Unresolved Issues

This year’s crop of resolutions includes: buying less stuff (horses and otherwise), eating less sugar, being a little more efficient with my use of time, answering my e-mails/messages in a more timely manner, and reading more.

I’d also like to get caught up on the quilts. I had no idea I started somewhere between 30 and 40 new projects in the past year and half! (They’re not all bed-sized, but when you hit the double-digit mark, size is moot, y’know?)

Since we’re on the subject of unexpectedly bad inventories, today is apparently manure-hits-wind-generating-machine day at Reeves. They just didn’t oversell the Silverados, they oversold them by a lot, judging from the number of cancellations I am hearing about. (A lot of other things were oversold, too, but apparently not quite to the same degree.)

It just occurred to me today that there was a portent of these inventory problems back in July: remember what happened with the 2012 BreyerFest Celebration Horse, Mariah’s Boon? They oversold him, too - the first time ever that that sort of thing ever happened.

Doesn’t look so anomalous, now. (And on another Othello, too!)

I am not belittling anyone’s anger at the situation - anyone who knows me personally knows I can be pretty righteous in defense of my compatriots, even some of the more aggravating ones - but this is one of those rare cases where I do kinda-sorta understand why Reeves is behaving the way that it is.

I’m not saying that the way they are handling it is completely acceptable, or that anyone’s anger is unjustified, but that my personal indignation is tempered by the fact that I’ve seen it happen all too many times before.

Inventorying? It’s my job.

(Have there been instances where I’ve inventoried Breyers? Yes. Very distracting! As are shoes and books. And craft supplies.)

Nobody "loves" doing it, but it’s a necessary part of being in the retail business. If you don’t have the right stock to sell - or too much, or too little - you’ll lose customers, and money. Lose enough of them, and you lose the business, too. End of story.

I have wondered, on many occasions, how Reeves measures their own inventory - is it by overall financial value, or by the value per unit?

From my observation of and participation in the Tent Sale/NPOD at BreyerFest, it appears to me that they may be measuring it financially, rather than by SKU (Stock Keeping Unit). It’s not that they don’t keep track the SKUs sold, it’s that keeping track of the specific items isn’t as important as keeping track of the amount of money their inventory generates as a whole.

In the end, money is money, regardless of the way you count it, but some methods are better than others - depending on the type of stuff you sell, how you sell it, and who you sell it to. Obviously, whatever system Reeves has been using, they need to fix it. ASAP.

(And if they happen to need any assistance in that matter, I’d be more than happy to help, too!)

It appears that Reeves is contacting the customers on the oversold list for Logan and are offering them another SR Bull instead - same mold, in a somewhat different color, named Colton. It’s unclear if this was something that they made to fix the problem, or was another special item for another event, past or present.

The question then becomes - what becomes of the leftovers of this consolation SR? Gah! I don’t need to be thinking about that right now. I need to take a nap before my next two inventories, that’s what.