First Partner Illustration Collection, Series 3

The Friday cook was the biggest in-store day of the month, and the work that made it profitable happened on the Wednesday and Thursday. Members rang their locals and fed back store-level counts, and the picture that came back was specific enough to plan around: Smyths Broadstairs 90 units received, Rymans Chorley 60 boxes confirmed for 9am, Menkind Meadowhall 60, Waterstones 6 to 12, Entertainer 40 to 60.

From that we published an allocation priority rather than a store list. Smyths first, then Menkind, then Entertainer and TG Jones, then the long tail of Rymans, Hobbycraft, Fenwick, Toymaster and Waterstones. Start at whichever of the top three opens earliest near you, clear it, move to the next highest, and only drop to the low-allocation stores when you cannot reach another good one.

The more valuable half of the intel was negative. Eight Sports Direct stores were checked across the week and, between them, roughly five Super Premium Collections looked likely to reach the shop floor against an allocation of 42 to 68. We told members to avoid it entirely rather than start a queue at 1am for nothing.