Inventory Control Archives - Ganesh Himal Trading

My greenhorn-ness is going to show through here. Which inventory controls are you referencing? SKUs/sq ft? turn over rate? ect. Follow up: do you have a favorite inventory control metric?
My question is related to bulking up on best-sellers??? When my available funds were tight, I decided to invest more in basic stock rather than holiday specific. Now, regardless of available funds, my tendency is to focus more on gift items instead of carrying over ornaments etc. to next year. Yes there is a risk I will be short or run out of holiday. The last couple of years I have had to sell a little buy a little right up to the end and this year will be the same. Because I am doing that dance, I really believe I need to buy what speaks to a larger audience. What is your advice related to my being willing to sacrifice holiday specific for general inventory please?
How do you balance the inventory this time of year? Especially wondering if there is a “cut-off date” for holiday re-orders. We don’t want to be stuck with too much at the end of December, but also don’t want to be short stocked!
How many items per square feet?
How to buy a new item (too few doesn’t show well) too much you can be stuck with a dog and how often?
When you’re doing the top third/bottom third turnover comparison, are you looking at COGS/avg inventory, units sold per period, gross margin/period, or…?
Here is a good question that relates to the SKU’s per sq ft we were discussing below: How do I pick reorder points for new items I am bringing in? Is it arbitrary?
How important is customer service to my stores overall success?
We currently identify products as being one of several different categories, such as food, lifestyle, home dec (which is broken down further into subcategories), etc. Does anyone have suggestions for useful segmentation – how many categories, or what they should be? Which categories are universal best sellers, if such a thing even exists?
Is there such thing as too wide a scope for products? I try to maintain a mix of items and price points – sometimes I wonder if I am trying to do too much. People appreciate that I have a mix, so I think I am doing right. I want the store to be fresh for locals so they don’t always see the same things.
Does anyone out there use Quickbooks as their POS? If so, may I pick your braaaaainz?
In your Managing Your Inventory publication (linked to a few days ago), you say that “excess inventory … overwhelms your customer with too much choice, which studies have shown to lower sales.”
SKU naming convention – recommendations how it should work?! I try to use a descriptive name in case a tag gets lost etc. Also, since I operate hand-to-mouth I may only buy one or a just few of something each time. Many things are the same but different (earrings, journals, scarves, headbands, baskets…). Or they’re one-of-a-kind which makes it harder to have a unique name.
How do you deal with inventory that just doesn’t sell?
Let’s throw out another one that was sent to me earlier today: Point-of-Sale programs, What’s best???
your take/experience on purely Fair Trade items vs mix of FT and other hand-made items from both US artisans and international artisans – is there a benefit to either or other comments you may have
When conducting an End-of-Year Inventory (and your inventory is bar coded). Any recommendations for a hand-held portable bar-code-reader that allows you to scan inventory and can be dumped into an Excel spreadsheet as opposed to doing a manual inventory?
Here is another good question on product mix and really gets to the heart of why inventory control is critical: I would prefer to carry higher end FT items (home accessories, personal accessories and jewelry) rather than the ethnic market mix seen in many FT stores. Do you know of any successful stores with such a mix of items and your comments on this approach?
Best/Good selling products (items that move that can be priced more than keystone)?

Inventory Control

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