Seriosuly, there’s nothing quite as stressful for a small brand as staring at boxes of stock that just aren’t moving. Like, you registered your company, set up everything, bought what you needed, and you had this idea that money would be just pouring in, right? And yeah, the launch felt exciting in theory, the designs look great, the photos are on point, but the orders just aren’t matching the money that went into everything. You can’t help but to get that awful sinking feeling, right?
Well, at the same time, social media makes it all look so easy. No, really, it does, like one video, one post, one launch, and apparently everything sells out in ten minutes while people are begging for restocks. Maybe you’ve been on the customer end of some of these; a lot of people have. But no, real life isn’t usually doing all that. As you might have guessed by now, real life is slower, messier than YT, Instagram, and TikTok make it look. So yeah, there has to be something in the middle.
Like, there has to be a way to test demand without emptying the bank account and filling every spare corner with boxes, right? Well, thankfully, there are some things that you can actually try doing that a lot of newer and less experienced business owners don’t really seem to realize or know that it’s even an option.
Here’s why Guesswork with Stock Hurts Small Brands
Hopefully, this hasn’t happened to you already. So, ordering stock is basically guessing with money, and that gets expensive very quickly. No, really, just think about it for just a second here; if you order too little and customers get annoyed that everything’s sold out in a day. And of course, if you order too much well, you already know the disadvantages there. But smaller brands feel that pain way harder than big retailers. Yeah, they obviously feel it, but you’ll feel it a lot harder.
It basically means less money for marketing, fresh designs, photography, packaging upgrades, all the stuff that might actually help the brand grow. Just overall, so many disadvantages to where it’s harder to scale. Basically, the problem’s not always what to sell, it’s how much to risk ordering. And so a lot of businesses tend to do pre-orders and waitlists, so that could be something. Actually, “drops” could be another option; it’s something that’s been happening a lot with smaller businesses lately, since they make that FOMO affect.
How Pre-Orders are Great for Testing Demand
Well, this one is especially great if you’re literally making this yourself, as in DIYing it (like an artist, for example). Pre-orders let customers raise their hands before the stock’s even in.
Which, of course, for small brands, that means fewer ridiculous guesses. You don’t have to worry about pulling any random numbers out of thin air. So, for example, if you make knitted scarves, for example, and 70 people preorder, well, that means you know for a fact to get enough supplies (and have enough time) for creating those 70 scarves.
Plus, it helps with preordering that there’s usually a deposit or the customer is fully paying in full for the item in advance, meaning that you’ll need a simple and reliable system to accept online payments (well, with all of these, you need this technically). But preorders also mean that if people pay in advance and if other customers want it, you incentivize by charging a bit cheaper for pre-order and charging more for the others who didn’t pre-order.
There’s the Paid Waitlists Option for Filtering
So, it’s not too much different from above. And yeah, as you probably know, waitlists are everywhere now, but paid waitlists are where things start to get interesting. How though? Well, instead of a vague crowd of people saying “need this” in the comments, a small fee or deposit filters out the casual scrollers from the ones who genuinely plan to buy. But you should keep in mind, though, that this isn’t exactly like a preorder, so it could make some customers mad.
Drops Create FOMO
Just like what was already mentioned, when it comes to this one, it drums up a lot of FOMO, which is why a lot of large and small brands will use this method. But the thing is, you have to be a bit delicate with this. Basically, if done badly, they turn into a panic launch, oversold items, and a lot of annoyed customers wondering what went wrong. Now, if all of this was done well, they’re controlled, limited releases that feel exciting without wrecking the person running it. But again, you have to do it right. It might help to research around online and see how other brands did it.
