Inventory is the biggest asset of the retail business and challenging too; whether it is a small store or a big store. When products are bought and sold, they generate revenues, which needs to be tracked to keep your company afloat.
An inefficient inventory management can ruin your business. Avoid these common mistakes that generally retailers do, that can spell the end for your business:
Inaccurate demand forecasting – Forecasting is an estimation of what the customers will purchase. A wrong estimation results in an imbalance of demand and supply resulting crisis. A wrong forecast may lead to two possible situations - abundance or shortfall. Prior demand forecasting is essential to keep business operations running and profitable.
Failed to analyze the customer’s demand - Retailers should identify the demand trends of customers. It can prevent your store from inventory wastage. An in-depth analysis can help businesses to know the upcoming trends and help you gain a competitive edge.
Employees aren’t qualified to manage inventory – To have an accurate inventory, you should have trust in your employees to get the job done well. So, hire professional inventory managers who have a good background in this domain. Secondly, handover your inventory to the trustworthy person that can help to fulfill your goals. Vendors who employ inventory management software should train some employees to use it.
Resistance to adopt new technologies – The retailers using traditional methods can never be successful in their business in the present digital world. Present technologies can be accessed on multiple platforms & from multiple locations. By staying away from the trending technologies you are losing more profitability, accuracy and quality, and ease of performing operations.
Less frequent inventory checks – The businesses having huge inventory should perform regular inventory checks to keep business operations accurate and profitable. Using an online inventory management system or software eliminates the problem of manually checking the inventory.
Lack of automation – The retailers who are using excel sheets or any other manual system to track inventory are wasting their valuable time. Research shows that even a proficient data entry operator can make mistakes and a little error can lead to the biggest failures. So, the retailers should use real-time systems, which can be operated at several locations at the same time and monitor the orders and shipments of items.
Keynote: Inventory management is a tedious task but utilising a streamlined process with reliable tools, will greatly reduce mistakes and improve the business operations, which results in more sales. In the present digital age, outsourcing some processes would be a wisest decision to reduce your burden. For instance, many retailers outsource retail shop accounting to reduce their burden of handling finances. These outsourcing firms also provide inventory management services along with accounting and bookkeeping, which eliminates the chances of errors. So, you can also outsource your inventory management or use the best software available in the market.
One of the leaders in this field is Cogneesol. Our team of trained virtual accountants has the expertise and professionalism to ensure that your accounting system and the data generated is fully secured and precise. For more, call +1-646-688-2821 or write to info@cogneesol.com.
