1. Display is the biggest hidden cost
Customers choose tiles by looking, so a shop needs display frames, lighting and floor samples across every range it stocks. That is real capital producing no turnover, and it grows every time you add a brand. Be selective early: three or four ranges displayed well convert better than twelve displayed badly. Track which displayed ranges actually sell, because a frame occupied by something nobody buys is costing you both space and money.
2. Boxes, square feet and the conversion
Tiles are bought by the box and quoted by the square foot, and the coverage per box depends on the size — a 600x600 and an 800x1200 cover different areas. This is where arithmetic errors happen constantly, in the customer's favour or yours. Holding the pieces per box and the coverage against each item once removes it, and printing both the box count and the area on the bill means the customer can check.
3. Batch and shade matching
Tiles from different batches do not match, and a customer who returns for two more boxes six weeks later expects the same shade. Keeping batch as part of the item is how you answer that without opening cartons in the godown, and it prevents the loss where a premium batch is sold at an ordinary batch's rate. Advise customers to buy a small surplus at the time of purchase — it saves both of you a problem later.
4. Breakage is a running cost
Tiles break in handling, in loading and in transit, and in most shops that loss is absorbed rather than recorded. Making it a stock adjustment with a reason turns it into a monthly figure, and once visible it usually points at one route, one vehicle or one loading practice rather than at general bad luck. In a trade with margins like this, a percentage point of breakage is a real number.
5. Builder credit and staged supply
Fitting out twenty flats means orders in batches over months, with payment staged. That needs deliveries recorded against the site, receipts allocated to specific invoices rather than a running balance, and a credit limit set before the first load. Builders are good customers when the account is managed and expensive ones when it is not, and the difference is entirely in the record-keeping.
6. What to stock first
Start with the sizes and price points your local market actually buys rather than the ranges a supplier is pushing. Floor tiles in two or three popular sizes, wall tiles for bathrooms and kitchens, and a basic sanitaryware set will cover most early demand. Add premium ranges once you know your customer, because premium stock that does not move is the most expensive mistake available in this trade.