Two hundred stores, no sales history yet
Published 22 Oct 2026
You can work out what fills a new listing’s shelves before anyone has bought one. Multiply the stores by the bottles across the front of the shelf and the bottles behind each one. That number counts shelf space and says nothing about how many people will buy. The purchase order may include stock for the depot and website too. The next batch you make needs a forecast. At a good rate of sale it has to start before the shelves are empty, so set its date before launch day.
Where does the first order come from?
From the buyer. Penelope Cheshire, who founded Beauty Works, told Rochelle Humes on Ladies Who Launch about her first big retail order, in an episode published on 24 June 2026. Around 2009 or 2010 she took samples to the buyer at a Manchester chain of beauty and hair shops. She came away with a £75,000 order and roughly eight weeks to deliver it. In the episode’s transcript she says:
"So I have no stock."
As she recalls it, she told the buyer:
"Yeah, of course. We’ll get that to you. Can you sign the PO?"
At a national chain the order is still the retailer’s. Space NK’s public purchase-order terms, which carry no date, describe the order as "setting out the quantity and type of Products". They do not say how the first quantity is reached, and I found no public formula from Boots or Sephora UK either.
What does 200 stores come to?
Launch news stops at the store count. From 9 September 2026, Wrinkles Schminkles went into more than 60 Boots stores across the UK and Ireland, with ten products. Beauty Magazine reported Anua in 40 Space NK stores. Saie arrived in Sephora UK on 6 October with two-bay spaces, its first store space in the UK or Europe. Anua and Saie already sold in the UK. None of the reports gives units.
A facing is one bottle at the front of the shelf, and the bottles behind it are its depth. The sum below is illustrative. Every figure is made up, and none is a retailer’s term.
- One hand cream goes into 200 stores.
- Each store gives it 2 facings, 6 bottles deep, so 12 bottles a store.
- 200 stores at 12 each is 2,400 bottles.
- Packed 6 to a case, that is 400 cases.
- At £3 a bottle to make and ship in, filling the shelves ties up £7,200.
The £7,200 is what the display stock costs you. It leaves out testers, depot and website stock, freight outside the £3, returns and launch promotions. What you invoice the retailer and what you earn need their own sums, and each further product needs its own line.
Ask the buyer which stores take it, how many facings each gives it, and where cases round the order. Keep testers, depot stock and website stock on lines of their own, so nothing is counted twice.
How long will the shelves last?
That depends on sales nobody has seen yet. Take three made-up rates, with steady sales and no new deliveries.
- At 1 bottle a store a week, 200 sell each week. The shelves last 12 weeks.
- At 2 a week, 400 sell each week. The shelves last 6 weeks.
- At 3 a week, 600 sell each week. The shelves last 4 weeks.
Say a new batch takes four weeks from your order to stock you can ship. At 2 a week the shelves are empty after week 6, so the batch starts by the end of week 2. At 3 a week the shelves last exactly as long as the batch takes. It starts on launch day, or you hold back stock already made. Waiting for the first weekly sales figures would be too late. These dates leave no room for delays. The same guess can change how much you make before launch.
The retailer’s next order is its own number. It depends on the stock it holds, its case sizes and its order calendar. Ask the buyer when it usually orders again.
What happens once the shelves are full?
Abena Boamah-Acheampong took Hanahana Beauty into 350 Ulta stores in the US in 2023, and it reached 500. In March 2026 she announced it was leaving Ulta to sell direct. She told Taylor Bryant of Beauty Independent, in an interview published on 29 March 2026:
"What’s not talked about much is, once you get into those stores, you are the seller at that point."
The article reports that much of her funding went on stock bought against projections Ulta supplied. That left little for marketing, staff and sales support, and she wishes she had relied on those projections less.
Denise Vasi kept Maed on its own website first, from September 2024. It opened in 80 US Sephora stores and online in August 2025. By the brand’s own figures, it beat its first-day sales forecast by 76% and its first-week forecast by 43%. The article gives no base for either. Vasi told Polly Blitzer of Beauty Independent, in an interview published on 28 August 2026:
"You’ve got to hit projections at minimum and hopefully exceed those."
The article adds that Vasi makes the final call on inventory buys and on the split between Sephora and Maed’s website. A first week like Maed’s, 43% over plan, would take the example’s 2 a week to almost 3. At 3, the shelves last four weeks.
What do I write down before launch day?
- Three numbers, each on its own line: what fills the shelf, what the purchase order says, and what you expect shoppers to buy. Put where each came from beside it.
- Three sales rates per store per week, and how many weeks the stock lasts at each, counting your own warehouse. In the example, 1, 2 and 3 a week last 12, 6 and 4 weeks.
- The latest day to start the next batch at each rate, with its quantity and cost. In the example, the end of week 8, the end of week 2, and launch day.
- The review date, one week after launch, then weekly. Swap the guesses for real sales once you know which stores were live, which ran out and which had a promotion. Then move the batch date if the rate says so.
- Who owns the number, and who splits the stock between the retailer and your own website. Write the name next to the date.
Fill the shelves to the buyer’s order, and put the next batch’s start date in the diary that day.
Antevon’s 2-week audit forecasts what each retailer will sell and prices the decisions that follow in pounds, the next batch included.