Michael Wittner’s tips for retailers at Christmas

What’s your No. 1 piece of advice for retailers preparing for the Christmas rush?

Perhaps we take it for granted because we’ve been doing it for a long time but it’s planning, planning, planning. We’re planned out well in advance, not only for Christmas but also for the Chinese New Year, when our factories in China close for the holiday there. We’ve got fresh product flying in to our stores all the time but those key periods are carefully planned and we’ll arrange even earlier deliveries of special-occasion footwear for Christmas. In footwear manufacturing, it typically takes 90 to 120 days to make a pair of shoes from the time the order is placed, so you need to have good systems and good knowledge of your industry with those long lead times to maximise your return on investment and stock-fulfilment models.

What can retailers do to make the holiday period run smoothly?

It’s really important to build mutually beneficial relationships with all of your supply partners, from your factory that will pack the goods the way you want them, to your distribution partner, to the driver who picks up the parcels. I love going down to one of our distribution centres and seeing the hundreds of parcels going into the trucks and having a chat with the drivers. It seems that StarTrack has the same drivers on the same routes so they get to know the business and a genuine rapport develops. Our store staff know all the drivers on a firstname basis, which is great.