👉 Background: Bunnings is the iconic Australian hardware retailer, owned by Wesfarmers. Think: handwritten price tags, passionate staff and a deeeeelicious snag with cooked onions, tomato sauce and mustard.

👉 What happened: Over the past couple of years, Bunnings has done a roaaaaring trade! In the past two financial years it has seen its revenue jump 12.5% and 5.2% respectively to over $17.5 billion in sales.

👉 What else: But now, Bunnings is in a bit of a pickle. It aggressively ordered stock to fill shelves for spring and summer, which are normally its biggest months. But its outdoor categories have underperformed due to wetter and colder weather and now it's stuck with too much stock for its warehouses.

What's the key learning?

💡Predicting stock requirements and managing supply chain has never been tougher. In fact, 91% of businesses say they struggle to manage supply chain complexities.

💡 Over the past few years, the forecasting of how much stock to order and at what frequency has become a lot trickier.

• We’ve had the shutdown of factories in China, which delayed supply chains significantly
• We had a cargo ship block the Suez Canal, one of the world’s largest shipping routes
• We’ve had unprecedented consumer demand

💡All of these led to lumpy supply chains and understocked shelves or warehouses. Bunnings has been ordering loads of stock for up to a year ahead. But it seems like perhaps they’ve bitten off more BBQ's than they could sizzle.

‍