How To Take Inventory Yourself When You Own A Small Retail Or Grocery Store
Inventory season is shortly upon you. It is an expensive time, when the company you hire to take inventory takes a big chunk of your holiday profits. However, it is a necessary evil, since you need to know how much shrinkage (theft) has occurred in the last couple of months as well as the last year. Yet, you probably did not know that you could easily take your own inventory when you are an owner of a small retail or grocery store. It just requires a few extra pieces of equipment, such as data collection terminals, and here is how you can take your own annual inventory.
Buying and Incorporating the Software
To start, you would need to buy the software that would make quick work of your annual inventory process. It is advisable that you buy the software at least a couple of weeks before you start inventory so you can install it, learn how to use it and how it works and teach your employees how to use the software and inventory application on the scanners. Be sure the software that you buy is compatible with the scanners/data collection terminals you currently own and that your scanners do indeed have an inventory application (a few of the less-expensive models do not, and plain old hand scanners without screens do not have these applications either).
Using the Data Collection Terminals
If you already have scanning guns in your store that you use for logging in deliveries, you can use those same guns for inventory. Many have additional features which can be accessed through a few of the menu screens. One feature happens to be inventory-taking. The nice thing about your scanner guns that already have the built-in capacity for inventory is that they can send this information to your store's main computer, where the information can be downloaded, compiled into chart form side by side with your expected inventory amounts for each item and/or unique SKU in your store, and tally the numbers for you.
Adding the Printers
Some of your handheld scanners/data collection terminals have the additional feature that allows them to print information wirelessly. After you have scanned an entire aisle in your store, you can move through menu screens until you see "printer" on the screen. Hit enter, and the scanner will ask you if you just want to print information on the last item scanned or print information on the last "x" number of items scanned. This is especially useful when you want or need a hard copy of the inventory data, or you want to make sure your scans have been effectively uploaded to your store's computer system. Click here for more info.
