Every business will apply its own way of inventory control. However, at the end of the day, managing stock efficiently is the target that everybody wants to achieve. There are a few common procedures and inventory management best practices that can instruct you on how to manage inventories more efficiently.
1. Prioritize location and accessibility
Make sure that your warehouse and stock are well organized and accessible since it will reduce much time for staff to look for the location and find the products. As a result, all other following steps can run smoothly.
2. Establish the floor and layout arrangement
This will help the owners and staff have all the product locations on their minds so it will be much easier and faster to find any items when needed. Besides, creating a floor plan will assist you in determining the best location for your merchandise.
3. Optimize and forecast your inventory
Try to optimize and forecast your inventory by ensuring an adequate amount of goods, not too few or too many. It’s also a good idea to make a list of hot items that sell faster than others. Regardless of the season, these things should always be in the warehouse. It will also be much easier to prepare for impending supply and demand concerns if sales rates are monitored and market trends are followed.
4. Get rid of unneeded stock
Try to get rid of items that have been in stock for an extended period of time by running promotions or offering discounts. It will create more space for you to put other needed items. Besides, such offers can also increase customer satisfaction, make inventory replenishment easier, and keep business going forward.
5. Set a cycle count schedule
Establish a cycle count timetable to adequately monitor product flow rather than waiting for a chance to count your inventory.
6. Check stock quickly after delivery
After each inventory order arrives, spend a few minutes checking to see if your delivered merchandise is correct or there are any problems with the product’s quality and refuse any items that are not ordered or spoil. This step will help you avoid the case that the real stock is not enough or excess the inventory data from the system.
7. Label all products
Labels should have enough data such as product name, number, quantity, and description. Labeling all products makes it much easier and faster to recognize them.
8. Keep an eye on expiration dates
When you pay attention to the product’s expiration dates, you can get rid of any remaining merchandise before it goes out of date by reducing prices or offering special deals.
9. Make sure you’re keeping track of your inventory
You will need to know how much stock you have, where the stock is coming from, or when the items are leaving the warehouse to run your business. So, it is essential to keep track of your inventory frequently. Nowadays, almost all businesses use inventory management software to help them keep track of inventory.
10. Assign inventory management responsibility
When you assign separate inventory management responsibilities for an individual, they are more likely to do the task better. It is because they focus more on the process, spend more time, and are more familiar.
11. Create back-ups of your inventory data
You must also ensure that you have data backups so that critical information is always available, accessible, and never lost. And, in the unlikely event that data is lost or erased, you’ll have backups ready to restore, ensuring that your business and customers aren’t harmed.
