DEAD INVENTORY
ON GRAJ.

The cost of waiting is invisible and real

Storage is a bill you see. Capital tied up in unsold stock and the value the goods lose while sitting are not, and together they usually exceed the discount that would have cleared the stock months earlier.

Decide early, on a rule

A clearance rule set in advance — this many weeks of cover, this much markdown — is a decision made when nobody is emotionally attached. The same decision made later is made under pressure and is usually worse.

The routes out, roughly in order of value

Each preserves less price and moves more volume. Choosing the wrong one first is what leaves stock unsold at the end.

• Sell into a different channel or region
• Bundle with something that does sell
• Discount, once and clearly, rather than in drifting steps
• Liquidate to a jobber
• Donate, where it does more good than a write-off

It is a forecasting signal

Dead stock is usually a buying decision that was wrong, not a selling failure. The value is in what it tells you about the next order.