Plastic items and household goods

The trade

How this trade really works

From the factory to the customer, each person in the chain wants something different. Most of what goes wrong comes from the gaps between them.

The factory

Buys plastic granules and colour, runs the moulds and packs the goods. It wants long, steady runs on each mould, because every mould change costs hours of work and wasted material. It also wants to keep the full range in the market so no shop turns to a rival.

The distributor or wholesaler

Buys in truckloads for a region and sells to smaller wholesalers, utensil shops, kirana stores and gift shops. He gives credit to all of them. He wants the items that move, in the colours shops ask for. He wants as little slow stock as possible, because plastic goods take up a lot of godown space for their value.

The utensil shop or kirana store

Hangs buckets and mugs outside, stacks tubs and chairs on the pavement, and keeps gift sets on a shelf inside. He wants a colour mix that sells, a price that beats the cheap local maker, and new designs before weddings and festivals.

The customer

Buys a bucket or a mug because the old one broke, and containers when the kitchen needs them. Buys lunch boxes and bottles before school opens, and a casserole or dinner set as a wedding gift. He picks the colour he likes and walks away if it is not there.

Most of the catalogue sits

Every year new shapes are added and old ones are rarely dropped. Distributors take the full range because the scheme asks for it. But in each town, a few items in a few colours do most of the selling. The rest move slowly, and the slowest sit in the back of the godown, gathering dust and scratches.

Colours do not sell evenly

Shops ask for an assorted carton. In practice, customers pick a few favourite colours and leave the rest. The shop reorders, gets another assorted carton, and the unpopular colours keep stacking up. The distributor ends up with towers of one colour nobody wants.

A mould on a slow item is a mould not making money

Every mould has its own place on the machine and its own running time. When you run the mould for a slow item to keep the range full, you take machine time away from the fast item that distributors are short of. The cost is hidden, because the factory looks busy all day.

Granule prices swing and squeeze you

The price of plastic granules goes up and down. You cannot change your price list every time it moves, because distributors and shops push back. So when granules rise, your margin shrinks, and when they fall, your rivals cut prices first. Buying too much or too little granule at the wrong moment hurts either way.

Weddings, festivals and school openings drive the gift and kitchen lines

Casseroles, dinner sets and container sets sell hard in the wedding season and before Diwali, when they are given as gifts. Lunch boxes and bottles sell before schools reopen. Buckets, dustbins and storage boxes move when homes are cleaned for Diwali. Miss the timing and the stock waits a whole year for the next chance.

The cheap local maker is always nearby

Small local units make buckets and mugs from recycled plastic and sell them much cheaper. The shop puts them next to yours. The customer sees the price, not the quality. You cannot fight that on price everywhere, so you must know where your product still sells and where it has lost.

Bulky goods make freight and godown space expensive

A truck full of buckets is mostly air. Tubs and chairs take the same space whether they sell or not. When slow stock fills a distributor's godown, he has no room for the fast items, and he stops ordering from you until it clears.

Where the money quietly goes

What you cannot see today, and what it costs you

Which items and colours really sell in each town

You see what each distributor ordered. You do not see what he sold. So you keep making the same colour mix and the same range, and the slow items keep piling up in his godown.

How long the slow items have been sitting

A tub that went out last month and a tub that went out many seasons ago look the same in your billing. The old one is scratched and faded, and it will only ever sell at a discount. You do not know it is there until the distributor asks you to take it back.

Whether the gift sets reached the shops in time

Wedding and festival gift sets must be in shops before the season. You ship them on time to distributors, but you cannot tell which distributors passed them on and which kept them in the godown until the season was over.

Where the cheap rival is winning

Sales of your buckets fall in a district. Is the distributor weak, is the shop short of stock, or has a local maker taken the market? Without seeing what moves in that district, you cannot tell which problem you have.

Whether your granule stock will last the season

Before the busy season, the factory runs every machine hard. If one colour or one granule grade runs out, a line stops at the worst time. Often the store keeper notices only when the bags are nearly gone.

A season, the way it usually goes

The story you already know

It is August in Rajkot. The factory is running every mould hard for the festive and wedding season. Distributors across Gujarat and Maharashtra have taken the full range, including the new casserole designs and the container sets in every colour.

By Diwali, the owner hears mixed news. A distributor in Nagpur says the casseroles sold out in the first week, and shops are asking for more in the plain colours. A distributor in Surat says his godown is full of the bright colours in buckets and tubs, and he has no space for the gift sets. The factory is still busy making assorted cartons of buckets, because that was the plan.

After the festival, Surat sends back a long list of slow items and asks for credit against them. Nagpur has missed much of its wedding season trade because the casseroles in plain colours were never made in enough numbers. The owner looks at a year of full machines and full trucks, and wonders why the bank balance does not match.

What you can now decide

Decisions you could not make before

Cut the range to what sells

See which shapes and colours leave distributors' godowns and which sit. Drop the slow ones from the catalogue or make them only to order. Every mould freed from a slow item can run the fast one longer.

Change the colour mix in the carton

If customers in a region pick a few colours and leave the rest, send that region a carton weighted to the colours it buys. The distributor stops building towers of the colour nobody wants.

Run moulds on what distributors are short of

When a fast item is running low across several distributors, move it up the machine plan. When a slow item is still lying in godowns, hold its mould back. The factory stays busy, but busy on the right things.

Get gift sets into shops before the season

Before the wedding season and Diwali, see which distributors have passed the gift sets on and which are still holding them. Push the slow ones, or move sets to a distributor who has run out.

Move it, do not make it

When one distributor is short of a bucket colour and another has too much, move the stock between them, with their agreement. Same goods, no new production, no new cost.

Buy granule in time, not in panic

See your granule and colour stock beside the production plan for the season. Get a warning before a grade or colour runs short, and buy before the rush, not when the line has already stopped.

Fight the cheap rival only where it matters

If your goods still sell in a district, there is no need to cut price there. If sales have fallen while the distributor holds plenty of stock, that is where you need a new design, a better scheme or a smaller pack size.

Where you get ahead

Where your competitor keeps losing

Your factory makes what sells

Most plastic makers run their machines on habit and last year's catalogue. You run them on what customers took home. The same machines, the same staff and the same granule give far more saleable goods.

Distributors make space for you

A distributor whose godown is not full of your slow colours has room for your new designs. He will push your goods ahead of the rival whose bright tubs are blocking his godown.

You win the gift season

Your casseroles and container sets reach the right shops, in the colours people want, before the wedding season. You take the gift sale. Your rival misses it, because his sets are still in a distributor's godown.

The same season, with Vyavora

The story, told again

The same August in Rajkot. This year, every distributor in Gujarat and Maharashtra bills on his own Vyavora, which the factory set up and pays for. The owner opens his screen before the morning production meeting.

He sees that Nagpur has sold through most of its plain-coloured casseroles already, weeks before Diwali. Surat is barely moving its bright buckets and tubs, and has been holding some of them for a long time. He moves the casserole mould up the plan and holds back the bright bucket colours. He asks the Surat distributor to send some bright tubs to a distributor in Pune who still sells them. The granule warning shows a colour running low, and the purchase is made before the rush.

By Diwali, Nagpur has its casseroles in the right colours, and Surat has room for gift sets. After the festival, the slow-item list from Surat is short. The owner drops a few shapes from next year's catalogue and frees their moulds for the items that sold. The machines were just as busy as last year. This time, the goods they made went home with customers.

Why the others agree to it

Everyone in the chain is better off

For the distributor

He gets a full Vyavora for his own business, usually paid for by you. It has GST billing, stock, a billing counter and accounts. It shows what each shop owes him and sends WhatsApp messages to his shops. Your current price list arrives on its own, so price changes after a granule rise reach him without confusion. He can place orders against it and pay online. You see only your own goods with him. His other brands, his margins, his purchase prices, his shop list, his expenses and his bank balance stay his.

For the shop

A utensil or kirana shop that bills on Vyavora picks colour and size at the counter, so his own stock record is right. He can see which colours he keeps reordering and which are piling up, and order smarter from the distributor. Billing carries on when the internet drops.

For your factory manager

He plans the moulds on what distributors are actually selling, not on what was made last year. He sees granule and colour stock beside the plan and gets warned before anything runs out.

What this does not do

Vyavora shows your goods with distributors who bill on Vyavora, and with shops only where they bill on it too. It does not look into anyone's old software and does not buy data. It does not plan your mould changes or calculate how much granule each item uses. It does not tell you what will sell next season or what granule prices will do. It shows you what has sold, what is still lying, and what raw material you hold against your plan, so that you can decide.

Straight answers

Questions people in this trade ask

We make many shapes in many colours. Can Vyavora show each colour separately?

Yes. Each shape and colour is its own item, so you see which colours move in which town.

Will distributors object to the factory seeing their stock?

They see that you can view only your own goods. Their other brands, their margins, their shops and their money are never shown to you. That is usually what wins them over.

Can it tell me which gift sets have reached shops before the wedding season?

It shows which sets have left each distributor's godown. Where the shop also bills on Vyavora, it shows which sets the shop has sold.

Does it help with raw materials?

Yes, on your own side. You see granule and colour stock beside production and get a warning before a material runs out. It does not calculate how much material each item uses.

Can stock be moved from one distributor to another?

The move is agreed between you and the distributors, but because you see what each one holds, you know where to move it from and where to send it.

Our distributors keep their records in Excel. Do they need to type everything again?

No. Vyavora reads the Excel and PDF files they already keep, so their stock and customers come in without retyping.

Your catalogue is long. Your customers buy from a short page of it.