Home Office Organisation (1)
Working from home requires somewhere to work, that is obvious, but what does that really mean? My thoughts have turned to this as I am in the process of moving my office. I have outgrown the third bedroom in our house. We are decorating the attic room and I will be moving up there within a week or two.
Just what is necessary when starting out? There are some basics. You need a PC, desk, telephone line, printer, paper and consumables.
My problem is that the number of files and the amount of stock has also grown. I began by selling Zippo lighters on eBay. They are a good thing to sell as they are small and fast moving. This means that I can hold relatively small amount of stock and replace them as I need them. This is called just in time replenishment. If I know that I will sell 5 of a particular style of Zippo a week then I will order 15 at a time and reorder when I am down to 10 as the time lag from ordering to receipt is 2 weeks. That way I always have stock but never too much. The other benefit is that my money is not tied up in unsold stock.
Selling on Amazon has brought a different problem. The stock is bigger (books) and slower moving. I have had some books for 3 months. They are selling but they are on the shelves for longer than the Zippos. As an example, I bought ‘Kinski Uncut’ the autobiography of Klaus Kinski (a wonderful actor) a couple of months ago for £1. Last week I sold it for £37. It was worth having it on the shelf for that length of time. The problem is space. I am selling about 30 books a week and have a stock of 650 that are listed on Amazon. I have to replace the ones sold and I anticipate the stock growing to about 1000 within a few months.
When starting a home business ensure that the space for your setup will be sufficient for your needs now and for the foreseeable future but keep everything under review.
I will be returning to this the theme of home office organisation over the coming weeks, just once I have finnished painting the attic room…………….
