Start from the Vehicle Park Not from the Catalogue
The catalogue you should order from is the one written by the roads in your market. Before choosing a brand or a segment, record what is actually running: the passenger sizes on the taxis and family cars, the light truck sizes on delivery fleets, the truck sizes on the long-haul and tipper fleets, and whatever the agricultural or industrial equipment in the region fits. A size list built this way is short and specific. A catalogue built by scrolling a supplier's range is long and random. The vehicle park tells you which two hundred of the twenty four hundred plus sizes available actually sell where you operate.
Depth Versus Breadth in a First Order
In any tyre market a small number of sizes carries most of the volume. The top selling passenger and truck sizes move steadily; the long tail moves slowly if at all. A first order should therefore buy depth in a few confirmed sizes rather than breadth across many. Depth means enough pieces per size to cover repeat demand through the first cycle and to present a credible stock to walk-in trade. Breadth on a first order is a guess multiplied, and every guessed size is capital sitting on a rack. Confirm the core sizes from the vehicle park, then let the second order add the fringe.
The Cost of a Gap
A size you do not have does not produce a polite deferral. The buyer walks to the next counter, buys there, and the next purchase often follows the same path. Gaps in fast moving sizes are the most expensive inventory error in distribution because the loss is not the missed sale, it is the customer habit you created. This is why the depth rule matters most on the handful of sizes you already know turn: running out on a core size is worse than never stocking a fringe size, and a first order should protect the core first.
The Cost of a Tail
The opposite error is buying the tail too early. Slow moving sizes tie up capital, occupy rack space that a turning size could use, and age on the shelf, which matters because buyers of stock check manufacture dates. A tail-heavy first order is the most common way a new brand entry goes wrong, and it usually comes from ordering what looked impressive in a catalogue rather than what the market demonstrated. Keep the first order tight. Every slow size you avoid is working capital available for a second order of something that proved itself.
Segment by Segment Behaviour
Passenger, light truck, truck and specialty tyres do not behave the same way. Passenger sizes turn fastest and reward availability above all. Light truck sits in between, with fitment driven by delivery and transport fleets in the region. Truck and bus radials turn more slowly per piece but carry more weight per sale, and buyers there ask about casing condition and retreadability, so consistency of supply in one pattern matters more than a wide choice. Specialty segments such as agricultural, industrial, OTR and solid tyres behave like project business: demand is spiky, tied to specific equipment, and best confirmed order by order rather than stocked on spec.
Using a Mixed Container to Test a Segment
A mixed container lets you probe a segment without betting a full load on it. Because one shipment can combine PCR, TBR, OTR, agricultural, industrial and bias tyres under a single bill of lading, you can put a modest quantity of a truck tyre pattern alongside your proven passenger sizes and see what the market does with it. If it moves, the next container gives that segment more space. If it does not, you have learned that for the cost of a few pallet positions, not a full container of stranded stock. Testing by consolidation is the cheapest research available to a distributor.
Measuring the First Sell Through
The first cycle is data you will never get again at the same cost, so capture it deliberately. Record pieces sold by size and pattern, the speed of each, what customers asked for that you did not have, and any pattern or size requests that repeated. Note who bought: fleets, retail, or other dealers, because that shapes the second order's balance. Also record what came back under warranty and how the claim was handled, since that is part of the total cost of the brand. The second order built on this record beats a guess on every line.
Adjusting the Mix on the Second and Third Containers
A first container is a hypothesis. The second should look different: more depth in the sizes that proved out, the tested segment expanded or dropped, and one or two new sizes added from the gap list customers gave you. By the third container the mix should be converging on your market's real demand. Be suspicious of a supplier who ships you the same assortment every time without asking what sold. A sourcing partner who consolidates from multiple plants in China, Thailand and Cambodia can adjust the mix container by container; a single factory shipping its own range cannot.
