Welcomed Thoughts from a Fellow (Jeff Valles): Are you Ready for the DPH Holiday “Get-It-Done” Season?

It's October and the DPH Holiday shopping season starts now.  During the next eight weeks people will be laser-focused on preparing their homes to impress all who enter. Builders will be diligently working to finish their projects.  Homeowners will be hunting for products that will make their home more stylish and function flawlessly.  Aging kitchen faucets will be upgraded.  Guest bathrooms will see new fab faucets accented with just the right accessories. Attractive new cabinet hardware will be selected to make the kitchen look like it was recently installed.  So many improvement projects to make their holidays shine...and disrupt even the best prepared DPH businesses. 

  

Here are my suggestions to make this profitable season a bit more manageable:

 

For Vendors:

• Email distributors a timeline, noting when certain products need to be ordered to ship by November 20^th and by December 11^th.  I have found these two dates allow sufficient time for the products to arrive and trade professionals have them installed by Thanksgiving and the prime Christmas - New Year’s Eve party season.
• Kitchen faucet and cabinet hardware vendors: Set up a “holiday inventory program” for your distributors.  It should be structured to allow the distributor to increase inventory levels to supply the increased holiday needs and return the unsold after January 1^st with no restocking charges.  This will allow the late or must-have-it-now shoppers a larger selection of your products to buy now. 

For Showrooms:

• Make sure your teams are on top of their clients’ projects and when they need to be completed.  Being proactive now will save all from possible pain later.
•  Share all holiday order/shipment deadlines with your salespeople and customer service teams and review your expedited freight policy.
• Review your kitchen faucet inventory.  We sold roughly 50% of our inventoried kitchen faucets in the 4th quarter.
• Review your cabinet hardware inventory.  Some kitchens require up to 70 cabinet hardware pieces to complete a refresh.  It would be a shame to lose these jobs due to lack of inventory. 

For Representatives:

• Your task is simple.  Do the best you can to make sure both your vendors and showrooms know how they can work together to make this a very profitable Holiday season.

The Holidays are hectic in so many ways and people are stressed.  If you prepare properly, it will be a profitable season and you will earn great brand word-of-mouth.