Now that we’re in 2022 and are looking towards the endless possibilities of ways to improve your event businesses, it’s important to ask yourself; am I ready to buy more event rental inventory? Sure, buying more event inventory seems like a great idea because after all, more inventory = more money, right? It turns out that there’s a lot more that goes into making the important decision of buying more inventory. As we learned from A to Z Party Rental at MATRA 2021, these decisions now can impact your business into the future!
Some questions to consider:
- Can I handle more business?
- What is my “niche?”
- How much business can my team handle?
- How much storage space do I have?
- How can event rental software help me?
Can I handle more business?
While looking to buy more inventory seems like an exciting prospect, you will have to look to the future for whether or not you can handle the possible influx of business this new inventory will bring. Of course, you want to pick products in a “growth mindset”, however, you can’t just get bigger products because you feel like you’re ready for more.
For example, going from pole/frame tents to structures: your clientele and marketing might be ready for structures, but what about your warehouse, trucking, and staffing capabilities? It might, in this instance, be smarter for you to let someone else in your market keep a specialty so you can befriend them (and perhaps subrent from them), rather than trying to make something work that you have no reason to get into. Networking is crucial in the events industry because of subrental possibilities. It’s a money-maker and a money-saver!
What is my “niche?”
Having a niche is great for many reasons. While it may seem to limit the business possibilities that are out there, making sure that you are the best at what you do will bring business on its own. Stretching your business too far with too many inventory items of varying purposes will not only exhaust your warehouse space but can confuse your customers when they want to come to you for rentals. Specializing in a certain niche of the industry will ensure that you have the highest-quality items in this category. This is important because you don’t want clients to get lost in a sea of mediocre items that are spread too thin across many areas of interest.
You can’t be everything to everyone. For example, if you specialize in having beautiful chairs, potential clients will not always want to wade through other items like plates, tables, etc. They get to see your exquisite chairs from the get-go and know exactly what your event company is all about.
How much business can my team handle?
When looking to increase the size of our inventory, you must also look at the size of your current team. With the growth of inventory, you have to ask, “Can my current staff handle these new products? Can they handle the storage, management, delivery, and returns of these items?” If the answer to any of these is no, then the next step is to purchase inventory management software that helps you do more with the same size team!
How much storage space do I have?
Conducting a full assessment of your warehouse and the inventory within it will require a few steps, so we’ve broken them down to make this task seem less daunting.
- Audit your current space: While checking in with your staff is a great step when looking to buy more inventory, you should also look at the space you currently have for storing event rental inventory. From here you’ll want to decide whether or not to stay or find a bigger space.
- Determine if you should add or replace inventory: If you are already at capacity, perhaps audit your current inventory, and instead of purchasing new items you do not already have, consider upgrading the inventory you do have.
- A great way to easily check what inventory you currently have is by using event rental software that will curate reports on your inventory for you!
- An example of this decision could be that some of your current pieces may be doing really well— customers love them, and they’re making you money. If they’re really popular, they may be getting worn down. Or if you purchased them a few seasons ago, they may be falling out of style. Refurbishing or replacing these items could go a long way with getting even more bang for your buck with these pieces.
Your staff will thank you for not cramming their space, along with not overloading their management skills when they go to retrieve items for rentals.
How can event rental software help me?
Doing an audit of your current inventory, whether you are looking to buy more products or not, is always an important task because it helps you know what items you do have, which items are most popular, least popular, etc. Of course, this can be made easy with a great event rental inventory management software like Goodshuffle Pro. Instead of having to track inventory rentals, manually count through items, and leave the whole process wide open to error, upgrading to an event rental management software makes auditing extremely easy. Not only does software makes keeping track of inventory more efficient, but it also eliminates double booking, allows for easy checking of items “in” and “out” of your inventory, and helps track subrentals. If you need more help with inventory management, Goodshuffle Pro also has an education hub to help deepen your knowledge from what you learned here!
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