Three shops under one owner on three islands in the same atoll, all ordering for Ramadan, all previously ordering separately and all previously over buying.
We combined the order, which brought every line to a pallet quantity and took the unit prices down a step. The split happened at our warehouse into three marked loads, and the two islands on the same boat route travelled together.
The more useful part was the shape of the order. Ramadan volume is front loaded and it collapses in the last week, so we sent about seventy per cent on the first sailing and the rest ten days later, with the second load's contents left open until the first week's sales were known. That second load ended up smaller than planned on flour and much larger on cooking oil.
None of the three shops was left holding dead stock afterwards, which had been the problem in the two previous years.
