“Yes, we do have it. It’s in aisle 3”

“Yes, we have the one you are asking for and we also have the other one you had asked for”

“Sorry, we are sold out on that. But will inform you when we restock in 7 days”

These statements are melody to the ears for customers quizzing about products in a store. It takes an ace store owner or a start employee with up-to-date knowledge of their inventory to give such delightful confident assurance. An even better scenario is when they say, “Let me check, give me a minute.” and actually get back to you with the inventory details “in a minute” and not disappear into oblivion.

In many stores without digitized inventory, the above happy scenarios are laborious to attain.

A typical day in a traditional store looks like this –

Morning before opening – go around the store to make a list of products to refill. Then go to stockroom with that list, look for the products, pull what is found, bring them to the shopfloor, refill the shelves, take the extra products back to the stockroom.

Afternoon – repeat the same routine to refill the products.

While checking the products in the stockroom to refill the shopfloor, realize that many products need to be ordered more from the suppliers. Placing purchase orders involve going through the current purchase orders, calculating or estimating the order quantity and calling or emailing the suppliers to place the orders. With many purchase orders to keep track, duplicate ordering happen many times.

During the day – suppliers deliveries come. Run to the office to look for the purchase order or just receive what is delivered. Discrepancies cannot be spotted until later when purchase orders and invoices are being matched up.

During the day – accept the customer orders thinking that products are in store. When the time to pick the products, find out that the products are not there.

During the day – find out that some products have expired. You wish you know about this sooner so that you can put these products on sale.

During the day – run around the shopfloor and stockroom to look for products customers are asking about.

The list goes on.

Just imagine the number of labor hours spent on these activities and the amount of money lost due to wastage, errors, and loss sales.

The point we are trying to make is that inventory management and real-time information on inventory is not only essential for efficient operation but also for an exceptional customer experience. Digitizing inventory at your store is the best way to master your inventory game.

While digitizing inventory is a wide spoken prophecy, ShelfPerks Store Operating System makes it a practical solution for stores of all shapes and sizes. With ShelfPerks, you can easily and securely keep track of all the product information such as price, cost, location in the store, quantity in stockroom, quantity in shopfloor, quantity on order, quantity sold, and supplier details.

The immediate advantages of digital inventory management include:

• Automation. Reducing manual tasks minimizes the burden of administrative work on your team, frees them up for other tasks that may have gone under-attended, and allows everyone to focus on their areas of expertise. Automation also reduces human error, which means gaining back revenue lost from fixing those errors. Automation also speeds up processes. For example, automated inventory alerts allow you to place orders well in advance.

• Keeping things cohesive and connected. If you are still relying on manual intervention on taking stock and tallying with your off-takes, you will have many slips between your notes and shelves. ShelfPerks digitized inventory system is orchestrated with other functions such as point of sale, shipments, and purchase orders. It enables the overall efficient store operating process that was only available to global giants.

• Leveraging data for decision-making. Inventory takes up valuable capital. Digitized inventory helps the storeowner to determine the right amount of inventory to carry. With ShelfPerks Store Operating System, you can leverage real-time analytical inventory data to make decisions that impact the profitability and scalability of your store.

• Better customer service. With the visibility and traceability of your products at your fingertip, fulfilling customer orders and responding to the customer inquiries are speedy and accurate. Happy customers bring more sales!

In summary, your inventory management has a big impact on your business bottom line. Using a digitized inventory management solution reduces. It makes your business more efficient and more profitable. It equips you to serve your customers better and faster.

Designed for storeowners, ShelfPerks inventory management feature is built to fit your business and not the other way around. It is our conviction to make your business more successful.