Dead stock
What is the difference between dead stock and excess stock?
Dead stock has stopped selling. Excess stock still sells, but you hold far more than you’ll sell any time soon. They want different decisions: dead stock needs a way out, and excess stock needs you to stop buying more.
Side by side
| Question | Dead stock | Excess stock |
|---|---|---|
| Is it selling? | No | Yes, but slowly |
| Where Verity draws the line | No sale for 180 days, a period you can change | More than a year of cover, or no sale in the last 90 days though it sold within that longer period |
| The cash in it | Stuck until you do something | Coming back, slowly |
| What to do | Discount it, bundle it, send it back or write it off | Stop reordering, and let it run down |
Four products, sorted
A made-up example. Cover is what you hold, at the rate the last 90 days sold.
| Product | In stock | Sold in 90 days | Days since a sale | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tote | 60 | 90 | 2 | Neither |
| Coat | 40 | 9 | 5 | Excess |
| Scarf | 30 | 0 | 120 | Excess |
| Belt | 80 | 0 | 200 | Dead |
The coat still sells: 9 in 90 days is 0.1 a day, so 40 in stock lasts 400 days. The scarf is the one that surprises people. Nothing sold in the last 90 days, but it did sell within 180, so it hasn’t stopped for long enough to call it dead. The belt has.
What about stock that just arrived?
Neither. Something that arrived within that period hasn’t had all of it to sell in, so Verity lists it apart, as not sold since it arrived, until it has.
Want to see it for every product? Take the tour and open the Clearance list on an example shop, which sorts them for you.