The Real Cost of a Slow Mover

Everybody has one. The range that looked great at the show, sold reasonably for a month, and has been sitting at the same facing since.

The reason it stays is rarely commercial. It's that delisting feels like admitting a mistake, and the stock is already paid for.

The four costs

1. Capital. Money in stock is money not in something else. Sixty units of something selling two a month is thirty months of capital parked on a shelf.

2. Space. This is the big one and it's the one that never appears in a report. Every facing has an opportunity cost — what the best available alternative would have earned there. A shelf earning $40 a month where a proven line would earn $200 is costing you $160 a month, not zero.

3. Attention. Reordering, counting, facing up, explaining it to staff, moving it during a reset. Small individually, real across a range.

4. Ageing. Anything with a date is walking towards a markdown. A product with eight months left is worth less than the same product with eighteen, and the loss happens whether you look at it or not.

Running the number properly

The metric that decides it is gross margin dollars per unit of space per month, not margin percentage and not units.

For each line:

``` (units per month × margin per unit) ÷ facings ```

Rank the range by that number. The bottom of the list is your answer, and it's usually not the products people expect.

A $6.99 item at forty units a month in one facing beats a $45 item at three units a month in two facings, comfortably, even though the second one feels more like a real product.

When to act

Set the rule before you need it, because in the moment everyone finds a reason to wait.

A workable default:

• 90 days — first review. Is it in the right place? Has it ever been faced properly? Has a staff member ever recommended it?
• 120 days — if it's still bottom-quartile after a genuine attempt, mark it for exit.
• 150 days — mark down and clear.

The 90-day step matters. Plenty of slow lines are badly merchandised rather than bad, and moving something from a bottom shelf to eye level is cheaper than writing it off.

Before you delist, try the three cheap things

1. Move it. Eye level and near a related bestseller. A surprising number of "bad" products were just invisible.
2. Face it properly. Two or three facings for two weeks. One lonely unit reads as leftover.
3. Tell the staff a reason to mention it. One sentence. Most slow lines have never been recommended to anyone.

If all three fail, it isn't a merchandising problem.

Clearing it

• Mark down once and mean it. A staged 10%, then 20%, then 40% takes three months and trains customers to wait.
• Bundle it with something that does sell. Moves units without a visible discount on the line itself.
• Ask the supplier. Some will swap slow stock for something moving, particularly if they want the account. It costs nothing to ask and a good supplier would rather have their product selling somewhere than dying on your shelf.
• Use it. Staff gifts, add-ons over a spend threshold, competition prizes. Better than a write-off.

Preventing the next one

• Test shallow. Order the minimum, not the deal quantity, on anything unproven.
• Ask for the reorder minimum before the first order, so you're not locked into depth you didn't want.
• Avoid units-per-SKU minimums on trial lines — that's how you end up with 48 of something.
• Set the review date when you place the order, not when you notice the problem.

OGA's opening minimums are set as order value rather than units per SKU, so a first order can be spread across the range rather than forcing depth on lines you're still testing.

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