Do you actually have the cash to pay your next inventory bill?

Do you actually have the cash to pay your next inventory bill?

One of the concerns we see regularly with clients is they need to order inventory but they are concerned about taking another loan to be able to pay for it.

They feel caught in the hamster wheel of making money and borrowing money.

Last week a client came to me with a concern about borrowing from a family member.

This felt like the last resort.

This situation is not really the problem, but a symptom from a few different underlying problems.

In some scenarios the cause poor planning, or inadequate gross margin, or even exploding OpEx.

It takes some digging, however, to get to that actual problem and put them in a priority order.

For that, we need a cash management system, in ecommerce especially.

That system is often the make-or-break factor that determines long-term success.

When we asked over 200 ecommerce business owners if they know when their major bills like inventory would be due, and if they had the money sitting ready to pay those bills in our Ecommerce Business Performance Assessment, less than a third confidently agreed.

The majority of people are somewhere between "sort of prepared" and "I have no idea."

Maybe some are tracking some bills, maybe setting some money aside, but it's not consistent.

Most aren't doing even that. Bills show up and they scramble to figure out how to pay them.

If you don't plan for bills or even know when they're due, what does that mean for your business?

It means that when the bills hit and the cash isn't there, you're stuck.

Orders will get delayed, suppliers will get annoyed.

Opportunities are missed because you don't know if you have enough cash left until payments clear.

And you're really hoping they clear.

In the worst cases, you're looking at your business wondering if you can even keep the doors open.

It's more than making payments on time.

It's about having control.

It's about building a business that's strategic and intentional.

So where do you stand?

Are you in the confident group that has this handled?

Or are you in the majority that has room to improve?

Understanding where you stand is the first step.

Take the Ecommerce Business Performance Assessment and see exactly where your business is and where to start making changes.

It's more than luck, it's a system.

Cyndi