When do you place your orders for Christmas?

We start in January. It helps us see what's new for the year while the holidays are still fresh in our minds. We compare what we did, what sold well, and what we wish we'd had. We try to do two major trade shows each year, one in winter and a different one in summer. We place our big orders in the first part of the year. We like to have the bulk of our merchandise in on dating terms before the summer show. That way we can decide what we would like to add. Dating is critical, so even if it limits the number of vendors we buy from, we seek it out. We finish our major buying by July, and we don't buy anything after the first week of November, except for specific special orders. We should have enough stock to carry us through, and it keeps us from having too much inventory.

I start as early as the National Stationery Show in May. That's a pretty key part of my Christmas buying. Summer shows are where I go to see what they have that's new, and I end up doing a lot of my Christmas buying then. But with vendors we deal with regularly, we usually place those orders closer to Christmas, usually in September. I have it shipped usually starting about September 15, and running until about October 31. I don't place any new orders after September, but we're on an automated POS system, so if something's really moving we absolutely do reorders. With the way the economy has been the past two years, we tend to buy light and rely on reorders, and one of the key questions I ask vendors is how quickly they ship reorders. It needs to be done within two to three weeks.

The earliest I start is April, for cards and calendars. If I find new lines at a summer show, I place small orders to arrive as soon as possible so I can test the product and decide how much to order for Christmas. Unfortunately, the majority of my orders are placed in late October and early November. It's just how we do it. I order so that everything gets here in a very short window of time, between November 15 and 30. Getting it unpacked and on the floor is pretty much a round-the-clock operation. Most of my vendors are small so there's no way they can afford to do much dating. But that's what makes our product mix unique. Also, my merchandise mix changes so much that if I place orders too early, I won't have the supporting merchandise to display it with.

I am very last minute. If I see something exceptional at the National Stationery Show in May, I'll buy it, especially from companies that don't have representation in Ohio. I place the majority of my Christmas orders in June or July. I like to see what's arrived from my summer order and how it works with my merchandise mix, and I can never visualize that until I actually take the stock out of the boxes and look at it. Then I purchase the 'icing on the cake' in September so we have a nice Christmas display. We request shipment from October 15 to November 15. Sometimes we miss out on product because it's already sold out, but I'd rather risk not having one or two particular items than having too much of the wrong product.