Most brands measure days inventory outstanding and stop there. The cycle is DIO plus DSO minus DPO, and the cheapest lever is almost always DPO.
Moving from 30% deposit and 70% before sailing to 20% deposit and net 30 after arrival shifted roughly 45 days of funding onto the supplier for one client, worth about $180k of freed cash on $3.4m of purchases.
Pay for that concession with volume commitments and on-time payment history, not price. Suppliers price risk, and a clean two-year record is worth more than a 2% bump.
Working capitalCash flow Share
