Monday morning at the livefood fridge
Your livefood supplier delivers on Wednesdays, and the order has to be in by Monday. The owner counts the tubs on the display: small crickets are nearly gone, medium locusts are fine, there are more mealworms than usual. She orders by feel. On Saturday, three reptile keepers come in for medium brown crickets and there are none. The following week, too many tubs of small locusts are ordered, and several are past their best by the time anyone buys them.
The frozen food freezer has its own version of the problem. Some sizes of frozen mice and rats sell steadily to snake keepers, others rarely, and nobody knows what is at the bottom of the chest freezer until they dig.
Why livefood is hard to order
Livefood is a narrow range with many variants: species, size and tub type. It sells to a relatively small group of regular reptile and amphibian keepers, who each buy the same thing on a cycle. It has a short shelf life and one delivery a week.
- Orders are based on what is left on the day of ordering.
- Sales by variant are not easy to see on the till.
- Regular keepers' buying cycles are not recorded.
- The supplier's cut-off and delivery days are fixed.
- Frozen stock is not counted by size.
What guesswork costs
Running out of the livefood a reptile keeper needs is a real problem for them, and they may go to another shop or order online, taking their other purchases with them. Over-ordering means tubs that are thrown away, which is money lost every week.
Keepers notice patterns quickly. Someone who has found the shelf empty two Saturdays running will stop relying on you and start buying in bulk online or from a specialist further away, and they rarely come back for livefood once they have changed habit.
Frozen food errors tie up freezer space and cash, and digging through a chest freezer to find a size wastes staff time.
Ordering from what actually sells
- We set up each livefood and frozen variant clearly on your till, with species, size and pack, if it is not already.
- Sales by variant and by day are pulled from your till, showing weekly patterns.
- Regular keepers who are identified at the till, through loyalty or accounts, have their buying cycle recorded, and upcoming purchases are included.
- A suggested order is prepared each Monday, based on expected sales until the next delivery, stock on hand and the supplier's pack sizes.
- Livefood tubs that did not sell by their sell by point are recorded as waste, so the next suggestion learns from it.
- A simple frozen stock count by size, done on a phone, keeps the freezer figures accurate.
| Input | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Sales by variant and day | Shows the weekly rhythm |
| Regular keepers' cycles | Predicts known demand |
| Supplier cut-off and delivery day | Sets the ordering window |
| Waste recorded | Stops the same over-order |
| Frozen count by size | Keeps freezer stock real |
The suggested order is a starting point for you to adjust. What livefood to stock, and how it is kept, stays with you.
Livefood that is there when keepers need it
On Monday, the owner opens the suggested order, adjusts a couple of lines for a customer who has said they are getting a new gecko, and sends it. On Saturday, the medium brown crickets are there for the regular keepers. Fewer tubs are thrown away because orders follow what sells.
Waste becomes something you can see and discuss. If small locusts are thrown away most weeks, the numbers make the case for ordering fewer or dropping a size, and if a supplier's tubs consistently arrive with less life left in them, you have a record to raise it with.
The freezer is counted by size once a week, and the suggested frozen order stops the bottom of the chest filling with sizes nobody buys.
Is your livefood ordered by feel?
- Livefood runs out before the weekend.
- Tubs are thrown away regularly.
- Orders are based on counting the display on order day.
- You do not know which keepers buy what and when.
- Frozen food is not counted by size.