Special Orders

Description

Special orders have increasingly become a large part of Woodfield’s retail revenue. Prior to 2019, we didn’t have a set way of tracking them. Without tracking, it is impossible to know what percentage of sales comes from shop purchases vs. special orders. It is important to know this split so the Club can purchase the proper amount of shop inventory. To solve this issue and prevent overbuying, we incorporated special orders into our inventory tracking system. Tracking special orders allows us to see how much of our monthly revenue is coming from the floor and how much is being special ordered. The ability to track the revenue and volume of special orders allows us to make smarter and more Member centric buys.

Implementation

In our inventory system, we created two sales item categories: one for special order hard goods and one for special order soft goods. Within those categories, we created a specific Quick Access Code (QAC) that is used for all special orders in a sales item category. For example, category 50 is men’s shirts, the QAC 509999 is a special order for a men’s shirt.

At any time, we can run a report using the two special order sales item categories or the specific special order QAC to see the quantity of special orders, the sales dollars and the individual Members that have ordered the items.

By utilizing these reports, we can make smarter buys and guard against overbuying for the floor. This reduces the amount of stagnant inventory we have on the floor that would later have to be sold at a discounted price. This is a huge cost-savings for us. It also reduces the amount of time and effort needed to transition items left over after a sale to obsolete merchandise.