Local guides · Post 21
The stock question a Cardigan shop answers ten times a day
For shops in Ceredigion: the stock question that arrives all day, answered from one person's memory and the shop door.
The shop in Cardigan gets the same question before the kettle goes on. Do you have it in a medium? When is the next delivery due? It comes over the counter and by phone, and it lands in messages too. Each one stops whoever is nearest and pulls them off the till.
The answer lives in one head. The person who runs the shop knows what arrived on Tuesday and what sold out on Saturday. Nobody else can answer with confidence, so every question travels to the same desk. In Aberaeron and Newcastle Emlyn the scene is smaller but the shape is the same: one person holds the stock knowledge, and the work stops while they share it.
A delivery day makes it busier. Customers ring ahead from New Quay before making the trip, which is sensible, and each call costs a few minutes. By Friday the questions have eaten an hour or more. None of it was quoted for, and none of it was planned.
The maths (a sketch, not a client figure)
Assume the questions take three minutes each, ten times a day, five days a week. Every figure below is an assumption, not a measured result from any shop.
- × 10 questions a day = 30 minutes
- × 5 days = 2.5 hours a week
- × £30 an hour (assumed rate) = £75 a week
- × 46 working weeks = £3,450 a year
Change any one assumption and the total moves. The shape is what matters: a small interruption, repeated all day, becomes a real cost.
Score it: the three checks
- Hours. About two and a half hours a week, spread through the day. It clears the bar because the interruption lands on the busiest person.
- Repeat. The answers follow a pattern: what is in stock, and when the next lot is due. If that pattern fits on one page, someone else can run it.
- Risk-if-wrong. A wrong delivery date costs a wasted trip and some goodwill. That is why the person who can commit to a date decides what goes out.
Try one thing this week (free)
Write down the five questions you answer most and the answer to each, in your own words. Put next week's delivery day at the top. Leave it by the till and let one other person use it. By Friday you will know whether the interruptions drop.
Where a person stays
Software can hold the stock note and watch the delivery day. It can prepare a short reply for the questions that repeat. A named person still approves anything that leaves the shop. Delivery dates and refunds stay in human hands, and so do special orders. A person decides what to promise. Anything financial stays approval only, always. The draft saves the typing, and the judgement stays with the shop.
FAQ
Whoever is on the shop floor, using one agreed note. The aim is to stop every question landing on one person.
The note is updated when stock moves or a delivery lands. A stale answer is worse than none, so the person on the floor owns the update.
It can hold a ready reply for the common questions and a clear line on when you next open. It never guesses about stock.
Dates are drafted, never confirmed. A person checks the delivery before any date reaches a customer.
The £499 diagnostic. A one-hour call, a written report, and a 30-minute follow-up that ranks what to build first. 5 hours a week found or a full refund, and the fee credits in full against any build.