After 10 years of going to market — Atlanta, Dallas, Vegas, and everywhere in between — we've made every mistake in the book. Wrote orders on napkins. Lost track of which vendor quoted which price. Came home to a pile of POs and no idea where to start.
Here's the checklist we wish someone had given us on day one.
Before you go
Review your sell-through from last season. Which vendors performed? Which ones sat on shelves? Set a buying budget by category — and actually stick to it. Make a hit list of vendors you want to visit, and block time for walking the floor and discovering new brands.
If you use Inventor-Ease, check your vendor list and make sure contact info is current. You'll be glad you did when you need to follow up on a delayed shipment in April.
While you're there
Take photos of everything — the PO, the line sheet, the showroom setup, your notes. Future-you will thank past-you. Write clear POs with quantities, costs, and expected ship dates. Ask every vendor: "When does this ship?" and write it down.
Use Inventor-Ease's Buying Sessions feature to log vendors you visited, snap photos, and link notes to specific POs. It's like a trip journal that's actually useful later.
When you get home
This is where most teams lose a full week. You've got a stack of POs from 20+ vendors, and every one of them needs to be entered into your system. That's exactly where Inventor-Ease shines — upload each PO, and our system extracts everything. No manual data entry, no re-typing vendor line sheets.
Set your expected arrival dates, and you'll get alerts when shipments are late. When they arrive, receiving takes minutes instead of hours. Your Shopify store stays current without anyone touching admin.