Lost $2,300 on a bad inventory call for Q4 last year

I was sitting in my home office in Austin around mid-October, looking at our warehouse numbers for holiday stock. I decided to double down on a new brand of kitchen gadgets that had good reviews but zero sales history. Long story short, we ended up with 600 units sitting in pallets after Christmas. Had to sell them at cost to a liquidator just to free up space. My boss still brings it up every quarterly review. How do you guys handle pressure to buy big on untested products?

3 comments

3 Comments

eric72318d ago

Man, that's a rough one. Did your boss actually approve that big buy order or did you just pull the trigger on your own? Because if they signed off on it too, they should be sharing some of that heat instead of just hanging it all on you every quarter.

averywilliams18d ago

Tbh, they'd probably call it a "team decision" while he takes the fall.

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max4153d ago

Three years I watched this play out at my last company, and @eric723 you're dead on here. The boss signs off on the whole thing, gives you a thumbs up, then when the numbers come in red he's suddenly "managing expectations" and you're the one in the hot seat. It's like they think we're all just punching bags with a corporate logo on them. They'll spin it as a "shared accountability" thing but really it's just code for you getting the blame and him getting the bonus. Funny how that works every single quarter without fail, ain't it?