The shop trays from your first China batch are selling, and the factory offers a lower unit price if you double the next order. Your warehouse still has trays in three colours. The grey ones move fastest; some blue ones await a quality decision. Before accepting the discount, work out what customers are buying and how much usable stock will remain when a new batch reaches your warehouse.
The trays, quantities and planning example below are fictional illustrations, not customer results or recommended stock levels. This article is general information, not financial, accounting, legal, tax or investment advice. Your team must choose the demand assumptions, buffer and purchasing limits. A planning calculation does not guarantee sales, production timing or cash returns.
Read the sales by item and selling period
Your sales colleague needs quantities sold by variant, returns and the dates you offered the goods for sale. Separate ordinary sales from a launch promotion or a single customer's bulk purchase. A customer enquiry belongs in the forecast until that customer creates an obligation you can rely on under your terms.
Record days when customers could not buy because you had no stock. Sales during those days cannot measure the demand you missed. Also examine slow variants before applying the grey tray's pace to the whole range. Reordering the original colour mix could leave you short of grey trays while you buy more blue ones than you can sell.
A successful trial gives purchasing some evidence about the product and supplier. It leaves the size of the repeat purchase open. The two-supplier trial guide covers manufacturer selection and limits on scaling; your replenishment decision needs a separate view of demand and inventory.
Count available stock and dated arrivals
Have the warehouse identify saleable units, customer allocations, damaged goods and stock awaiting inspection. Count each category once. For this example, saleable stock includes units already allocated to customers, which purchasing subtracts when calculating uncommitted availability. If your inventory system reports availability after allocations, do not subtract them again.
List incoming orders with their quantity, current production or transport stage and expected date of availability for sale. A purchase order with no confirmed schedule gives you a different planning confidence from cargo your team has accepted into the destination warehouse. Preserve that distinction in the forecast.
Check arrivals against the weeks when you need the goods. Adding an entire late sea shipment to today's inventory position can conceal a shortage before it arrives. Your buyer needs a timeline as well as a total.
Measure the wait until you can sell the next batch
Ask the supplier for the repeat order's material and production schedule. Then include inspection, agreed correction time, packing and the payment event required before dispatch. Your logistics colleague adds booking, transport, clearance and warehouse receipt. Product checks at destination may add more time before sales can resume.
Use a range where the parties cannot support a single date. Your own delivery history can help identify delays, but one completed shipment does not establish a dependable average. The Chinese New Year planning guide explains why you need factory and route deadlines rather than a universal holiday shutdown assumption.
Your team must choose how much uncertainty to cover with stock, and how much cash it can expose to that choice. A longer buffer increases the purchase requirement even if customers keep buying at the same pace.
Use the calculation to open a review
Suppose the buyer expects sales of 40 grey trays per week, allows eight weeks until a new order becomes saleable and chooses an 80-unit buffer. The warehouse has 300 saleable grey trays, including 30 committed to customers. Another 100 are due before the current stock runs out.
Under those assumptions, the buyer can calculate:
| Planning step | Fictional calculation |
|---|---|
| Stock level that prompts a review | 40 × 8 + 80 = 400 units |
| Uncommitted stock plus confirmed incoming goods | 300 − 30 + 100 = 370 units |
| Expected remaining stock when the new order is ready for sale | 370 − 40 × 8 = 50 units |
| New order for four further weeks of sales plus the chosen buffer | 40 × 4 + 80 − 50 = 190 units |
The buyer has a reason to review the order because the inventory position is below the chosen trigger. The 190-unit proposal covers a different question: the desired stock after the next arrival. Your team chose both the four-week coverage and the buffer; neither is an industry rule. The arithmetic assumes steady demand, usable incoming stock and arrival before a shortage. Check a dated stock projection before relying on it.
If the supplier's minimum exceeds the proposal, compare the cost of that excess with a smaller negotiated repeat or a later decision. If customers slow their purchases, revise the forecast. If an arrival slips, investigate the shortage window instead of changing a total to make the sheet look adequate.
Approve a quantity your cash plan can carry
Your accountant should compare the proposed deposit, balance, freight and destination costs with other commitments. Customer sales and customer cash receipt may occur at different times. ITA's Trade Finance Guide discusses payment methods and working-capital exposure from an exporter's perspective; it does not prescribe an importer's reorder formula or buffer.
Discuss supplier credit as a separate commercial proposal using the net-terms guide. Longer payment terms do not make unwanted trays easier to sell. Purchasing can approve a bounded repeat, renegotiate the mix or wait, while recording the forecast and next review date.
Use pay an invoice to ask A2vanta about the resulting supplier payment before funding. Your business decides the replenishment quantity and accepts the inventory risk; payment handling does not forecast demand or finance the reorder.