Before you discount: can you fulfil the orders you are about to win?

Planning an offer for the busy weeks ahead? A few simple checks can help you launch with more confidence. Let's follow the thread through one seller's promotion, from the stock on the shelf to the parcel leaving the packing bench—and see what needs to line up.

Our Q4 checklist covers the wider preparation. Here, we trace one proposed promotion through stock, contribution (what each order leaves after its direct costs) and dispatch—three connected parts of the same offer. That contribution still needs to cover labour and overheads; it is not profit. You do not need to replace your software to carry out this review.

Start with one offer, not the whole catalogue

A small seller plans to reduce a boxed mug from £20 to £16, with delivery included, across two Channels. They want to offer four mugs for dispatch the next working day.

The business, quantities, prices and costs below are fictional. This is a worked example, not a customer result or a recommended price.

To try this with your own offer, jot down the product, proposed price, total promotional quantity and dispatch promise. Keeping the proposal separate from live changes gives you room to work through the checks first.

Twelve on the shelf does not mean twelve to promote

The seller takes a comparable snapshot of one stock pool:

• 12 mugs are physically present.
• 2 are held for inspection and cannot be offered.
• 3 different mugs are reserved for existing, undispatched orders.
• That leaves 7 uncommitted mugs: 12 − 2 − 3.

Held and reserved units do not overlap in this example. Both are included in the physical count. If your records leave either point unclear, a stock check is the next step before using the calculation.

The seller wants to keep three mugs back for ordinary trading, leaving a proposed promotional allocation of four. This sets the aim; it is not yet a working stock control.

Each Channel currently shows five under an existing listing cap. Those listings share the same stock: they are two views of one pool, rather than ten separate mugs. Setting each one to four would not, by itself, enforce a four-unit promotion across both.

A useful next step is to check which product each listing uses, how they share availability and how existing orders reserve stock. Confirm that the intended limits work across the listings themselves: a spreadsheet allocation or a successful update message alone cannot establish that.

Check what each discounted order leaves behind

For one mug delivered at £16, the seller estimates:

The seller's own minimum for this calculation is £2 per order. The proposed discount leaves 60p, below that minimum. Across four orders, the £64 in sales proceeds would leave £2.40 before labour and overheads; that remainder is not profit.

For your own offer, use your actual charges on a consistent tax basis and count each cost once. The returns allowance is an estimate, not a provider fee. A fresh calculation of fees and other affected costs will help you compare options if you change the price.

Check the promise against the packing bench

For the promised dispatch day, the seller has capacity for twelve more orders after allowing for routine work and likely exceptions. Ten places are already committed, leaving two, not four, for this promotion.

A dispatch promise is easier to stand behind when the packaging, handling time and carrier collection all fit. Keep dispatch and delivery estimates separate: an arrival estimate needs its own supporting service information. Handover evidence, rather than a printed label alone, confirms the parcel has left you.

A smaller batch or a later dispatch promise could make the proposal workable. Before offering either, the seller needs to check the revised capacity and update the affected offer to match.

Make the decision before switching on the discount

The checks have done their job: the original four-unit, £16, next-working-day proposal is not ready yet, and the seller has time to adjust it. There are enough uncommitted mugs for the intended allocation, but its cross-Channel controls still need verification, the contribution is below the seller's chosen minimum, and dispatch capacity covers only two orders.

A short note of the decision, who is taking it forward and the next check will make it easier to pick up again. Keep the thread intact as you rework the price, quantity or promise: review all three checks together before launch. Recheck availability and capacity when it goes live: other trading may have used both since the snapshot.

Reducing the offer, postponing it or declining to discount can be sensible outcomes. Finding the limits now gives you more choice about what to offer—and a clearer promise to make to your buyers.

Start with the stock behind your next offer

Our free Stock Reconciliation Kit provides six worked cases, a reusable workbook and a printable checklist. No ChannelWeave account is required.

It supports the stock investigation—not the contribution or dispatch-capacity calculations above. It is a manual review aid for whole units in seller-managed stock pools, not an automatic stock-adjustment tool. Read its scope and spreadsheet compatibility notes before use.

For the wider operational picture, explore ChannelWeave's features. Check the fit before changing a working process close to peak trading.

For the thinking behind this approach, read Follow the thread: finding calm in multichannel complexity—keeping evidence, decisions and actions connected, rather than treating each check as an isolated task.

A good promotion is not simply one that wins orders. It is one you have checked you can afford to fulfil, from stock you can genuinely promise.