Well Monday was a public holiday and while the shopping centre was apparently busy, sales were disappointing. We nearly covered the rent for the day, but we did setup and iron out some systems bugs. Other small retailers said trade was slow. I decided to stock up on a wider range of pots and homewares after we closed on Monday.

Another frustrating factor was the centre manager said there were tables available on-site, but a mixup with the visual merchandiser led to the tables being pinched by another casual leasor. This limited our eye-level merchandising.

This week is also week two of school holidays, so we’ll see if that impacts sales as well. This was the only week available before Christmas for a reason.

Todays results were considerably better. We’ve covered the daily rent for the last two days and the cost of goods sold. Remember I am clearing old stock I can’t sell elsewhere. So really all I have to do is cover rent and wages. The rest becomes cash-flow.

Interestingly on both days my last sales were around 3:45 in the afternoon. I had to stay open until 5:30pm under the license. That’s a boring two hours. I used the time to review my pricing. While I don’t have actual cost prices for any of the pots, I’m guessing the clearance prices are actually profitable. I don’t think further price reductions will drive greater volume, people are already commenting on how great the prices are. Now if I can get more to buy something immediately rather than “I’ll be back with my spouse tomorrow”.