Is your excess product really worthless?

In my 5 years of experience of marketing and business development in the Indian textile industry, production of exact quantity of goods was a rare event. This could be due to various reasons such as the growing complexity in consumer demand, the uncertainties in the manufacturing and processing, inefficient quality control, defects in raw material, labour indiscipline, power failures, and a whole gamut of reasons. Although excess production or short packing was a routine phenomenon, both never receive strategic attention. Most managers realize that managing stocks or excess produce could very well reduce their cost of products and ultimately boost bottom lines; rarely do they think this as an important way of supplementing their targets. Most stay focused on delivering the parent order on time, as that itself is a challenge in many cases. And in the process, the stocks are sidelined, stacked in dark corners of a dingy warehouse, and forgotten about.

Are you excess produce really this worthless?

Here, I may be painting a worst case scenario. These stocks, which are revisited at the time of annual events such as auditing and stock clearance, are by then rotten, infected by fungus or found with completely worn out packaging.
In better cases, the stocks from all orders are accumulated at one place and records are kept without an action plan. In my experience, in the Indian context, following are some of the ways to clear stocks:

1) Excess produce forcibly shipped with the parent order to realize some value, sometimes at a discounted price

2) Stocks from all order are accumulated at one place and sold to local dealers by weight in which case it faces a far less value than its original price.

3) Storing them in a warehouse for future clearance

4) Used in making other products to be sold locally or internationally fetching far less realization than their actual value

5) In some case, sent as gift items to government officials. (Believe me, this was a common thing to do!)

In all the above cases, the goods are sold in markets they were originally not meant to be consumed. Why is it a wonder then that these goods fail to generate the value they were meant to generate?

In all cases, it is clear that with some focused effort, all the excess produce can certainly fetch more worth than their “disposal” price. The idea behind www.textilestock.in is precisely this. The stock need not be disposed. It can be sold at a good price to wherever demand is. This web based platform is aimed at matching the demand with the supply of stocks so that it creates a win-win situation or buyers and suppliers. We regularly update the stock details on our website so that clients can directly access product details rather than finding which suppliers may have stocks of their interest. We don’t promise that the stocks will achieve their original sale value, but it will be our best endeavor to realize values better than the disposal values on the excess produce.

It is also a green initiative. We are all aware the as human consumption is growing; the demand for resources is rapidly increasing and their supply constantly under stress. Why not then, let the consumer consume products that would otherwise merely sit in darkness?

Nidhi Saxena