How To Maintain A Healthy Inventory
As a small business owner, you need to have a product or service to sell to succeed. If you sell physical products, poor inventory management is one of the factors that can derail your business. If you put the right inventory management process in place, you will gain inventory control and maintain healthy stock levels. Also, maintaining a healthy inventory minimizes the chances of running out of valuable products.
When you engage in proper inventory management, you will determine the products that aren’t moving quickly and avoid having too much of it moving forward. This way, you will avoid purchasing or renting space, and this saves you a significant amount on real estate spending.
Since maintaining a healthy inventory is not easy, below are some tips that can help you out:
Cut Human Error and Invest In an Inventory Management System
Humans are prone to mistakes. Even though mistakes are inevitable, they should be a point of concern for every business owner, especially when it comes to inventory management. You need to reduce human error by investing in good inventory management software.
Before you buy an inventory tracking software, ensure your team is properly trained, and maintaining a healthy inventory will become easier and faster. To get value for your money, invest in an intuitive system that allows you to track the inventory between your physical location and online store without problems. in case you don’t have enough money to purchase an inventory system, consider taking a working capital loan.
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Don’t Overlook Warehouse Management Housekeeping
You cannot maintain a healthy inventory if your warehouse is dirty and unhealthy. By keeping the warehouse clean and tidy, you will avoid slow shipment times and other costly mistakes. Divide the warehouse into sections and designate areas for receiving, sales orders, order fulfillment, and shipping. You can do this better by color-coding shelves or taping offstage locations for particular products. Also, have a strict cleaning schedule for your cleaners and ensure the warehouse is cleaned and maintained at all times.
Liquidate Excess Inventory
Every storage space in your business is exceptionally valuable. Don’t waste a lot of it by keeping items you don’t need. If you do, you might face a complete stock-out of high demand items, and jeopardize the safety of your goods. This might have adverse effects on your efforts to achieve your short and long-term business goals. To avoid this, perform regular business audits and pay close attention to your sales logs to identify deadstock items. Liquidate them as soon as possible to reduce wasted space and cut down carrying costs.
Set Up a Reorder Point
Setting a reorder point will help you maintain healthy inventory levels without the need to regularly monitor your inventory. You can set a reorder point that triggers automatically with a good inventory management system.
However, don’t set a reorder point and forget about it. Remember, customer demands will change over time, and a product you considered hot might be dead stock in no time. Adjust your order point often to ensure your storage space is only used for valuable products.
A properly maintained inventory will allow you to provide clients with the products they require, cut operating costs, and eventually achieve business success. With the tips above, you will gain inventory management skills that will help your company stand out from the competition.
In case you get stuck, and you don’t know what to do to maintain a healthy inventory for your business, contact us today for a free consultation.
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