The Thing About Inventory

Dear friends,

Happy new year! We did it. We got here. Here at my house, we survived a caramel cake, a chocolate babka, an air mail delivery of black-and-white cookies from the Lower East Side, and a sack of chocolate that is a testament to chocolate possibility.

We’re so full.

And now we’re on the verge of returning to life at MDK, after taking a company-wide break last week.

Here’s what’s on my mind right now: inventory.

We’re about to do the thing that businesses have to do: count what’s in the warehouse. Everybody lends a hand for this. I once miscounted one Field Guide by a solid 1,000 copies. It sent DG and Bryan and Ashley into fits. It was so bad that I’ve been relegated to needle counting.

The obvious truth about inventory is that the less there is to count, the better. Our Year End Sale is coming to a close, and it has gone well. We did not, however, achieve my dream of a completely empty warehouse. I wanted there to be two balls of Felted Tweed rolling across the floor like lost tumbleweeds.

The Reckoning

For me, inventory is a reckoning of how we did. We never, ever, ever get it right. We either order too much of a thing or too little. We blow through one color while another sits there like an immovable block of granite. It makes me crazy, frankly, and it reminds me of book publishing back when I’d watch my boss make the crucial decision about ordering a reprint. You can easily undo a great success by ordering a second printing that doesn’t sell.

Which is what happened with the adorable Recoleta Bag we brought in for the Holiday Shop this year.

Last year, we sold out of Recoletas in a breathtaking way. So this year we brought in a bunch more.

Which sold nicely but not the way we thought they would. So that’s why you’ll see this chic suede bucket bag in our Year End Sale at a savings of 40%.

To be clear, we’re not making a profit when we sell something at that price. Overhead, wholesale costs, and staff salaries all eat away at the margins of everything we sell.

If you’ve ever worked in retail, you know what I’m talking about.

Our miscalculation is your opportunity—there are some other stumpers in the Year End Sale that are so, so good that we’re just crushed that they didn’t perform the way we expected them to. We’re feeling like the parent on the sidelines watching their baby get picked last for kickball.

These babies play really great kickball!

Bottom line (and by bottom line I mean our literal, actual bottom line): please help us make Inventory Season as easy as possible.

By the way, if you are someone who has ordered up a Recoleta Bag or anything else in our Holiday Shop, please know that our gratitude is boundless. When you shop our Year End Sale, you make a lot of good things happen at MDK. Everything, in fact.

Love,

Ann