Every year, retailers not only have to figure out months in advance what merchandise to order for the holidays, but how much. This can be daunting for a toy store, but not for Kids Universe in Beverly Hills, at least not this year. According to co-owner and Chief Executive Howard C. Rudzki, Kids Universe will be well stocked for the upcoming holiday season. Rudzki spoke with Karen Teitelman about his business, past shortages and why that won’t happen this year.
In the past, we have unfortunately listened to business publications’ forecasts about how consumers aren’t willing to spend as much money as they have in the past, or how they anticipate consumer spending to be down. For us, the season has always turned out better than we expected. We usually find out mid-December that we have to air freight in product just to satisfy customer need. This year we have decided to disregard the forecasts and go with our internal numbers, what we think we will sell this season.
We looked at our past years’ sales, figured out the percentage of increase, and have determined just what we think our customers will buy. Based on all of these factors, we think our sales this year will be substantially increased, and we have bought enough product to meet that need.
When we have run out of an item in the past, we would sell the product and agree to gift-wrap and ship it at our cost. Normally, when we are down to low levels of something, we automatically reorder the longest we usually are out of an item is three to four days. We always make arrangements to satisfy the customer, that is our number one priority.
We’ve had customers who were just about ready to bite our heads off because we didn’t have something in stock, but once they hear what we are going to do for them, they get this big smile on their face. In the end, it can work out better for them. They don’t have to take a large package on a plane, hassle with the box and risk damage. They end up just as satisfied, if not more so.
We do have a contingency plan if we have over-ordered. If we see that it is a product that we can use all year, we will simply warehouse it and bring it out as needed. If this is a holiday-specific product, we will put it on sale. We have a huge sale in the middle of January every year, everything is marked 75 percent off, and we would most likely sell any overage that way.
