The last quarter of the year is when most retail businesses in Uganda make their margin for the year, and also when they make their most expensive buying mistakes. Order too little and the shelves are empty on the busiest Saturday in December. Order too much and January is spent discounting stock bought at the year's highest prices. This year the planning has an added variable: prices are moving.
What the numbers say
On 30 September 2026 the Uganda Bureau of Statistics reported that annual inflation for the twelve months to September was 4.6 percent, up from 4.1 percent in the year to August. That is not runaway inflation, but it is a rise, and it lands at the start of the quarter when retailers hold their largest stock.
The Bank of Uganda has been watching the same pressures. In May 2026 it held the central bank rate at 9.75 percent, noted that higher global oil prices had contributed to a 5.4 percent depreciation of the shilling between February and April, had earlier raised the cash reserve requirement for banks to 11 percent in March, and revised its near-term core inflation forecast up to between 5.0 and 5.3 percent for the following twelve months. For a shop, the plain reading is that imported goods and transport-heavy goods are the lines most likely to cost more by December than they do today.
Start from last year's sales, not last year's orders
Pull the sales by product for October to December of last year, week by week. Orders tell you what you hoped to sell; sales tell you what customers wanted. Look for three things:
- Products whose sales doubled or more in December compared with October. These are your festive lines and they need their own plan.
- Products that ran out, and for how long. Lost sales do not appear in the sales report, so ask staff what they were turning customers away for.
- Products you were still discounting in January. Those were over-ordered.
Adjust for growth or decline in your trade this year, then for the price trend, and you have a first draft of the festive order.
Buy early where the cost is likely to rise
With the exchange rate and energy prices pushing on costs, there is a case for bringing forward purchases of imported, non-perishable festive stock: cooking oil, rice, beverages, confectionery, decorations, small electricals. The arithmetic is simple. If you expect a line to cost 5 percent more in December and your cost of holding it for two months (storage, the interest or supplier credit on the cash, and the risk of damage) is less than that, buy now.
Do not apply the same logic to perishables or to fashion lines that may not sell. The saving on price is wiped out by one write-off.
Agree terms for the quarter
Festive stock is often paid for before it is sold. Before placing the big orders, agree with each major supplier:
- A price hold for the quarter, or at least notice of any change.
- Credit terms that stretch past the peak selling weeks, so that December's sales pay for December's stock.
- A return or exchange clause for unsold seasonal lines.
If you sell to schools, hospitals or government bodies that are designated withholding agents, remember that URA's rules mean they will deduct 6 percent withholding tax on payments above UGX 1,000,000, so plan to receive 94 percent of those invoices in cash, with the balance as a tax credit.
Protect the shelf during the peak
Stock control does not pause because the shop is busy; it matters more. Raise the reorder points on festive lines for the quarter, shorten the count cycle on high-value items, and make sure every seasonal product is in the system with a scannable code before it reaches the shelf. The weeks when queues are longest are also the weeks when stock walks out unrecorded.
Plan the exit before the entry
Decide now what happens to seasonal stock left on 2 January: a planned markdown schedule, a return to the supplier, or a transfer to the branch that sells it best. Write the date and the markdown percentage into the plan. The alternative, discovering in February that a quarter of the festive order is still on the shelf, is how last year's margin disappears into this year's write-offs.
A one-page festive plan
For each festive line: last year's weekly sales, this year's forecast, the order quantity and date, the supplier price and credit terms, the reorder point for the quarter, and the exit plan. Ten minutes per line now saves an argument per line in January.
Sources
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