Small businesses do not have the luxury of being able to own multiple stores or even manage their own supply chains completely. They need to use what is available to the everyday person, which can make managing stock rather difficult.
Most small business owners won’t have the luxury of buying an item in bulk because they can’t store that item or cannot afford the upfront cost.
Partner with Other Small Businesses
As a small business, your primary customer base will be people in your community. This means there is no competition between similar businesses to yours outside of this community. Partnering with these businesses can allow you to pool your money and resources together for a variety of reasons. In this instance, this will be so that you can buy an item you all need to keep in stock in bulk. Spread out the cost and the item between you so that you can all enjoy a discount and have the right number in your inventory.
Use Self Storage
Self storage is a great solution for small businesses for a variety of reasons. You can keep your Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and July 4th decorations in storage and deck out your store year after year. You can also have a back-up location for stock.
This way, if you can only get a good deal on an order if you buy in bulk, or if a certain essential item that is always on your shelves isn’t moving as fast as you’d hoped, you don’t need to overwhelm your stock room in the back. Instead, you can have an offload area to put key stock items until you are ready to put them on your floor.
Invest in Professional Software
With the right software, you should be able to automatically update your inventory the moment a customer buys something in-store or online. The best systems can even send out automatic requests based on what you need. For example, if an item you always need in stock (say, water bottles), then you can set up an automatic request every time stock drops below ten.
Simple solutions like this can allow you to streamline your inventory process and provide a better service to your customers in-store and online.
Use Data to Make Smart Decisions
Most successful businesses will use multiple systems in order to perfect their business management. While an inventory system can help you keep track of what you have, data is going to be your best friend. This is how you can see the historical trends and purchases so that you can better predict sales in the future. This way, you can reduce overbuying and better manage through high periods.
Managing inventory successfully may take a few trials and errors, but with better management systems, off-site storage, and by collaborating with other businesses, you can take advantage of deals, always have the right items in stock, and reduce overflow. Use your data to tweak your efforts until you have a system that boosts your profit margins best.
