Retail businesses face a lot of inventory management challenges like loss, pilferage, damage and under-stocking and overstocking.
Businesses can minimize their inventory losses with the help of a good POS software for retail businesses. POS software help map each inventory item to sales made, so that there are less chances of loss of inventory and so that optimal amount of inventory can be stocked to optimize revenue generation.
Here are a few activities that POS software help undertake to streamline your inventory management:
Add and track available stock of products
Merchandisers should use product management features of their POS software to add accurate amount of available stock of each product to the system.
When a sale is made, sold amount of product is automatically deducted from the stock in the POS software. This helps merchandisers be aware of the amount of inventory in hand. They also get alerts on when they are running out of a particular item, so that they can restock and not lose business.
Add expiry date of stock to the software
One great feature some POS software solutions have is to add expiry dates of items available with a retail store, so that old inventory can be sold before new one is put on shelves.
This helps prevent having a large stock of expired products because of lack of information on the validity or shelf life of the available products. Merchandisers and store managers can ensure that old inventory is cleared before new items are placed in stores. This also helps in discarding expired products and not mistakenly sell outdated items to customers.
Map sales to individual sales staff and registers
With a good POS software, you can track each sale made to the sales staff who processed the order. This helps keep a record of who sold what, so that inventory can be audited effectively.
Mapping sales to staff and registers helps keep a clear database of touchpoint from where inventory moves out of the system. Staff shifts can also be tracked to keep a record of the people who handle inventory at different points of product delivery. This helps in minimizing loss and pilferage, as more accountability is rendered to staff due to proper recording and audits of inventory.
Assess demand to optimally stock products
With the help of sales and inventory analytics offered by POS software, merchandisers can assess what sells and what does not. It also helps in identifying fast and slow-moving products.
This helps managers optimally stock products, so that the store is never under or overstocked. This helps optimize storage cost and prevents loss of business due to unavailability of certain products. Data from the past and present can be assessed to plan and order inventory for future, so that losses can be minimized and revenue can be maximized.
POS software for retail businesses helps managers, merchandisers and owners take important inventory and stock-related decisions over time. Real-time analytics and data on available stock and product details help in executing successful inventory management to reach business potential.