Discuss the process of getting your t-shirt line into brick and mortar stores and selling offline. Topics include industry tradeshows, events, line sheets, sales reps and other retailing tips and advice.
I am looking at some number crunching and was wondering if anyone here had any facts on when and how much stock do retailers buy. Same question goes for distributors.
I know for the most part they stock thier shelves a month or so before the season, and do alot of purchasing at the tradeshows. But I am sure they also buy smaller numbers from people who dont have booths and do standard mail marketing.
For the smaller stores, how many t-shirts from one brand do you think they sale in a week/month? Therefore telling me how many I should plan for.
Also, how many tshirts for one brand per week/month do the bigger stores sell?
I am guessing a small busy shop with good floor marketing could probably sell a few of your shirts a day, 10-20 a week. Maybe a bigger store can average 20-30 a week. Even 30-50. I am hoping with the right marketing I can sell 100-200 a month at the right stores.
What do distributors generally ask for? I know they carry a few different brands. Do they want all your stock at once, or do they present your line, pre-fill the orders, then come to you with a 5,000 shirt order, that they need in a month?
As a retailer we would carry numerous lanels, and not all labels or products from that same label will sell at the same pace. So you can't really plan on retailers selling your products at a certain amount per day, per week, or per month.
We would normally keep a certain amount on stock and a certain amount on backstock, and determine how fast a certain label or product is moving then see when and how much more we would order.
And if a label or product doesn't move fast enough, we would also consider dropping that label.
We would normally get a call from labels, and wholesalers from time to time to see how their products are moving and to see if we wanted to order more items. Of course they want us to order, but sometimes, the product just doesn't move.
When and how much stock do retailers buy? it depends on how much they sell. Over buying and having stock sit around is not good because the item increases its cost price because it takes up space.
Example:
The average smaller retailer needs to bring an average of at least $500 per day in sales. This equals an average of about 25 t-shirt sales per day.
In this sector, it would be about 100 shirts per month. So that would be the stock flow in-out fill per month. 100.
I guess a better question is, whats the average number of shirts a retailer sells?
You mention you keep a certain amount on stock, but what is that amount?
I know stores have racks and they keep them filled and at any one point I am sure they can say "We usually sell X many shirts of this design/brand a month"
100 shirts a month would be good #'s if they were all my shirts So I would assume a larger store, say in the mall with lots of walk in sales would probably sell a couple hundred, obviously t-shirts being thier main products...
A board shop would sell many shirts as well, being a main article of clothing of boarders... It would make sense to me that most of the floor is divided up equally for sales... pants cost almost 3 times as much, and they dont sell as many so pants would take up 1/3 less than the floor of tshirts...??? Something like that.
On that note, I notice most shops, retailers, have an abundance of tshirt racks as opposed to lets say pants or jackets, so I would assume they would be selling alot of tshirts, either that or they sit or more tshirts.
I guess a better question is, whats the average number of shirts a retailer sells?
Each store will have a quota for sales depending on their operating expenses. This will also depend on the type of products they sell. We typically do about $500 - $1000 a day, this will all be depedent on the items sold. Some items have a a higher price range than others. The shirts we sell range from $25 to almost $200.
Quote:
Originally Posted by amv101
You mention you keep a certain amount on stock, but what is that amount?
Typically we wold have at least 2-2-2, and would order as needed. As Christmas comes closer we would order more of the more popular items or items we expect to move quickly.
In my store i carry over 20,000 approx 2,000 designs t-shirts in stock i'm also the screen printer of 40% of the t-shirts that i sell, what no one is saying is that the 80/20 rule applies, that is that 80% of the merchandise that you sell is from the top 20% of your inventory mix the other 20% is from 80% of the inventory the imprortant part is not the amount that is sold per design per month but in which section that design ends up in out of my 2000 designs 400 designs are reordered often but in that 400 design block the 80/20 rule applies and about 80 designs are on weekly or by weekly reorder. don't forget the most important thing is the artwork its what customers see first
Each store will have a quota for sales depending on their operating expenses. This will also depend on the type of products they sell. We typically do about $500 - $1000 a day, this will all be depedent on the items sold. Some items have a a higher price range than others. The shirts we sell range from $25 to almost $200.
Typically we wold have at least 2-2-2, and would order as needed. As Christmas comes closer we would order more of the more popular items or items we expect to move quickly.
You have a store that sells shirts up to $200 thats pretty cool. What kind of brands do you carry?
When and how much stock do retailers buy? 
So I would assume a larger store, say in the mall with lots of walk in sales would probably sell a couple hundred, obviously t-shirts being thier main products...
