How should a small brand plan stock for Onam?
Plan Onam stock by looking at your own past orders, adding your real supplier lead time and holding back more cash only for the items you can sell through.
Onam is a regional festival, which makes planning different from a national one. Your demand may be concentrated among customers in particular states or among people who have family there. That is exactly why guessing from general talk is risky and why your own numbers matter more.
Begin with your own history
If you have sold through a festival before, open your order records and look at the weeks around it. Export your orders to a spreadsheet and note, for each product, how many sold in a normal week and how many sold in the festive window. If you do not have a past festival, use enquiries instead. Count the DMs and WhatsApp messages that asked for a product, even if they did not buy.
Our guide on exporting store orders to a spreadsheet shows how to pull this together. If you have no history at all, start small and treat this year as your data-gathering run.
Add your lead time
Stock planning is mostly about time. Write down, for each product:
- How long your supplier or your own production takes
- How long transport to you takes
- How long you need to pack and ship
- A buffer for delays
Then work backwards from the last day you plan to accept orders. If any product cannot be restocked in time, that is a fixed quantity you will sell once, and you need to decide it carefully. The basics are in what is lead time.
An illustrative example
Say a seller of a particular snack normally sells 40 packs in a regular fortnight. In the same stretch last year she sold 90 and ran out two days before her cut-off, with several enquiries unanswered. This year she thinks demand could be similar or somewhat higher. She could plan for around 100 packs, but only if her supplier can deliver in time and she is comfortable paying for that stock up front. If cash is tight, she might order 80 and plan a clear "sold out, join the list" message.
The numbers here are made up to show the thinking. Yours will differ, and nobody can promise what shoppers will buy.
Do not overbuy the whole range
Pick a handful of core items you are confident about and give those more depth. For the rest, order your usual quantity. Overbuying across fifty products ties up your money in stock that may sit. The method in how to plan festive stock without overbuying helps you rank products by confidence.
Set safety stock for fast movers
For your best sellers, hold a small cushion so one surprise order does not empty the shelf. A simple way to calculate it is in safety stock, a simple calculation.
Think about shipping reach
Because the festival is regional, many parcels may go to a particular part of the country. Check how long your couriers take to those pincodes and add that to your buffer. See setting honest delivery time expectations.
Decide what happens when you sell out
Have a plan before it happens. Options include a restock list, a pre-order for the next batch or simply marking the item unavailable. A pre-order only works if you are sure of the delivery date, which you should state clearly. Read what is a pre-order before offering one.
Keep the cash in view
Stock you buy now is money you cannot use elsewhere. Write down the total you are committing and the amount you need to sell to get it back. If the festival underperforms, you should still be able to pay your rent, suppliers and packaging. Working capital for sellers explains this balance.
Checklist
- Pull past orders and enquiries per product
- Write the lead time for each item
- Rank products by confidence and deepen only the top ones
- Hold a small cushion for fast movers
- Decide your sold-out message in advance
- Record what actually happened for next year