1. Wire is where the money and the leakage both are
Wire is bought in coils and sold cut, which means the stock figure drifts every single day unless the conversion is right. Sizes, core counts and brands are all separate products — a 1.0 and a 1.5 are not interchangeable and customers ask by both size and brand. Offcuts, short measures and wire taken without billing are real loss, and across a year they add up to a number most shops would be startled by.
2. Thousands of small fittings
Switches, sockets, MCBs, holders, boxes and accessories run to thousands of lines in a dozen brands, most of them small and similar. Name search at a busy counter is slow and error-prone. Barcoding the fast movers, including printing your own labels for bins, is what makes the counter workable — and it is the only way stock in this category stays true.
3. Choosing your brand mix
Electrical is brand-sensitive: an electrician has preferences, a customer has heard of two names, and margins differ substantially between premium and economy lines. Carry one premium brand for customers who ask for it, one mid-range that will be most of your turnover, and an economy line for price-driven work. Adding a fourth brand usually adds stock rather than sales.
4. Electrician credit and the job cycle
Your regular buyer draws material through a wiring job that will be paid at the end — many small visits over several weeks, which is exactly how an account grows unnoticed. Set a limit at the start so a stalled job stops drawing, and send a statement each month while the work is fresh. Electricians also bring you customers, so the relationship is worth managing well rather than tightly.
5. Rates move on copper
Wire prices follow the copper market and change more often than most shops update their selling rate. A price set two months ago against a cost that has risen since is a quiet loss on your highest-turnover line. Update the item rate when your purchase rate moves and let it flow to every bill, with agreed rates held against your regular electricians so nobody has to remember them.
6. What to stock first
Wire in the two or three sizes that carry most of the work, switches and sockets in your main brand, MCBs in the common ratings, holders, boxes, tape and the sundries electricians buy every day. Those sundries matter more than they look — they bring people in weekly, and the electrician decides where the wire is bought.