Inventory Turnover

Contrarily to what most people think, restaurants do not make money on the meals or even the liquor but on the "table turnover". The higher the table turnover, the more profitable the restaurant is. What's the table turnover? It's how many times can they get new customers to a table on the same night. Their inventories are the tables.

Grocery stores have an inventory, the food. What do they make their profit on? Surprise, surprise: not on selling the food but on the concept of inventory turnover. If you do stock photography, photos are your inventory.

What's important about inventory turnover

I flew from Vancouver Canada to Amsterdam the Netherland, the cost was almost $1,000 after fees and taxes, the hotel, food, local transportation... another $1,500. I came back and had 37 outstanding/excellent photos. My cost was $67 per outstanding/excellent photo. The first time I sold these photos, I made an average $59 profit per photo. So far, I sold 2 of these photos a second time, my profit on these 37 photos has gone from $59 per photo to $70 per photo. That's an extra $407 of profit.

It doesn't matter how many times I sell these photos, their cost stays at: $67. When I sell these photos a second time, my cost has not have changed, but my profit increases.

The better you manage your photos, the more profitable you can be.

Tracking photos

I use Excel to track my profits and costs. Here is a sample section.