Distressed inventory (or stock) is always a concern to retailers.  Inventory that can't be sold is costing you money to keep.  If your business is serviced based then I would say that your distressed stock is your service that can't be sold at the end of the day.  So a restaurant, for example, has tables empty. A hair salon may have chairs free during the course of the day.

Running promotions is all very well but there are three key times that everyone should consider.

Key time 1 - Knowing when the stock is going to be classed as distressed.

Retailer domain knowledge is vital here: a restaurant owner should instinctively know when to check the bookings for the day to see how many tables are filled.  For example with our restaurant here for evening bookings we'd be looking at 4-4:30pm to see if there are spaces.

Key time 2 - The last time you can advertise/promote/send a coupon to your customer

Promotion distribution is critical here, there's no point issuing coupons or an offer if your potential customer has already eaten.  There is a small window of opportunity that has to be hit. It's the simple outcome of incremental profit (the existing table sales will have covered the overheads) or not making the sale.

Key time 3 - The last time your customer can redeem whatever promotion you send to them

If you close at 7:30pm then there's little point having an offer sent out at 7pm. You have to give customers notice and time for them to change their plans.  To alter purchasing behaviour you have to be accommodating to the customer's needs and plans.

The above should be happening daily for the likes of a service based firm.  There's no reason to send a promotion every day but at the same time there shouldn't be the complacency not to check either.

The first two steps shouldn't take more than five minutes.  One of the things we've learned with uVoucher and Datasentiment as a whole is that retailers aren't concerned about ploughing time into social media to get the message out.  If these things cut into personal time, as social media tends to do, then it's not classed as business critical.

Key line here is the relationship between customer and retailer and this all starts with loyalty.  It's not about huge discounts, it's knowing who your customers are and their willingness to reach out to you when you have an offer.  These decisions all come down to previous data and purchasing patterns and not firing a promotion to the skies and see what sticks.

• View the Datasentiment website and see how we help retailers with distressed inventory.
• Get more information on uVoucher our phone based customer loyalty system
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(Photo by Kandoka - http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1282696)