Here are the top 10 ways to reduce stock losses in your business.

1) Have a good working knowledge of how to use your Point of Sale (POS) effectively 
Many businesses have expensive, state-of-the-art electronic management tools at their disposal but use their POS as a cash box rather than a tool that can manage their stock more effectively. Use it to manage your stock.

2) Have a live stock system in place
Time spent on having a system in place so as you can see the movement of each stock item at the click of a button and to manage it through the system from back door to front will ensure that stock is managed in the best possible way. It will show staff and suppliers that discrepancies will be identified.

3) Know what stock you have on hand
It’s your stock and it is how you make money so have a plan so as to have it counted several times per year.

4) Know the level of shrinkage that is occurring within your business
Thinking that you have a problem is not good enough.

5) Identify what products are causing you problems
Put in place a plan to reduce the shrinkage of them. This is done through either stocktaking (preferred method so as to identify the exact problem item) or a departmental analysis of scanning margin versus actual margin (but this is not as accurate and will not identify the problem items).

6) Time to investigate discrepancies 
Complete stocktakes and don’t take the time or allocate the resources to analysing the variances. This is where the real money is.

7) Communicate any issues that arise with your team, at all levels
Explain what is being done to tackle shrinkage. 

8) Train your staff
It is important that your staff are trained in both how to work your POS and also how to manage your stock (including ordering, receiving, storing, displaying, and selling all stock items).

9) It is everyone’s responsibility
A common mistake is to place only the best, the most diligent person in charge of managing the stock. A good idea in principle but what do you do when they are off, on holidays, on a break, out sick or leave to work elsewhere? Yes, have one responsible person who is in charge, but also share the knowledge to others so as they are aware of a company attitude, that “stock losses will be identified”

10) You may think that you are saving money by completing your stocktakes inhouse, generally you are not.
Ensure your stocktakes are accurate, do rechecks, the best Stocktaking companies will ask you to audit their work, do rechecks so that you know you are getting 100% Accuracy

Stocktaking.ie complete 100% rechecks on all high value good like Alcohol and Cigarettes…….just saying!

If you’d like to know more about how Stocktaking.ie can help you complete accurate stocktake, contact us and speak with our team of Stocktaking experts today!