Festival season stock planning for FMCG distributors: before, during and after Deepavali or Pongal

Festival weeks are the best weeks of a distributor’s year and the most dangerous. Sales jump, shops stock up on credit, the company pushes festival packs, and everyone is too busy to count. The trouble usually shows up a month later: money stuck with shops, gift packs nobody wants, and stock close to expiry.

1. Plan from last year’s same weeks

Last month tells you nothing about festival week. Take the same weeks from last year, product by product, and adjust for how your business has grown since (new shops, new routes, a new brand). If you did not keep last year’s numbers, start keeping them this year: next year’s plan depends on it.

2. Order in two or three lots

Don’t take the whole season’s stock in one order. Take a first lot four to six weeks before, look at what actually moved, and adjust the second and third lots. It costs a little more effort and saves you from a godown full of the wrong products.

3. Treat festival and gift packs differently

Gift packs and special festival packs are the riskiest stock you will hold, because they stop selling the day the festival ends. Order them only in the quantity you are sure to sell. If the company pushes more, ask for a written return or exchange agreement before you accept them. See when the company sends more than you can sell.

4. Fix credit before the rush

Shops ask for more credit when they stock up for the festival, and a salesman in a hurry will say yes. Decide each shop’s limit before the season, and hold to it during the rush. Plan collections for the weeks after, when shops have sold through. Our guide on tracking shop credit shows how.

5. Plan the vans, not just the godown

More stock is no use if it cannot reach shops. Plan extra van days or an extra van for the peak weeks, load from the front of the godown (oldest stock first), and count each van back in every evening. The busiest days are when counting gets skipped, so don’t skip it.

6. Plan the weeks after the festival

After the peak, collect the festival credit first, return or exchange what the company agreed to take back, and clear slow stock before it expires. See finding the stock that is stuck.

How Mulberry Sales helps

Every bill is recorded as it is made, so last year’s same weeks are one report away, by product, shop and salesman (Growth plan and up). Stock in the godown and on every van is kept up to date, and each van is counted back in at night. Credit limits are checked on the salesman’s phone and on our server, so the festival rush cannot quietly push a shop past its limit. Stock alerts warn you before dated stock expires and list what has stopped selling (Business plan). An extra van for the season is a flat monthly add-on, not a new plan. See FMCG distribution software.

Questions people ask