Leftover stock, ready to ship

Ask a factory for a container and the first number you get is not a price, it is a lead time. Six weeks, eight, twelve into a busy season.

Unless it is already made.

Every factory carries stock it did not plan to have. An order cancelled after the run. A colour that sold in one market and not another. An overrun, because you do not stop a line mid batch. It sits on pallets tying up floor space, and the factory would rather it moved than counted.

This is not seconds and it is not B grade. It is first quality product that happens to be surplus, finished, boxed and ready to ship, at a discount, because the space is worth more to the factory than the margin.

What you are buying:

• The same board, off the same line, to the same specification
• The same test reports, because it is the same production run
• A price set by a factory that wants the floor back
• No production lead time. It ships when your booking does

What you are giving up, and I would rather say it now than have you find out:

• The quantity is the quantity. There is no repeat run at that price
• The colours are the colours. You take what exists, not what you would have chosen
• When it is gone it is gone, and the next lot will be different

So it suits some buyers and not others. If you are launching a range that has to reprice next season, this is not it. If you have a promotion to fill, a container to top up, a contract job where the spec is performance rather than a particular decor, or a gap on the shelf and no weeks to wait, this is exactly it.

And it runs the other way more often than you would think. A colour you only took because it was there sells through, you come back for it, and it becomes a line you carry. More than one running line started as somebody else's cancelled order.

Tell me which category you cover and I will send what is on the floor right now, with quantities and photographs. No list, no newsletter, just what exists this week.