Have some products that never seem to get into the cart of your shoppers? This is what dead stock means: unsold merchandise that still lies around in your warehouse or on the shelves. It is considered dead stock if those items haven’t been sold to the customers, so returned products don’t count as dead stock.
Retailers use the term dead stock or deadstock to describe products that are simply impossible to sell. The trend is over, new merchandise is filling the shelves once again, yet the dead stock hasn’t even needed a refill on the shelf and it is occupying essential space in the warehouse.
What are the causes of deadstock?
One of the most common causes for dead stock is ordering inconsistencies. Sometimes you might order a bit more than you were supposed to or order the products at the wrong time. Retailing is not easy and you have to take into account trends, seasonality, the quality of the products, the needs of your customers, and other external factors.
Poor sales is another problem that can lead to shelves full of dead stock. If customers don’t seem to like products due to price or because they are out of fashion, you should implement different sales strategies. Some strategies that might help you sell more are product bundling and high discounts.
How do you sell a dead stock?
Instead of leaving the dead stock to pile up in the warehouse, you should find interesting ways to sell those products.
The best strategy is to include them in a bundle. Bundle pricing is a great pricing strategy, especially for products that are hard to sell or that customers don’t really like. For example, if you sell cameras and see that you have a lot of camera lenses still on stock, you might want to make it a bundle package with a higher price than the original camera, but smaller than acquiring the lenses and the camera separately.
Include dead stock in your daily or weekly promotions. Offer these products at a lower price and create a sense of urgency for them. Show customers that these products are actually great and that there are only a few of them left. Fear of missing out is real and it will help you convince customers to purchase.
