What is Bountiful Baby’s Sales Strategy (putting things on sale)?
Our “sale” items are almost always limited to the things on our home page, and below are the reasons why they might be there:
- Sometimes it’s just to keep the staff busy during an otherwise slow time.
- Sometimes it’s to generate cash at certain needful times.
- Sometimes it’s to move closeout stock.
- Sometimes it’s to move overstock.
- Special opportunities
To see what is on sale today, just visit our home page:
Nevin Pratt, CEO
Bountiful Baby
REASON #1: Keeping Staff Busy. Historically I often threw sales for this reason, but not any longer.
REASON #2: Generate Cash Flow
We rarely put something on sale for cash flow reasons, but circumstances have come up before where we did.
In the past, we often satisfied this need with lines of credit from our bank, but a few months ago I closed those lines. When the bank manager asked me why I was closing my credit accounts, I replied “I am a faithful follower of brother Dave Ramsey”. The manager looked at me, blinked a few times, and then said “OK”. He understood what I was saying. He also knew it would be pointless to try to convince me otherwise.
For those that don’t know, Dave Ramsey is a well-known internet personality that focuses on trying to help people become debt free. He is very adamant against using using credit, and against going into debt. He is also a devout Presbyterian Christian, and bases much of what he says on biblical principles as he understands and believes them to be. As an example of what he believes, here is an article he wrote titled “Managing Money Gods Way”:
I think Dave Ramsey’s view on this is spot on. He is right.
So yes, I will occasionally throw sales simply to generate cash flow, because we no longer have lines of credit to buffer this.
But what things are put on sale, and how is it determined? That’s where #3 and #4 come in.
REASON #3: Closeout Stock
This reason for selecting stock to put on sale is not so much a concern now as it was over the last half year or so. The soft economy made it so that much of our catalog was no longer profitable, so a half year or so ago we began to close out those items. But most of the items originally targeted for closeout are now gone, and I think most of the rest can just ride with the balance of the inventory.
In general, our least profitable items have been the big babies, the ethnic babies, and the artist kits. There are exceptions, but these have been, in general, the least profitable historically. Hence, our “closeout” kits were most heavily weighted towards these.
Since these are items being sold and not reordered, this category of sale kits have also helped us generate cash flow, making sale reason #2 (Cash Flow) even less important.
Some of the closeout kits are Realborn® kits that had been produced by our alternate factory. Since we are consolidating vinyl kit production back to the original factory, these alternate factory Realborn® kits are being closed out. But most of these Realborn® closeouts are planned to be re-introduced at some point in the future, with production shifted to our original factory.
REASON #4: Overstock Items
This is the category that is driving most of the sale items these days. The items chosen are based on a “Days of Remaining Stock” computer calculation.
These items are typically being put on sale at 50% off, plus a free body. But I have also been typically selecting the items with the most Days-Of-Stock and putting them in the “Kit(s) of the Day” category at an even greater discount. The “Kit(s) of the Day” discount is typically 60% off, unless it is a closeout item, in which case I typically set it to 70% off for that single day.
After a single day of being the “Kit(s) of the Day”, if not enough of them sold, such kit(s) might still have the most Days-Of-Stock remaining. If that happens, I often raise the discount another 5% for another single day. The object here is to sell enough of the “Kit(s) of the Day” to where they no longer have the most Days-Of-Stock computer calculation. Then I move on to the next item (with the most Days-Of-Stock) and put it as the “Kit(s) of the Day”.
When a kit leaves the “Kit(s) of the Day” category, there is a reasonable chance it won’t be back in this category for a long time, if ever.
Right now (Saturday, 4/15/23) the “Kit(s) of the Day are three different Realborn® awake kits: Aria, Brooklyn, and Elizabeth.
REASON #5: Special Opportunities
I might put things on sale on the home page to highlight special opportunities. For example, right now there are 5 “LOW STOCK Closeout Kits” set at 50% off, plus free body. As of the time of this writing, there are exactly TWO of each of those 5 kits available. And since they are closeouts, they will not be reordered once they are gone. So I put them on the home page to highlight this special opportunity.
Right now the 5 special opportunity kits are: Realborn® Felicity, and the following four artist kits by Marissa May: Liam, Eden, Quinton, and Savannah.
Bountiful Baby (DP Creations LLC)
2140 South 3600 West
West Valley City UT 84119
United States