Is it that time of the week to start making your physical inventory count? As a retailer, the thought of making a physical inventory can be tiring.
But inventory is the lifeblood of your shop. It holds a special place in your shop’s operations. You need to account for what is available in your records compared to what is actually there in your store or warehouse.
Counting your inventory can help you find out if there are losses or out-of-stock situation before the problem becomes bigger.
But at the same time, it does not have to be a long and difficult process. Let’s find out ways to make stock management easier and more accessible.
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1. Cycle counting
This method involves counting your products and continuously monitoring stock levels whenever you get free time. Retail stores have used cycle counting for several years as it is quite efficient.
Most store owners use cycle counting every day or every week before opening their shop. This frees them from having to do complete inventory counts. But it also requires regular investment of time and effort to keep abreast of your stock.
Dedicating precious time every day or weekly to physically monitor stock levels can be very time-consuming. Instead, you have the option of using apps to manage your shop that can count your stock levels in real-time.
Apps such as Zadinga helps you scan the Universal Product Code, and add items automatically to your stock inventory. You no longer need to spend time before opening the shop to count all the products anymore.
Such POS software can get instant stock level updates and also notifications and alerts on any inventory items that are going out of stock or in low quantities.
2. Tag counting
In this method, you need to place a physical tag on every product. So, at the time of counting, your worker would need to fill in the item ID, the number of quantities counted, and important information on the tag.
The tag could have two sides so that a second worker who verifies the information can make corrections on the other side. Once all the counting is done, you collect these tags and enter them into your system as journals.
Tag counting can take a lot of time and involve additional manpower to count and validate stock. Putting extra people on the job means extra cost and more effort in entering the data into the system.
New-age apps recognise the products from your database and instantly upload the information after scanning. It eliminates the need to get more people on the job or spend time to count, validate and enter the data.
3. Inventory management software
Most forms of counting inventory physically or manually can be exhausting. But inventory management software can make it easy to calculate your stock levels.
The right inventory management software can help you track all the items in your store, multiple branches of your store, and warehouses.
Counting your inventory through the fully automated Zadinga app is your best option as it offers you an instant way of tracking and managing your stocks. And with real-time access to know about low stock or out-of-stock situations, you can make buying decisions swiftly.
Zadinga offers you far more than just making it easier to count inventory. You can set up your own unique online shop, choose from simple and easy-to-use retail store design ideas, and get started with online selling. Get started and speed up with Zadinga today!