Inventory management is the one thing you need to get right while running a retail business. If you have a poor stock control it may lead to lousy customer experiences, reduced sales and tied up capital. If you fail to manage your inventory properly, other aspects of your business like finance and customer experience may face some problem.

We have put together some of the common inventory mistakes that retailers do in general as follows. We have also included some recommendations on how to correct them and go through your business. With the help of epos system you can overcome the mistakes and run your business successfully.

Managing Your Inventory Manually

Inventory cannot be checked by using a pen and paper. Manual stock control leads to human error, inventory discrepancies and also a waste of time.

If you have a start up business then digitize your inventory process particularly data entry and reporting. Get an inventory management system that allows you to enter products electronically or scan into the system. Now-a-days inventory management systems can adjust levels automatically whenever you process sales or returns. It means you don’t have the need to manually update your records.

Investing in an inventory solution with reporting capabilities can gain you with the deeper insights into your stock. These reports help you figure out your top sellers and performance of the products and thus help you make smarter stock control decisions.

Not Counting Your Physical Inventory Frequently

Key to success is to catch the issues like shrinkage and inventory discrepancies at as early as possible. It is not possible for you to do that if you don’t count your inventory frequently. It is always essential to have a solid stock take process. It will be difficult to find out the root causes of your inventory issues if you conduct the stock counts once a year and there by having a year’s worth of discrepancies. A lot experts recommend cycle counting – a process of partially counting merchandise on a continuous basis. In this method counting entails just certain portions of inventory on a daily or weekly basis which avoids a full inventory count anymore.

The best way to cycle count is to focus the items that you sell more or that are smaller or easier to misplace. You could afford to count low volume items less frequently. Make sure that your online inventory is counted and synced with your offline stock levels which are essential for customer satisfaction and online order fulfillment. It is preferred to count your inventory at least once a month or aim to cycle through all their products every quarter.

Disorganized Stockroom

A messy must be avoided in the retail business. Having products spread all over the place can diminish store efficiency which in turn leads to inventory problems. There are a few tips suggested to keep your stockroom organized.

Be strategic in positioning merchandise – think about how to organize and position your products in your stockroom. The key is to make things locate as easy as possible. Depending on how you run the store, place your fastest moving items at front so they are easily accessible. In some other cases group all similar items together or arrange merchandise by department. Find out the one which works best for you.

Label your bins and storage spaces as it can be a godsend when it comes to stockroom management, so create a detailed and easy to understand labeling for your storage spaces and containers. Use of bins to identify things is a clean, organized way of keeping your stock room from getting cluttered. Identifying bins with labels help control the chaos of inventory just piling up without a place to go. Depending on the unique need of stores you can label the bins as returns, damaged items, return to vendor, store décor, promotional giveaways, hangers etc.

Using high shelves enable you to fully utilize the vertical space in your stock room and making more efficient with your use of space. These can also save time and energy. Make room for admin work as storing products is not the only thing you’ll be doing in your stockroom. It needs some considerable amount of time to be spent by you and your employees for doing things like taking notes, checking inventory levels, updating sock counts or managing suppliers. Your stockroom has to be designated for doing such kind of tasks.