This year, the team discusses the pros and cons of printing a year’s worth of hats in their quietest month and storing them in their workshop.
Pros
They can get a bulk discount on the plain hats (which they then print onto) if they buy them all at once.
It’s more efficient to print all the hats at one time, rather than in batches.
They won’t run out of printed hats, so they won’t have to make customers wait.
With all the hats done, they can focus on tee shirts and sweat shirts for the rest of the year.
Cons
Buying all the hats at once is a big outlay (even though they’re discounted), meaning less cash is available for other things.
The hats take up quite a bit of storage space.
There’s a risk of the hats going mouldy while in storage for long periods — they’ll need to check if this is covered by insurance and decide how to address the risk.
The demand for the hats might drop off, leaving them with a pile of hats they can’t sell.
The team sees just as many cons as pros, so they need to do more research. They decide to do some forecasting and modelling to make sure their plan stacks up before they invest in it.