Dead stock
How do I bundle dead stock?
Pair it with something that still sells, and price the set so the cash you get back is worth the margin you give up. A bundle of two things nobody wants is still stuck.
Four steps
- Start with what ties up the most cash. Bundling a few cheap leftovers takes as long as bundling the ones that matter.
- Pair it with something that sells, and belongs with it. A belt with a coat makes sense to a customer. A belt with another belt is just a bigger problem.
- Do the sum before you set the price. It’s below.
- Stop when the slow item runs out, and don’t reorder it. The bundle is how it leaves, not a new line.
Is the price worth it?
A made-up example: a coat that sells, and a belt that doesn’t.
| Product | Sells for | You paid |
|---|---|---|
| Wool coat | €90 | €54 |
| Leather belt | €25 | €14 |
What the slow item brings in = bundle price − what the other would have sold for alone
Sell the two together for €99, and the belt brings in €9, less than the €14 you paid. That can still be right: the €14 is already spent, and a belt that never sells brings in nothing. You keep €31 on the set, against €36 on the coat alone.
That assumes the coat would have sold anyway. If the deal brings in a customer who wouldn’t have bought the coat, the whole €31 is new money. And if it takes full-price sales of the coat from people who’d have paid €90, each of those costs you the €5 difference for nothing, so don’t put your best seller in a bundle for long.
How your stock reports see a bundle
It depends on how you sell it, and this catches people out.
- A set you made yourself, as a product with its own SKU. The sale belongs to the set. The belt and the coat inside it look as if they never sold, and their stock doesn’t fall, so a report, Verity’s included, still calls that belt dead. Take what went into the set out of each product’s stock when you make it up.
- WooCommerce’s Product Bundles. It writes an order line for every product in the bundle and takes them out of stock, so each one shows as sold.
- Shopify’s Bundles app. It keeps the items’ own SKUs on the order, and takes them out of stock. Shopify doesn’t say how its order export writes them, so check one exported order before you rely on it.
Want to find what to bundle? Take the tour and open the Clearance list on an example shop, with the most cash tied up first.