More sales with less stock transcript

Catherine Edley [00:00:00]:
If you’ve ever looked at your bank account and thought, where has all my money gone? Or stared at your stock and wondered how you’re going to get it under control, then this episode is for you. I’m pulling back the curtain on what actually happens in a stock doctor audit and how it helps you go from guessing and stressing to feeling calm, clear and in control again. Welcome to the Resilient Retail Game Plan. I’m Catherine Edley and in the next few minutes you’re about to get powerful real world retail strategies from insights shared both of my guests and myself, backed up by my 25 years in the retail industry. Keep listening to learn how to grow a thriving, profitable product business. Let’s jump in with this latest episode. A little bit of background if you like. What is Stockdoctor? So Stockdoctor is my done for you service where I work with a very carefully hand selected group of people who’ve got similar experience to me.

Catherine Edley [00:00:56]:
In other words, they have got decades and decades of experience in big retailers and I work with them to deliver a service to retailers which is a done for you service. So it could be retailers, could be ecom brands. And it is basically about a stock doctor is somebody who comes into your business who takes a look at your sales and stock and gives you direction on what to do next. And the way it’s different from what else I offer is, is that as I mentioned, it’s a done for you service, which means that it’s great for people who are time poor, which is, let’s face it, a lot of us in particular a lot of our Stockdoctor clients are bricks and mortar stores. It works just as well if you’re E commerce. The thinking behind Stockdoctor was that I have my membership group and my course for people who are maybe working towards the fat limit or getting more established in their business. And I also have Retail by Design, which is my mastermind program for people who are established over six figures, ambitious product business owners who want to do more. And then what I felt was that there were a group of people that what they really just needed was someone to come in and tell them what to do with their stock.

Catherine Edley [00:02:14]:
And my original thought was to create another group course, but I realized quickly that a lot of the people that I spoke to, I did quite a lot of research in 2024. I did all this research and what I determined was that the people who really needed the help just frankly didn’t have the time. And so that’s where the idea of a Done for you. Service came up. Now, there are apps that you can get. There are ways that I myself teach in terms of managing your stock. In fact, my book Tame youe Tiger, which is a really great place to start if you want to know more about stock management. I felt that I had created all of the ways that I could help in terms of giving information.

Catherine Edley [00:02:55]:
And as I said, there are apps where you can pull data out and have a look at what it’s telling you. But what I felt was really missing for a lot of people was they just needed somebody who is an expert in this sort of thing to come along and tell them what they needed to do. Because for a lot of people who have created product businesses, their real strength is the creativity. And of course, many people are very competent in numbers as well. But lots of people would also say it’s not their most favorite thing to do and as a result, it would either get pushed down to the bottom of the list because let’s face it, we all cherry pick the things that we want to do the most when we’ve got limited time. What I also found was that it was just taking them a really long time to sit down and they also still didn’t know what to do with the information that they had. So lack of information is not the problem. Most business owners have access to hundreds and hundreds of reports.

Catherine Edley [00:03:49]:
And so I wanted to create with Stock Doctor a service where someone who knew what they were looking for could come in, take a look at your business, and very quickly give you actionable direction. So what do I need to do? Where is my stock stuck? How much stock should I have? How much should I be buying? And basically to be able to really just get the answers that they needed and then move on with their day. So not giving you a long list of to do’s, but all of the things that you have to do anyway, like ordering more stock or coming up with promotional ideas for your business. You are able to do it with a very specific list that you’ve been given of actions and so therefore you know that you’re going in the right direction. So that’s the thought process behind Stock Doctor And I have to say I’m delighted that it has been really successful. We launched it with a beta test in 2024. I’ve been slowly, slowly talking about it more in 2025. We’ve had lots of clients going through now and having some great, great results.

Catherine Edley [00:04:52]:
We did a big piece of analysis earlier in the autumn to have a look at what the impact has been for these people to do Stockdoctor. And what we found was after six months they were seeing on average 10% more sales compared to a baseline with 10% less stock. So 10% more sales, 10% less stock on average. That was the average result, not even the most impressive result. And as a result of more sales less stock, we actually were able to attribute an additional 5,000 pounds of profit to their per 100,000 pounds of revenue after the cost of the program. So it has been absolutely fabulous and fantastic for business owners. And they’ve been able to really reduce their stockholding, which not only frees up space, but it also helps with things like for example, one of the clients who got a big tax rebate because one of the crazy things about stock is that it can show as profit on your profit and loss. So they were actually taxed less because they were showing less stock, which not only made their bank balance look better, but also meant that they had a lower tax bill.

Catherine Edley [00:06:06]:
So the impact of stockdoctor has been phenomenal. And it’s a program that I’m really very proud of. And another change that we made this year was that we originally had it that you signed up for six months support first off up front. And I do believe that six months of support is the very best way to get the support and the transformation that you’re looking for. However, we also introduced the option to start off with an audit. So the stock doctor audit, it’s a really fabulous offer, the stock doctor audit. It allows you to get a really great understanding from your stock doctor on where your business is at, what your plan should be put together, a plan going forward, and then also understand what actions you need to take. And it’s a one off piece of work.

Catherine Edley [00:06:59]:
You can book an audit. If you want to find out more about any of this, by the way, go to resilientretailclub.com stockdoctor so you can sign up, you can have the one time session, you can have the audit, you can get all of the learnings from that. And then if that’s enough for you to keep going, then you can go on your merry way with all of this information that you’ve gathered. However, you can then also transition on to the monthly, the monthly support, which is in my opinion, the absolute cherry on top. And it works so well because then going forward you get that update from your stock doctor on a monthly basis. So let me tell you a little bit about the audit because if there’s one thing that I know about working with hundreds and hundreds of small business owners over the last eight years is that people have a lot of fear and a lot of inner embarrassment, to be completely honest, about people seeing their numbers. And it’s something that I think is a real shame because I think it’s a real shame people have a barrier to getting help with their business. But I also totally get it.

Catherine Edley [00:08:02]:
It’s like when somebody comes into your kitchen unexpectedly and you think, oh my goodness, is it tidy? Have I done the washing up? And I think a lot of people feel like that about their businesses. They think, oh my goodness, don’t, don’t judge me. I think probably one of the phrases I hear the most from people is just don’t judge me. And I’m here to say that we absolutely, 100% do not judge you. So everybody who works with me in stockdoctor, as I said, they come from a similar background to me. Some of them I worked with during my corporate life. And it’s brilliant to be able to work with them again in this small business owner life. And they are all united by a passion for small businesses.

Catherine Edley [00:08:43]:
They absolutely love working with small retailers. And they’ve got that amazing combination of backgrounds from people like Clark Shoes, Anthropologie, Ganny, to name just a few. They seem behind the scenes of the big guys, but what they’re really excited about is working with small guys. But they also understand the challenges of small business, the reality of it. And nobody is going to judge you. That is the number one rule of Stockdoctor is that it is a judgment free zone. So the first thing you do for a stock doctor audit is you would meet with your stock doctor and it’s usually somewhere between 45 minutes to an hour. And it’s an opportunity for the stock doctor to go through a whole series of questions to understand more about you and your business.

Catherine Edley [00:09:31]:
So the stock doctor will be looking for information about a few different things. They’ll want to know what your business does, how you sell, where you sell, how you market the business. They want to know how you get your products. Is it from, are they manufactured for you? Are they ones that you buy in? What kind of lead times do you have, what kind of minimum order quantities are we talking about? And how do you, as the business owner, break down the business? And what I mean by that is, is if you are a lifestyle store, how do you break down your products? Do you think about them as, say, home fragrance and fashion and jewelry and kids, or do you break them up in a different way? And that’s going to become important a little bit, and I’ll explain why. So this first kickoff call is so you get to know them. You are as much as possible assigned the same stock doctor throughout the process. So the person that you meet for your audit will become the person that works with you on a monthly basis. So you get to know somebody and they important, more importantly, get to know your business.

Catherine Edley [00:10:34]:
So they’ll want to know those, those types of questions about the business, about, as I said, about the stock, about the suppliers, about what’s working for you, what questions you might have. One of the key things that we determine in this first session is just really, why have you come? Why now? Why have you come? What’s important to you, what would be really helpful. And it’s also an opportunity to ask questions and also find out. Some people, for example, book an audit and what they want is they want the external view, but they also would like to know a little bit more about how stock management works in general. So they will share what it is that they want to get out of this process during this time as well. It’s also an opportunity for the stock doctor to make sure they could get access to your back end. So I’ll be completely honest. The majority of people that we work with are on Shopify.

Catherine Edley [00:11:26]:
So Shopify, we have a partners account, which means that we can access just the analytics. That’s the only thing we access in Shopify, we get access to it and then we are able to get in and to look at your numbers and look at your data. And that’s a big part of what we do during the audit. If you’re not on Shopify, we have used people who are, for example, On Squarespace, on WordPress, we have looked at lot. On Square, we’ve looked at lots of different backends. So we are familiar with them. But I would say most people are on Shopify now. The only time it doesn’t work to do a Shopify stockdoctor audit is if you don’t have any physical records of your stock.

Catherine Edley [00:12:12]:
So, for example, sometimes people will contact me and they’ll say, I really want to get my stock under control, but I don’t actually have any record of it. That is difficult. So you do need some kind of data, even if it’s a spreadsheet. I have worked with people, for example, who’ve got spreadsheets where they record everything, and that is, that’s workable. But ultimately you do need to have a point of sale system of some description but other than that, as I said, we can work with most systems. So once we’ve got access, then what the stock doctor does is they go away and they work their magic. Usually we set a date for a follow up session and that’s usually within sort of eight to 10 days to give the stock doctor time to really dig into the business. And what they’re looking at is a few different things.

Catherine Edley [00:13:05]:
The first thing that they’re going to do is pull together sales history. So they’re going to start pulling the sales that you’ve taken historically, looking at the seasonal patterns, looking at the different sales channels. So for example, if you have different sales channels, they may also either get access to those systems. For example, if you’ve got wholesale numbers, then they may either. Well, actually usually they may just ask you to send them that information, but they’ll start putting together a picture of the business across all of the sales channels so that we put that into our sales channel, our sales forecast, which allows us to look back and then also to set goals going forward, which becomes really important. From that they are also able to create a stock plan. So one of the questions I often get asked is how much stock should I have? And that is one of the questions that people often want to know the answer to when they have the audit. And the answer to that is always, well, it’s related to your sales.

Catherine Edley [00:14:01]:
So we work out what your sales, what we would forecast for your sales, and therefore what your stock plan would be. Then there is a deeper piece of analysis that goes on, as I mentioned earlier, how you break down your business. So let’s go back to this idea of being a lifestyle store. And you’ve got home, you’ve got fashion, you have got jewelry, and you have got kids. So that is how you think about the business or the, the kind of departments, if you like, the different departments. And I would say ideally what you want is probably around six to eight departments in your business that you can then look at and then understand how they are doing. So within that, the stock doctor is then going to go in and take a look at your data and basically see. And a big piece of the work, to be honest, for the audit is actually working with your data and getting it cleaned up.

Catherine Edley [00:14:52]:
So basically having a way of analyzing all of your stock, but looking at those patterns, looking at those bigger blocks, looking at those departments as opposed to looking at just individual items. So the stock doctor goes in, does all of that work in the back end? But sometimes it’s easy to actually update it in Shopify or to give you the option to update it yourself. Otherwise it would be a question of us downloading that data and crunching it in the background. But essentially what you end up with is an overview of the big building blocks for the business, what is working, what is not working within that. They are then able to dig in and start talking about the bigger blocks of the business where perhaps there is stock stuck, things that you need to hone in on, things that you need to understand better so that you can move on and buy correctly. So that’s a big piece of what they do. And then they’re also going to be digging into that and analyzing what are your best sellers, which suppliers are your best suppliers, which price points are working really well for you. How has that shifted across the year? How is that varied to last year? And it’s really brilliant at uncovering where there may just be issues that you simply weren’t aware of.

Catherine Edley [00:16:07]:
For example, we had one customer who they looked at this and they discovered that their kitchenware had really increased in the stock on the last year, but the sales hadn’t increased. Therefore they were able to have a look at the shop floor, rearrange it, pull that forward and start pushing that stock. So they got more out of it. It’s not necessarily saying, oh, you’ve got too much of this, discount it all. In fact, all of the stock doctors are very much focused on full price sales where possible, but they will give you direction on where you could do targeted discounts that are not brand damaging, that will enable you to clear through stock that is otherwise stuck. So then what they do is after they’ve spent all of this time digging into the back end, they’re using their years and years and years of industry knowledge in big retailers to look at your business with one goal in mind, which is how do you make your stock stock work harder and how do you put together a really strong sales plan? And so they will then present back to you and you will have another session with them where you are getting the feedback of the plan, you are getting walks through your numbers and also you are getting the handed back to you the sales and stock plan so you know what you need to be aiming for in terms of sales going forward and what your stock should be as well as a whole list of recommendations of things that you should do to either buy more into areas that are working or to clear through stock that isn’t working. We also have people who are very familiar with fashion, which is has an extra level of Complexity because you have to work with for example, seasonality and making sure you’re not left with too much dead stock at the end of a season. And people who between the stock doctors, they cover all kinds of different product areas and are used to working with both bricks and mortar.

Catherine Edley [00:18:00]:
So many of them will have worked with the big chains of bricks and mortar stores, but then also online and understanding the challenges of online as well. So you get given back to you the plan of how much you should buy and how much and when you should buy it, what you should be aiming for. You get a whole list of recommendations and then you also get a really good understanding of where you may have stock that is stuck and where you may have the opportunity to do more with the stock that you do have. So it is really fabulous. It’s very practical. You’ll also get a written up email after the session so that you know exactly what you need to do. You don’t even have to take notes if you don’t want to. You can come along, listen and take, take in the information.

Catherine Edley [00:18:42]:
And essentially an expert has looked at it and has said to you, this is where you’re at, this is what you need to do. And as I said then we have lots of people who will continue on to do the month to month support. And that is brilliant because effectively each month the stock doctor goes in, they update the data. So if you’ve got a sales plan, they’ll say how much you actually took, they’ll make any adjustments that are needed. So having a look at for example, you’ve really overperformed. Well then you’ll need to buy more. Having a look at the different categories, how they’re doing and what you might need to do. You are just there to listen to have it presented to you and then to go away knowing exactly what you need to do with your stock.

Catherine Edley [00:19:22]:
So it’s a service I feel really passionate about. I was absolutely delighted to see the impact that it has on retailers and the people that who have been doing it for the six months and longer we have. Lots of people renew because they get used to running their business this way. Then they are seeing really great results being able to grow sales and also reduce stock. So boost that profitability, boost your cash flow, have more money in your account which is at the end of the day what it is all about. So if you want to know more about stock doctor audits, it is a perfect thing to do at this time of year. I know we’re heading towards Christmas, but when better to have somebody take a look at your stock and tell you whether or not it’s in the right place, what adjustments you could make. The great thing about Christmas sales is that if you do have chunks of stock that are sitting there, this is the great time of year to actually move them.

Catherine Edley [00:20:16]:
And so there’s so much you can do at this time of year. I would highly, highly recommend it. As I said, head over to Ms. Elite retail club.com.d the next step essentially is to have a call with me to check that it’s the right fit for you. And I will always be completely honest. If it’s not the right fit, I will let you know. And we get you matched up with the Stock doctor, we get your first call booked in and then we start the ball rolling. So before you know it, you can have a clear plan of sales and stock as well as a great list of actions that you need to take.

Catherine Edley [00:20:47]:
It is not something that you have to do, somebody else is doing it for you. And you’re getting not just great expertise but like really, really in depth industry expertise. We’re talking about people who were running whole merchandising departments, senior, senior merchandisers, so amazing industry knowledge which they’re going to be able to apply and give you the insight into your business. And as I said, this is non judgmental. This is absolutely something that is here to support you. So they totally get the reality of running a small business. And it’s the brilliant opportunity to really combine the big business expertise with cheering on and supporting small businesses to be more resilient. Because let’s face it, what makes you more resilient, that’s having more cash in the bank and having a really clear idea of what you need to do to drive sales and to get your stock under control.

Catherine Edley [00:21:37]:
Thank you so much for listening. If you’ve got any questions about Stock Doctor, if you just want to know if it might be right for you before you even book a call, then you can always drop me an email or a DM on Instagram. Resilient Retail Club. And if you want to hear an interview with a previous stock doctor client, then check out episode 237 of the podcast where we interview Victoria from Ready Money Beach Shop. You can also hear an interview with one of our stock doctors, Paola, in episode number 240 of the podcast. Don’t forget to like, follow and subscribe the podcast and you’ll be the first to know about each new episode.