Working Capital in a Volatile Economy

Since retail jewelers are beginning the sales and merchandise planning process for the second half and the all important fourth quarter, we will devote this issue of Retail Jewelry Insights to the planning for working capital and cash generation.


Cash is King

If jewelry owners and decision makers learned only one thing from the Great Recession; we hope it was cash is king. Obvious as that statement is, it’s amazing how often retail planners lose sight of that fact. Sometimes poor financial and merchandising planning is at fault. Sometimes it’s a lack of understanding what the real costs of carrying too much inventory are, while other reasons could include poor operational controls such as ineffective in store sales and markdown control. As often as not, it’s poor assumptions about how sales will evolve over the season, which could certainly be the case this year...