Regarding inventory balances: many wholesalers publicly inform retailers that the inventory balance is xxx units. This figure may include the wholesaler’s own inventory + the manufacturer’s inventory balance in an intermediate warehouse in that country or the head office’s inventory balance in Europe (which can be obtained with a delay of a few days if necessary).
We don’t know, or at least I don’t know, what those Duell inventory balances mentioned on this forum include. It could also be that for some products, only Duell’s own inventory situation is shown, and for other products, Duell’s + the manufacturer’s inventory balance. Because of this, as an outsider pondering, you are constantly just guessing what is happening inside the company.
One more example of inventory balances:
For example, there might be 1000 units of last year’s seasonal product X in the warehouse at a purchase price of 100 euros = 100,000 euros. If these can be sold to retailers at a rate of 5 units per month, the value of the inventory may not need to be written down immediately. Management can justify to the auditor that these will probably sell next year, etc. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. However, one might ask whether such hit products from the past year can still be valued at that valuation if converting them into cash takes a small eternity. In other words, are they current? Financing costs for them, however, are constantly accruing.