those items that we do not have in stock. If you are out of stock, there is no problem here. If you do not have accurate stock control, use the line below, stock activity from a selected date.

Now it generates a report that lists the details of your article, including margins.

See the margins are listed so you can now check your prices.

I'm sure you will find something. I know one of my clients who reviewed it told me that he found some bugs.

Many suppliers are starting to issue new price lists. It can be a lot of work to see if your inventory matches the latest price list.

So this is a simple way to do this:

Go to the report

Click Quantity on Hand and Price Check.

Exclude items that are out of stock in this exercise. If you do not have accurate inventory control, you should use the following rule, inventory activity from the selected date.

Then select the appropriate supplier.

You will see a report with items, costs, available quantities, and sales prices. Match it off.

Another example of how our POS Software saves you time.

If you look at major suppliers, you will see that they inevitably look at their sales over a few years by month. As such, they will compare sales last year with this year. So what you will get is monthly sales comparisons with this and the previous year. This is partly as most accountancy is monthly and yearly. But also because this gets over much of the problem of seasonal fluxations. In a typical year, it is expected that March last year, for example, sales, should be comparable to March this year.

What people in business generally know is what is happening now. What they are principally interested in is what will happen. So they will ask why last year in March, you sold X, and this year in March, you sold less. Any idea what is to find what is happening, because they want to know what has changed.

One common problem here is that your supplier generally knows what you ordered but not what you sold. So must have the sales figures if you wish to discuss on equal terms with the suppliers. Maybe you ordered more in March, not because of sales in March but because you sold out in February. With your POS Software, you can do this instantly.

How to do this:

Go to reports>Sales - Stock - "Stock Sales Details 24 Month Trend."

And avoid for now many of the extra details here. Let us keep it simple for this exercise.

Exclude inactive stock

Now I find it easier to work by department, so I usually select this, but you often need a supplier.

Now out pops the report above.

Now, look at the green arrows. You can see that the stock does sell about two a month and does not seem affected by the seasons. Its greatest sales are four a month, but can it justify the stock holding of 6 in red? It is about a two month supply. If the product can be ordered weekly, it is too much.

If that one is a bit tough to determine, look at the stock item, marked with a blue arrow. It sells like one every two months, but there are sixteen in stock, so we are looking at a three year supply.

What you will find, is that now having access to this information allows you to gain a clearer picture of inventory trends and seasonal patterns.

This gives you more insights into your stock sales.

This is a step by step discussion on how to investigate your stock for dead and slow-moving stock lines.

What often happens

If a department has many inventory rules, it is expected that 20% will be flagship products, 60% on average, and the rest slow to dead. Without action, 20% ​​of the flagship products get sold. These are often replaced by average products. Soon the department has fewer sellable products. The inventory fills with unsellable products. They take up the space, take up your capital, and, more do not attract customers.

Inventory Planning

This is where inventory planning comes in because you need the products that sell.

Now let's work on the greeting card. This is because there are so many products that cannot be controlled by gut and feel. As a result, consultants can demand thousands of dollars to do what your POS System can do for free using this method.

By the way, this is an actual example of what we did in a client's store.

We decided a baseline for a slow inventory line was one sale every four months. I agree if you think this is too low, but it was the initial decision because the problem was much bigger than expected.

So, go to Reports> Stock> Slow Stocklines. See above.

I would suggest as a first rule use two years, to give you a long-term perspective. So we put in less than six sales, and we had stock. 

We got a 16-page report which you will find interesting.

As you can see in the green, the total value of these items in stock at this store was almost $ 20,000. That $20,000 is useless for the business.

Let's take a look at the details.

See the red arrows. One item had one sale in two years. Twenty-four are still on the shelves now. The total value tied up here is $43.20. How long do you think it will take to sell these items at this rate? After two years, is it still marketable? Worth investigating, I think.

This is an example of how such inventory analysis can provide information to improve decision making. It can help reduce costs and improve sales.

Try it.