It’s January 1st. The inbox is quiet. Most businesses won’t send anything meaningful until the 6th.
Which is exactly why I’m here.
Call it David Goggins energy - “I’m here because they’re not.” While everyone else is recovering from New Year’s Eve, here’s something actually useful instead of “new year, new goals” platitudes.
The Company That Sold More and Lost Everything
I spent last week researching the UK garden furniture market. Not for a client - for a venture I’m building myself. And I found something that should concern anyone selling physical products.
Alexander Rose is a 30-year-old garden furniture company. Established. Respected. The kind of solid, well-run business you’d assume knows what it’s doing.
In 2024, they sold 13% more than the previous year. Revenue up. Sales growing. Success, right?
They lost £1.2 million.
-960%
Profit swing - from £141k profit to a seven-figure loss while selling more product
Not a typo. Revenue UP 13%. Profit DOWN 960%. A company that’s been trading since 1994 went from £141k profit to a seven-figure loss while selling more product.
They’re now “restructuring” with a new MD brought in to “stabilise the business.”
This isn’t an isolated case.
The Stock Problem
When I dug into Companies House filings across the industry, the same pattern emerged everywhere:
BDP/Bramblecrest (the £25M market leader):
- Stock holdings: £4.6M (I noticed they’d doubled year-on-year)
- Result: Profit halved despite being the biggest player
- Gross margin collapsed from 39% to 32%
Harbour Lifestyle (premium D2C brand):
- Stock holdings: £2.5M
- Cash position: Down 69% in one year
- They had to raise £2.5M in external investment just to survive
The pattern is always the same:
- Import containers of stock
- Hope for good weather
- Bad summer / shipping delays / currency moves happen
- Stock doesn’t sell at full price
- Clearance sales destroy margin
- Revenue goes UP but profit goes DOWN
Stock isn’t an asset. Stock is a bet. A bet on weather. A bet on shipping costs. A bet on consumer confidence. A bet on everything you can’t control.
What the Survivors Do Differently
The businesses that aren’t bleeding cash share one characteristic: they don’t hold stock.
Just-In-Time delivery using wholesalers. Customer pays, manufacturer ships. Zero inventory risk. Zero weather exposure. Zero clearance pressure.
Yes, margins are thinner per unit. But margins on products you actually sell beat margins on products that are rotting in a warehouse.
The maths:
- 40% margin on £100k of stock that takes 2 years to shift = loss
- 20% margin on £100k of JIT sales in 6 months = profit
This isn’t revolutionary. Toyota figured it out in the 1950s. But every year, product businesses convince themselves that “this time it’s different” and I watch them pile into stock.
The Lesson for 2026
If you’re selling physical products - or thinking about it - ask yourself:
“Am I building a business or placing a bet?”
Because the 30-year-old company that just lost £1.2M thought they were building a business too.
Why I’m Telling You This
That research - Companies House filings, competitor analysis, market structure, business model comparisons - I did it in one afternoon as part of an ecommerce venture I’m planning.
Not weeks. Not with expensive consultants. One afternoon with the system reading financial statements, spotting patterns, and pulling findings together faster than any human researcher.
I’m building a luxury garden furniture website this year. Before I commit a single pound, I already know that the market leader’s profit halved, that the premium brand burned through its cash, and that a 30-year-old competitor is restructuring after catastrophic losses. I know the stock-holding model is broken before I make the mistake of choosing it. You can’t discover anything if you don’t build anything - but you can discover a lot before you build the wrong thing.
You can now do weeks of competitive research in hours. The expensive mistakes - the ones that sink businesses - are increasingly optional.
The information exists. The tools to find it exist. The only question is whether you use them before committing, or learn the hard way like Alexander Rose.
52 newsletters in 2025. 52 more coming in 2026. Same time, every week.
I’ve been reading Anthony Bourdain over the holidays. His mantra in the kitchen was simple: showing up is everything. Not talent. Not connections. Not luck. Just being there, doing the work, when others aren’t. It’s a principle I’ve built an entire business around.
Because showing up is the strategy. Everything else is tactics. And if your marketing isn’t showing up for you, here’s why.
Tony Cooper
We Build Stores - Where 26 Years of Experience Delivers in One Hour What 26 Hours of Not Knowing Cannot
tony.cooper@webuildstores.co.uk
07963 242210
P.S. If you’re building a product business and want to talk through your model, reply to this email. No pitch, just conversation.
Happy New Year. Now let’s get to work.
