One of the best practices of small businesses that sell goods is inventory management. Tracking inventory is essential to gaining valuable insights into the performance of your business. It helps you see if you have the right products available to meet demand, shows how your business is affected by the availability of products, and shows profits and losses. Take a look at some easy ways to manage your smoke shop inventory and help your small business grow.
1. Prioritize Your Inventory
Prioritizing the different types of inventory your shop has is the best way to get a clear understanding of what products are in demand and what products aren’t. Categorizing your inventory into groups helps you save money and ensure you are stocked on products that are in high demand. One of the best practices of inventory management is to categorize your inventory into three groups. Identifying high-ticket items with low demand, lower-cost items with high turnover, and affordably priced items that sell casually can help you better allocate your purchasing to ensure you are stocked on the right inventory at any given time.
2. Track Product Information
It’s essential to keep track of all the product information for all of the items in your inventory. This includes SKU numbers, barcode data, suppliers, countries of origin, and lot numbers. It’s also a good idea to track the cost of items to note changes in prices throughout the year. The key to successful asset management is to have the right tools at your disposal. An asset management system with ease of use makes it easy to track assets no matter where you are. With asset tracking software from Cheqroom, you can keep all of your asset information and attachments in one dashboard so you always know who has them and their due dates.
A built-in scanner on the mobile app allows you to easily scan asset QR codes and barcodes so they can be more easily checked out. Asset maintenance management eliminates downtime by helping you plan regular preventative maintenance and keep track of each physical asset’s maintenance history. Asset management software simplifies scheduling, generates equipment reports so you can keep up with usage, depreciation, and warranty, helps increase efficiency, and streamlines workflows.
3. Track Sales
It’s essential to track sales daily. Small businesses should always have real-time insights about products and how many are sold so that inventory totals can be updated. Having accurate sales information is key to running analytics. You need to know if there are times when certain products sell better, such as a specific season or day of the week. It also helps to know if certain products are bought together. Tracking sales helps you understand the health of your business and shows you how to keep your inventory under control.
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4. Be Consistent
It’s important to have a standard process in place for processing incoming inventory. This ensures team members don’t spend too much time processing stock and do so in a uniform way. The smallest discrepancy in inventory processing can result in a major headache at the end of the month when trying to align numbers with purchase orders. Incoming inventory should always be verified, received, unpacked, counted, and checked for accuracy using the same methods.
Prioritizing inventory, tracking product information, tracking sales, and being consistent are some of the best practices of successful inventory management.
