Why The Products That You Regret Buying Are More Important Than You Think

Now, I said that line in a masterclass just recently and I keep coming back to it.

The products that you regret buying may teach you more than the products that sold.

Because when we are trying to become better buyers, we tend to spend a lot of time looking at the things that did well.

What sold the most? What was the best seller? What sold out? Which suppliers or brands performed really well? Now, of course, we need to know these things.

But there is another set of buying data that is sitting inside of your business.

And I think quite often it is the data that we least want to look at.

It is your sale rack, your clearance section, the products in your warehouse that haven't moved for months, the stockroom shelves where you push everything that you are going to deal with later.

That stock is a record of the buying decisions that you've already made.

And some of those decisions were really expensive, even if they're uncomfortable.

When I get someone to physically walk through their store or their warehouse and pull together the inventory that has been sitting there for months, there is a moment where you can almost see the weight of it.

Because one product sitting on a shelf doesn't feel like very much.

But when you put it all together, now that you can see it, 20 of those, 14 of those, two of those, a whole size run of that thing that just didn't sell, suddenly you are looking at a very, very big pile of cash.

Cash that went out of the bank and has not come back to you the way that you expected.

And that can feel awful.

And I think our natural reaction is to move away from that feeling as much as possible and just think, how can we sell it? How can we clear it? What kind of promotion can we run? Can we just discount it? All of those questions are useful, but there is one question I want answered first, which is, why is that product still there? Because saying it didn't sell That's not helpful.

It doesn't tell us what went wrong with the buying decision.

And unless you know what went wrong, you can clear every last unit this weekend and still end up making the exact same buying decision again next season.

And this is where it gets expensive.

Getting one product roll costs you once.

Repeating the decision behind it can cost you year after year after year.

You go to the next trade show, different product, different supplier, same decision pattern.

You buy too much again, or you buy all the colors again, or you convince yourself that something was a great seller because eventually it did all sell.

And six months later, you're looking at another pile and thinking, what do I do with this stuff? So yes, 100%, I want you to move that old stock.

I want you to get the cash back.

But before you clear it out, find out what you actually paid to learn.