Teetering bank balance, shelves groaning with unsold stock, and a to-do list that rustles louder than tissue wrap? Lean in—this festive crunch is survival mode for indie retailers.

Christmas is coming, and with it, that age-old retail cash flow pinch. I’m Catherine Erdly—host of the Resilient Retail Game Plan and twenty-five years deep in this glorious, gritty industry.

In this episode, I break down why September and October send even the most seasoned retailers’ stomachs flipping and how you can manage cash flow during seasonal peaks without losing sleep or profit. From real talk about why “big guys” don’t have it any easier to practical advice for negotiating terms, avoiding stock pile-ups, and clearing out that dreaded dead stock (think: cash stuck in hibernation), this conversation is your no-nonsense lifeline. [cash-register-ding]

Why listen?

• Get honest, human product business advice for weathering the Christmas crunch
• Squeeze more margin from your range (and finally pay yourself as a product-based business owner)
• Learn how to use a retail cash flow template (grab the free download)
• Discover negotiation strategies for small retailers and indie retailer tips only a retail podcast UK like ours digs into
• Find out how to clear excess stock without damaging your brand—or losing your mind

Prefer to watch?

https://youtu.be/Xox17sgis_Q

Have takeaways, sticky situations or guest ideas?

DM @resilientretailclub on Instagram—I read every message.

Don’t miss future episodes of the Resilient Retail Club podcast: rate and follow in your favourite app. For more scaling a product business insight, catch my latest Forbes feature on funding options for indie retailers UK.

Mentioned in this episode:

Cashflow Planner Freebie

Download your Cash Flow Planner at https://resilientretailclub.com/cashflow

Faire 50% offer

Use the code GamePlan25 to get 50% off and free shipping with your first order at faire.com

Faire 50% off - use code 'GamePlan25'

Have you ever had that heart sinking moment in October where your bank

balance is looking terrifying, but you've got thousands of pounds of stock

sitting on your shelves? If you have, then you're not alone.

This festive cash flow pinch is something that every

single retailer goes through. And in today's episode, what we're

going to be doing is looking at why it happens and how you can manage

it to make your life a little bit easier.

Welcome to the Resilient Retail Game Plan. I'm Catherine Edley and in the

next few minutes, you're about to get powerful real world retail strategies

from insights shared both from my guests and myself, backed up

by my 25 years in the retail industry. Keep listening to

learn how to grow a thriving, profitable product business. Let's

jump in with this latest episode. So let's talk about why

this happens. Why is September and October often a real

pinch point for retailers? Well, the truth

of the matter is that everyone is in the same situation because

you have to get your Christmas stock in ahead of time.

Most people are not going to be able to completely spread out

their Christmas purchasing to be coming in, for example, in November or

December. And if you do bring things in in November and

December, you risk lagging behind with your ordering because you're so busy

with sales and you miss taking advantage of the key

Christmas selling season. I think it's important to

talk about this because anytime I talk about seasonal cash flow

pinches, I get so many messages from people who tell me, oh my goodness, I

thought it was me. I thought I was doing it all wrong. But the

truth is it's very hard to navigate around this and most

people will get themselves in a situation where they have

to pay out the stock before the sales start

coming in. Even major retailers face this. In

fact, they are dealing with much bigger numbers and a much

bigger juggle. I'll give you an example. When I worked at

Paperchase back in the day, we used to have to have a meeting with the

finance team every year that was called pppp, pushing

payments past peak. And basically the buying team and the merchandising

team were tasked with going back to every single one of our

suppliers and trying to get any improvements whatsoever that we could

on our payment terms. Whether that was splitting

orders so that we paid for things slightly later, whether that was

asking them to extend it slightly, whatever it might be. Basically

they said, you know, every single day that you can convince them

to let you pay a little bit later, then it helped with the cash

flow. So this was a huge Juggle for a very,

very seasonal business. Paper Chase had a huge

emphasis on Christmas for their sales. It was something that was

absolutely make or break for the whole year. And as a

result, they had to spend a lot of money getting the stock in

in that August, September, October timeframe before the

sales really kicked off in November and December.

Another example was when I worked at Coast Fashions,

another business that no longer exists. We would have to manage and

negotiate around warehouse capacity. So we

would be dealing with a shared warehouse that was shared with people like

Karen Millen, Oasis Warehouse. And we had to

negotiate about when our stock was going to come in. So sometimes it had to

come even earlier than we really wanted it to because we had to

physically get it all through the warehouse and out to the stores.

And warehouses have a fixed amount of capacity. So big retailers,

they end up having to push stock out for Christmas super early.

In fact, if you've ever been in a supermarket and

noticed that on top of their shelves in September, they start

stacking those boxes of quality street and crackers and things like that

ready for Christmas. That's because they're trying to manage just

physically getting all of that stock through their warehouse and out to

stores without really messing up their capacity.

So they're dealing with not only cash flow pinches, but lots of

operational pinches as well. So you have this big need

to spend on stock. You need to secure the stock

ready for the busy season. And then the sales haven't come in yet.

And sometimes you have to make payments during those quiet summer months.

So it's absolutely no surprise that

come September and October, most people are

feeling the pinch. One of the theories that I've heard about why

Black Friday is called Black Friday, and the one that I personally believe, is

that it was known as Black Friday because that was the day that

retailers went into the black. In other words, they

traded at a loss all the way through the year, up until

Black Friday, where the boost in holiday sales meant

that they went into the black. And then basically everything from Black

Friday to the end of the year was profit. People have this

concept that, oh, well, the big retailers must be swimming in profits. They're

not. They're dealing with these pinch points just as much as small businesses

are. If anything is possibly a much bigger deal

and much higher stakes. You're not alone. The big

guys face this. It's very common. It's not that you've

messed up saying all of that. There are things that you can do to try

and help you improve that. It can feel really

stressful. I just want to mention that as well. But if you're like, okay, yeah,

fine. I know that I had to do this, but why do I feel so

stressed? It's naturally stressful. I think of

it the same way as when you're on a roller coaster

and you're on the steep upward incline before

it tips over the top and you're sitting

there and you've committed to it now, so it's going to happen,

but you just have to sit there while the car goes up the track

and you just hope that when it drops that there's as much excitement,

exhilaration as there is sheer terror. So it is really

emotional, I think, as well, for small businesses,

it's your money. It's your money that you've taken from your account to

spend on this stock. So it's a much stronger emotional connection than a

big retailer would feel. And also it ties into

that secret fear that a lot of people have is, well, what if the sales

don't come? What if I don't have a good Christmas? What impact

is that going to have on the business as a whole?

So let's talk about some of the ways that you can try and manage this

pinch point a little bit. As I said, there is an element to which

it is completely inevitable. There are some things that

you can do to preempt it and try and make life a little bit easier

for yourself. So the first thing is trying very hard

as best you can, to smooth out your cash outflows.

So be aware of how much money you're intending on spending. See

if there's anything that you can do to push some of those payments. Now, if

you are a retailer and you buy through a platform like

Fair.com for example, then that is really

helpful because they have payment terms that can really

help you with spreading out the payment of your stock

so that you're not having to pay for everything upfront. You can spread it out

over longer. But if you're buying directly from suppliers, ask

them if there's anything that they can do. Can you split payments? Can

you have a little bit longer to pay? If they've got payment terms that they're

offering, you may ask them and they may say no. But if you never ask,

then you'll never find out. And it's worth just having that conversation

with as many people as you can to try and see if there's

anything that you can do to again, push those payments a little bit later.

If you are planning an order up front, is there Any way that you

can split the payments. And if you can't split the payments, it

could you commit to something upfront, but then maybe get some of it delivered a

bit later so that again, you're not paying for everything absolutely all at

once.

The other thing to look at in your business is what expenses are you going

to have in Q4. So for example, I would not suggest

a really big outlay on something like a new website in

Q4 if you've got lots of other expenses going out. Now, it

may sound really obvious, but it's worth just going through what you're planning on spending

and if you can push it a bit further to the point after which the

sales start coming in, then that's going to be really beneficial. The other

side of that is the money coming in. So if you're somebody who sells on

wholesale or to corporate, make sure you're chasing in your

invoices. Get into the mindset that every single payment matters both

in and out. Make sure you're going through all of your payment

commitments with a fine tooth comb, making sure there's nothing that you can't delay till

later. If you're owed money, make sure that you're chasing that in.

Definitely overcome any reluctance that you might have to follow up to feel

pushy. If somebody owes you money and it should have been paid, then you

are well within your rights to politely but firmly follow up with them frequently

until you get that money in. Because here's the thing, they

possibly, especially if you are looking for payment from

a larger retailer, they may be banking on the fact that they're going to pay

the people who demand the most first because they're also trying to manage their

cash flow. So you need to think about every single payment into your

business and making sure that you are really

taking care of your own cash flow as much as possible.

One of the things that's going to help you more than almost anything else at

this time of year is having a cash flow forecast. Now, if you head

over to resilientretailclub.com/cash flow,

then you will get my signature cash flow

template. I'm super excited to be able to offer this to you as a freebie

because I think it's an absolute game changer and this is going to help you

map everything through. A lot of the stress that people get from

this fourth quarter cash flow is the fact that they can't see

exactly what's going on. They don't know how they're going to be able to navigate

through it. Sometimes it's going to be absolutely fine. You just need to see it

all in black and white. Sometimes is going to be a narrow path that you

have to walk to stay on the right side of positive cash flow. But if

you've got it all mapped out, you're going to be able to really understand how

to do that and to get you through those pinch points.

And again, it's much, much easier, I believe, to

negotiate with somebody around payments if you can come to them from a position of

strength before you've got yourself into a pickle where you can't pay and

say, look, is there any possibility that I can could split these payments? This is

what I'm proposing on this date, this date, this date, and then stick to it.

That is something that can actually help build trust with your

supplier as opposed to defaulting and going

silent. Because it's a much stronger position to be in, to be

able to approach people who perhaps you owe money to

and give them a proposed payment schedule that you've mapped out on your cash

flow planner that is going to work for you rather than getting yourself into a

real stress because you know that you have payments to make and you're worried about

whether or not you're going to be able to pay them. It's much easier to

negotiate on this kind of thing when you're coming from a position of strength and

you've got a really clear cash flow planner mapped out. So the

key thing with the cash flow planner is mapping out your

sales plan for the season, which is super useful to do

anyway, but then also adding in a stock plan, working out what you're

going to buy, and then using that plan to feed into the cash flow planner.

So head over to resilient retailclub.com cashflow to get

your free planner and to find out more.

The other point that I want to make as you get ready for Christmas is

that if you optimize your existing stock, it's going to help massively

with your cash flow overall. Now, episode number

265 was all about a stock planning checklist for the

festive season. So if you haven't listened to that episode, go check it out.

But what I really want you to think about in this situation is when

you've had to pay out a lot of money to get your festive stock in,

this is not the time for you to have dead stock

sitting around on your shelf as cash that is stuck in your business

when you really desperately at this time of year, need it in your

bank account. So this is the perfect time of year to have a bit

of a clear out. Especially if you've got really slow moving product that

you believe you could do a targeted discount on. This is the time of year

to go through your samples and seconds, put together a sample sale. This is

the time of year to really look critically about what you've got

so that you are able to take that non performing

stock and convert it back into cash at a time when you

desperately, desperately need it. So when you are

over committed in stock because you've had to build up ready for the

seasonal sales, as I said, this is really the point at which you absolutely

100% cannot afford to be sitting on stock that is not paying its

way. And as much as it's difficult to get rid of stock when you know

that you've paid good money for it, you've got to think about it as trapped

cash. You've got to think about how you could ease the cash flow in your

business enormously if you do some work to really slim down

that unproductive stock before you start building up your seasonal

stock for Christmas. So I would

strongly recommend this is something that you maybe even put in your diary for

a summer sale next year. Get yourself ready and

clean in terms of your stock so that you're not sitting on

excess. And as you start to move towards that buildup of stock

in the September, October time frame, it will help with the

pinch point because you will already have liquidated anything that is not

performing. And so you're not sitting on trapped cash as well as all of

that extra cash that just hasn't started working for you yet. So As

I mentioned, 265 is all about planning for Christmas. But

I would just stress some caution here about avoiding

too much of that stock. That is what I call the brown bananas. In

other words, the Christmas Stock that come the 26th of December, absolutely

nobody is going to want. You want to plan your stock levels really carefully

to avoid having leftover dead stock in January. And if

it is something that is hanging around as you go through the peak season, that

you're taking advantage of selective offers or discounts

so very targeted so that they don't damage your brand, that you can make sure

you keep clearing through that super seasonal stock and help you

get on top of that pinch point in your cash flow.

So the keys then to managing this pinch point in

your year, it is all about forward planning. Making

sure you've got a plan mapped out for your stock, making

sure that you have got really clear on how much you actually need to

be buying that you're not over buying. Making sure that you're having those

conversations with your suppliers about trying to improve your

payment terms if possible. Making sure that you're not spending money on

things that aren't necessary in the fourth quarter. Making sure that you're

having a really good clear out so you're not sitting on dead stock which is

only going to make that pinch point worse. And above all

having it all mapped out so you can actually see what's going to be going

in and coming out and then putting together a realistic sales plan for

Christmas so that you're not left with too much stock at the

end. But the key thing here is that this is something that

is a common seasonal challenge. Everybody experiences it

but planning can make it manageable and it can really reduce the stress.

So head over to resilient retail club.com

cashflow, get your free cash flow planner and I'll see you next

week.