Stock for the busy season has to be paid for before the busy season starts. Here is how to size the order, and how to avoid ending up with too much of it.
Apply Now →Suppliers want to be paid before delivery or soon after. Customers pay at the register or weeks later. Between those two dates, the money is sitting on shelves. For a Texas retailer facing back-to-school, holiday or summer demand, or a distributor ahead of a construction push, that gap is large precisely when the bank balance is smallest.
For illustration, an invented store expecting $80,000 in peak-season sales at a cost of goods of about half might need roughly $40,000 of stock on hand before the peak starts. Those are round numbers, not our terms or a typical amount.
| Risk | What it looks like | Cash consequence |
|---|---|---|
| Under-ordering | Empty shelves in the best weeks | Lost sales that cannot be recovered |
| Over-ordering | Slow-moving stock after the peak | Cash locked up until it sells |
| Late ordering | Delivery after the peak begins | Pay rush costs or miss the window |
Funding helps with the first and third. It does not remove the second, so be conservative on items that are hard to sell off-season.
Stock costs money to hold. Warehouse space, insurance, shrinkage and the heat in a Texas summer for goods that do not tolerate it all matter. If a product has a shelf life, the plan should include a way to sell it before it goes bad. A good rule is to know your sell-through before you buy, and to buy most heavily on items with a track record.
The test of a good inventory purchase is whether the sales it produces return the cash before the next big bill arrives. If the peak lasts six weeks and you expect to sell through most of the stock in that time, the money returns quickly. If a large share of the order will sit for six months, the purchase is functioning more like a long-term investment, and you should judge it that way. Decide in advance what you will do with unsold stock: discount it, bundle it, return it, or hold it for next year. Having that answer before you order makes the order smaller and the plan safer.
We fund $25,000 to $5,000,000, with funding in as little as 24 hours. The application takes about five minutes and uses a soft credit pull. Sole proprietors can apply. When your order deadline is close, start your application.
Work backward from the supplier's lead time, so the order lands before the peak begins.
It can be, if the stock does not sell. Favor items with a sales track record.
Storage, insurance and shrinkage all add up, and some products suffer in Texas heat.
In as little as 24 hours.
Yes.
Three months of business bank statements and a 5-minute application. FICO 500+ considered. $25,000 to $5,000,000, funded in as little as 24 hours.
Apply Now →It takes about two minutes and it will not affect your credit score.
No obligation • No impact to your credit score
