
Retail Stock Ordering: Two questions every product business must answer
From The Resilient Retail Game Plan by Resilient Retail Club's Catherine Erdly
May 14, 2026 · 13 min · Episode 302
About this episode
Catherine Erdly discusses the critical difference between product-level stock ordering and business-level stock planning for product businesses.
"How much should I order?" sounds like one question. It's actually two — and most product business owners only ever answer one of them. (This episode features a free download resource at http://resilientretailclub.com/order ) Hi, I'm retail strategist and founder of Resilient Retail Club , Catherine Erdly . In this episode, I'm breaking down the critical difference between product-level stock ordering (the tactical "how many of this line") and business-level stock planning (the strategic "what can I afford overall"). Drawing on my time as a buyer at Paperchase and the frameworks in my book Tame Your Tiger , I'll explain why forecasting apps, Shopify Sidekick , ChatGPT and Claude can all give you the right answer to the wrong question — and how that slowly turns a healthy business into a cash-hungry "tiger". In this episode: Why most stock forecasting tools assume you have unlimited cash The simple reorder calculation that still matters What "the tail" is Three better questions to ask before you place a single order The supermarket scanner analogy that makes stock budgeting click If you're constantly reordering but never feel on top of your stock, pause and plan with this one. 🐅…
People in this episode
Host: Catherine Erdly
Topics covered
- stock ordering
- product business
- cash flow
- forecasting
- business strategy
Keywords
- stock forecasting
- reorder calculation
- business planning
- cash management
- product strategy
Sponsors
Faire
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Resilient Retail Club, Shopify, ChatGPT, Claude, Paperchase
Products: Tame Your Tiger
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