Why Regional Furniture Retailers Struggle with Inventory and How to Fix It

Furnishing a regional store can mean facing challenges such as expensive logistics, delayed orders, and finding new supplies. In an environment where the Australian logistics chain benefits urban regions, there can be nothing surprising in the fact that furniture stores located in the countryside compete for outdated goods. Your clients will prefer driving to the nearest city to shop at regular stores if you do not provide timely delivery of their order.

What you need is a highly-profitable showroom selling exclusive, perfect furniture delivered on time. Working with Vivin Imports will get rid of your troubles in no time. At our company, we keep massive supplies of locally produced furniture and handle the entire logistics process.

1. High Cargo Costs Destroying Profit Margins

However, when operating a regional store, you should realize that transportation expenses will be your worst enemy ever. A lot of country shopkeepers tend to buy products from many small suppliers who have their shops situated in other cities. In this case, you will need to hire many separate transport companies who will bring not quite full trucks to your area.

As you understand, such large costs will reduce your profit significantly. For instance, although you bought your sofa from a good supplier at wholesale prices, you will need to pay additional huge money to bring this product to your region. In case you increase its retail price because of additional expenses connected with transportation, your customer will see that you charge him/her some kind of regional tax. Therefore, people will buy the same products online, avoiding your local store.

You need to consolidate your purchases to reduce your shipping expenses to a bare minimum. With Vivin Imports, you will have access to a large database that includes bedroom sets and outdoor furniture sets. In one delivery truck, you can ship all the products at once. Your shipping costs will be reduced to a bare minimum, keeping your profit margins healthy.

2. Customers Refusing to Wait for Long Deliveries

In the old days, your regional clients knew that when they live far away from the city center, they will have to wait a bit longer to receive their bulky purchases. This consumer mindset has completely changed. In today’s time, owing to the convenience provided by the internet and rapid online shopping options, the consumers demand instant satisfaction.

If a customer enters your shop and finds that they really like your dining table sets, they do not wish to delay its delivery. If you have to source the product from an overseas supplier or from a highly inefficient supplier whose only expertise lies in delaying the shipment process up to three weeks, the customer will leave your store in no time. 

Similarly, if a household requires a new outdoor seating arrangement for a barbecue party that is due this coming weekend, they will not keep waiting. They will simply cancel the order.

No more lost domestic business because of lengthy wait times. We have thousands of items stored in our huge warehouses in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia. Since we have the product on hand, we can send out your order quickly, enabling you to satisfy customer demands in a matter of days, not weeks or months.

3. Getting Trapped in a Local Retail Price War

Most regional furniture dealers find themselves selling exactly the same type of plain and dull furniture over and over again each year. Most urban manufacturers tend not to ship new and fancy merchandise to regional cities because they wrongly believe that consumers in the rural areas prefer old-fashioned furniture.

This is why many individual stores have to resort to buying from the open market catalogs just like other companies do. Once in a small town where everybody knows what the other furniture stores are stocking, you could find yourself stocking exactly the same furniture sets as the other two stores. The moment you put the same television unit or recliner chair as those in the two other shops, you enter a vicious cycle of reducing prices until you make no profits at all.

You have to give your local clients an incentive to shop only at your place of business. Vivin Imports gives local retailers full access to our very unique designs which we source from around the world. In turn, by carrying furniture that your local competitors can’t carry, you’ll make your showroom look great and keep your company from being price-matched locally.

4. High Rates of Damaged Goods in Transit

The distance from the city warehouse to the town plays an important role in the quality of the products received. It is not easy on a rough ride across the region, which might involve driving over eight hundred kilometers while carrying a bulky and bouncing cardboard box in a cargo truck. The condition of the roads in the regions can be rather tough, having wavy and uneven surfaces.

If the supplier provides a cheaper packaging method, the constant movement will result in scratching, damaging the corners of the furniture items, and breaking the pieces of glass in the cabinets. Dealing with damaged stock in a regional town is a total disaster. Not only would you incur a cost in the form of a lengthy insurance claim, but also the time lost in receiving another truck with new stock as well as dealing with an extremely angry customer.

Don’t ever have another problem with damaged cargo. All items shipped from Vivin Imports are packaged using high-quality materials and dense foam that are guaranteed to endure the tough journey by truck into regional Australia.

5. Cash Flow Trapped in Minimum Factory Orders

In order to save on the high cost of shipping and avoid middlemen, many regional having  entrepreneurs will attempt to ship their merchandise directly from manufacturers abroad. This plan does not take into account the problem of minimum order quantities (MOQs). Manufacturers will not sell you five beds, but you will be forced to buy a whole shipping container full of the identical product.

For the regional store owner who has fewer customers, this causes serious financial loss. A small town may have need for just ten of the specified dining room chairs each year. If the entrepreneur is forced to purchase one hundred such chairs from the manufacturer, they will require ten years before they can sell their inventory. 

The entrepreneur’s money gets locked up in unsold inventory in their storeroom. They will have no capital with which to operate and will be unable to meet payroll.

Maintain your cash flow to be in peak health when ordering only what is needed. We at Vivin Imports take the big responsibility of bearing the heavy cost by procuring all the shipping containers. This gives the benefit of allowing regional sellers to procure in very flexible and smaller volumes from our Australian warehouses.

6. Managing the Lack of Backroom Storage Space

Commercial space can be quite costly, even in smaller towns. Furniture stores typically allocate most of their rental budget for a spacious showroom at the front that has huge glass windows to allow the store to showcase as much products as possible to people nearby. Consequently, the back room where the products are stored becomes extremely small and old-fashioned.

It would be too costly to keep backups of all types of furniture available at the store. The problem arises when you are forced to receive bulky goods delivered by the supplier all at once. You have nowhere to store such goods. This compels you to stack your products in piles, which become blockage in the movement of your employees, or pay heavy costs in renting additional spaces at the outskirts of town.

Stop renting additional storage space, leaving the job of storing the products to the experts. Vivin Imports is your huge warehouse located off-site. Thanks to the total of 40,000 square meters of storage space available in our local warehouses, you will need to purchase only those quantities of the stock that are necessary for fulfilling current orders.

7. Fix Your Regional Logistics & Boost Your Profits Using Vivin Imports

It is not necessary that you should run a selling outlet outside the big cities and therefore put up with bad service, high cost of shipping, and damaged goods. What you require is an importer that truly understand the realities of operating in the regions.

Vivin Imports takes care of all your logistics problems in the region with its huge stock maintained in its large Australian warehouses, packing each of the items securely to prevent any damage during shipment, and ordering exactly what you want without any minimum restriction.

Vivin Imports is among Australia's largest and most trusted furniture importers and wholesalers. With our head office in Sydney, we operate a 25,000 m2 Distribution Centre in Wetherill Park, NSW, and a 15,000 m2 Distribution Centre in Melbourne, VIC.

Specialising in contemporary furniture, our collections are sourced from India, China, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Indonesia, offering a diverse range that includes lounge, bedding, dining, living, and outdoor furniture. Our competitive advantage lies in strategic product selection, robust inventory management, and tailored promotional programs, available through wholesale and direct container sales. To support our retail partners during peak sales seasons, we maintain optimal stock levels, ensuring reliable supply and seamless operations.

As one of the most professionally managed organizations in the Australasian region, Vivin proudly supplies Australia’s major furniture retailers and independent stores

Take control of your inventory and make your supply chain completely stress-free. Visit the Vivin Imports website today to apply for your B2B wholesale account. Get instant access to a massive catalogue of beautiful furniture and start filling your regional showroom with products your local community will love!

FAQs

1. Does Vivin Imports ship directly to regional furniture stores?
Yes, we have worked hard with the most efficient national cargo providers to make sure that all wholesale orders reach their destinations safely and on time at your regional destination, regardless of how far away the regional store is located from any of the main ports of entry across Australia.

2. Can I create a different range of products in one order?
Definitely, as we don’t force you to buy large minimum orders of one single product only. Feel free to combine all your favourite furniture types ranging from beds, dining sets, sofas, and even outdoor furniture in one order to cater to your regional customer base.

3. What should I do if there’s transit damage to a piece of furniture shipped to my region?
As we pack all our furniture in commercial-grade packaging, such accidents are unlikely to occur. But should the unfortunate event happen, our dedicated customer care team will be on hand to sort out any problems and resolve issues fast. 

4. Will the line of products offered by my store be the same as the ones my competitors offer?
No way. Our professional purchasing team selects items from different parts of the world, making each design line incredibly unique to Vivin Imports. You can shop at our store assured that your unique collection won't allow the massive chains nearby to beat you on prices.

5. How should I proceed to get a wholesale account and learn about prices and stock availability?
Just go to the Vivin Imports webpage and follow the registration process for becoming one of our business customers. After your account is approved, you will have access to all our inventory and prices.