Planning a new business is very exciting. If you take some time to do some extensive planning, it can be rewarding instead of a source of frustration. If you plan on starting an ecommerce business or a retail store front, the eternal questions usually boils down to inventory.
Customers today want a variety and want to have choices even if you cater to a niche market. You might blame this mentality on bigger stores like Wal-Mart. They have large purchasing power and carry tons and tons of inventories. But planning inventory for your endeavor has to be planned a little more carefully. You will want to start out building your brand or authority by having enough inventory to draw people to your store or website. Once you build up a reputation, people will come back to you again and again. The challenge is how much inventory can you afford to buy and how much can you afford to keep on hand. Clearly there is a ying and yang relationship at work here.
Our first online website started with 10 pallets of inventory purchased from a reputable company in China. We only had knowledge of the demographic market we were targeting but little authority. It took some...