Monarch emphasizes realistic solutions to the many challenges involved with convenience store inventory management. Today’s convenience stores are much more elaborate than they were in the past. Nowadays, your customers expect you to carry a wide array of high-demand items, which introduces several inventory challenges.
Let’s have a look at some of those concerns as well as ways to address them effectively.
The Basics of Convenience Store Inventory Management
It all starts with where convenience stores receive their supplies. While there are several delivery trucks that arrive with goods, much of what you see on the shelves comes from the big-name distributors. They supply most of the drinks, chips, and snacks, and their delivery system can be inconsistent, especially with recent supply-chain difficulties. Incomplete orders are commonplace and having a process to inspect the order upon arrival to ensure you are only paying for what you receive is critical.
Next, there is the challenge of receiving inventory properly in the system. Applying an invoice to the wrong department or item number systematically will result in future ordering problems and inaccurate inventory reporting.
Finally, it’s important to have an effective process for checking out the customer. This involves utilizing the manufacturer’s UPC to scan the items at check out. Failing to keep track of UPC changes with the manufacturers or adding UPCs for new items could result in database inaccuracy. Database inaccuracy leads to manual look-up processes and the potential for selecting the wrong items systematically at check out. This can also lead to future order errors and inaccurate inventory reporting.
Major Challenges in Convenience Store Inventory Management
So, where do things get tricky? Well, for one thing, you might be experiencing inconsistent deliveries so you may not always be prepared when the product comes in. There are also staffing challenges.
Employee turnover is a big problem in convenience stores, which is probably not very surprising. This leads to a lack of experience and focus and apathy toward keeping the store stocked properly. Not all employees take pride in their workplace and assume responsibility for things.
We’ve seen convenience stores overrun with totes of products scattered all over the place in back rooms. This is an easy way to confuse your inventory count and increase the likelihood of lost or stolen goods.
The focus should be on keeping inventory on the shelves and not stored in the back room. It’s easy to overlook back stock and inadvertently reorder unnecessarily, thus continuing the cycle and likely creating outdated and unsellable inventory.
Organization is Everything
It’s obvious that there is a litany of challenges to maintaining inventory in a convenience store. What can you do to make things work amid these difficulties?
At Monarch, we’re strong proponents of organization, tidiness, and consistent record keeping. We recommend that stores keep as much of their merchandise on the sales floor as possible because it helps you better understand what you have when you’re trying to decide on new purchases.
When all else fails, we’re here to help as well. One of our first core competencies, when we began in the 1980s, involved assisting convenience stores with their inventory problems. Two of our most frequent tasks include inventory loss control and providing services when buying/selling convenience stores.
We can help you reorganize and eliminate the loss of supplies by conducting a thorough diagnostic evaluation of your business. This includes analyzing all your departments, establishing a process for handling inventory, automating with effective technology (like Point of Sales), analyzing the results, and implementing a permanent solution.
It’s our experience that once you streamline your inventory process, organization and tidiness will follow. Then, you’ll regain control of things and cease losing merchandise.
Monarch Helps Alleviate Inventory Bottlenecks
We offer convenience stores our services with regard to all inventory matters. Today’s complex market makes it more complicated than ever to run a convenience store, so you need every possible advantage. This includes preventing lost or disorganized inventory.
When you work with Monarch, you get much more than just a stationary inventory count. We provide a comprehensive analysis of your store to help you get to the bottom of the root causes that are causing you to lose inventory. We’re also one of the most trusted names in the industry, which we’ve built off of 35+ years of experience.
So, contact us today to help you get control of all these convenience store inventory management challenges.
