As we’ve covered in previous episodes, Christmas has all the potential to be the most profitable point of your financial year, but a lot of your sales success is dependent on how well prepared you are to meet the demands of your customers. From making sure you’ve secured enough of your bestsellers to avoiding creating a stockpile of those dreaded ‘brown bananas’, forecasting your sales and ordering stock can be a difficult and abstract task.

So, in episode 57 of The Resilient Retail Game Plan, I run through three vital questions you need to ask yourself before pulling the trigger on any new stock. We’ll look at your ‘hero products’ and the importance of building festive campaigns around your most giftable items; we’ll discuss thinking through your sales logically and getting into the habit of using purchase history and sensible predictions to aid in sales forecasting; as well as making some tough calls on whether it’s worse having too much stock or not enough when it comes to your collection of Christmas products.