Even the most successful businesses in the retail industry can become more profitable, and everyone can do better work. These are premises that we can all agree on.
One key element that almost all retailers (even the most successful ones) can do better is inventory management. I’m not talking about your regular daily transfers and counts that almost all of us do skillfully, but mainly on the more advanced options that we rarely use such as setting minimum and maximum quantities to get notified, comparing between products, checking product performance and examining past reports to see if there’s any valuable information hiding from us.
The main thing I’ve learned in my many years in retail is that you simply can’t sit back and let your business run by itself. Even when you feel that everything is ticking like a clock, and all seems to be running well – there is always room for improvement.
With that in mind, I’d like to share with you my 5 tips that would make any retail business run its inventory better and more smoothly:
1. Track your activity
As a business owner, you ought to know about any movement in your stock. From product transfers to inventory losses such as testers, damaged goods or missing products, everything must be brought to your attention, so when the right time comes, you’ll be on top of things instead of being overwhelmed by irregularities. In addition to those, it’s extremely important to have detailed reports organized in one place.
2. Daily counts
Managing your inventory is a daily task. Without keeping daily track of your inventory status, even the most advanced reports won’t help you. Daily counts is a major part of any organized retail business routine.
3. Manage out-of-stock products
With the help of your detailed reports, you will be able to know exactly which products are missing, and which sold the most. So when you need to reorder – you’ll know exactly what to order and when.
4. Clear description
A major part of being organized is keeping clear and informative descriptions of your products: names, sizes, colors, wholesaler name etc. Without this detailed information, you won’t be able to fully understand your reports and see the total picture. If you’re unable to do this work yourself, it’s recommended to hire someone who will.
5. Organized work environment
A clean, spacious and neat work environment might save you a lot of time trying to search for products. Researches also indicate that such a work environment may raise the effectiveness of you and your employees. There are no flaws to that – only clean profit.
