Quick question: right now, do you know exactly what stock you have across every department and every site you have?
If the answer isn’t an immediate yes, this is worth five minutes of your time.
A lot of retailers we speak to have a manual inventory management system. And of course, it works to a point. But when peak trading seasons hit or you grow and expand to more than one location, a manual system can start to really slow you, and your business down.
Here are the five most common myths we’ve found about manual inventory management and how they’re impacting independent retailers.
Myth 1: “Spreadsheets are good enough”
Spreadsheets will tell you what stock looked like when someone last updated them, not necessarily what it looks like right now. On a busy Saturday afternoon, when your bestsellers are flying out, the café is full, and the gift department is doing a roaring trade, “last updated” could mean anything.
And gaps in that inventory data have a real impact. Poor stock planning costs UK retailers an estimated £15 billion a year – through missed sales, wasted capital tied up in excess stock, and customers who walk out empty handed.
Real multichannel inventory management means one live view of your stock – across every department, location, and sales channel – updating the moment a transaction happens.
With OpSuite EPoS:
- Stock updates in real time across every till, handheld device, and online channel
- Every department and location pulls from the same accurate numbers
- No more conflicting spreadsheets or figures that are already out of date
Myth 2: “Our team would know which stock is running low”
Do you ever find yourself with regular overstocks? Products running out before anyone notices? Or stocktake figures that never quite add up?
It’s easy to assume your team on the shop floor will just know what’s running low or not selling, but with staff on different shift patterns and changes in seasonal demand, can you really count on that?
Let’s say, for example, that a team member helping customers out back doesn’t know there’s a new promotion at the front desk – they’re essentially making ordering decisions without the full picture.
This kind of stock visibility problem is more widespread than you might think – 58% of retailers currently operate below 80% inventory accuracy.
With OpSuite EPoS:
- Staff on the shop floor use handheld devices connected directly to your live stock system
- They can check availability, receive goods, and carry out stocktakes without leaving the floor
- When you have more accurate inventory information, you make better buying decisions
Myth 3: “We’re not big enough to need a proper system”
Multichannel inventory management systems aren’t just for businesses with fifty locations and a dedicated IT team. Even a smaller retailer can have a large, and complex web of products, departments and locations that just can’t be managed manually.
Take, for example, a garden centre running a plant nursery, retail shop, café, and online store. It’s already managing four sales channels with overlapping stock and different demand patterns. That’s a multichannel business, whether it has one site or five. And 43% of small businesses still don’t track inventory or rely on outdated manual systems, which means a significant portion are flying blind without realising it.
With OpSuite:
- Works for single sites and multi-location businesses alike
- Scales as you grow without needing to re-platform
- No enterprise-level complexity or cost
Myth 4: “We know what we’ve got…roughly”
Approximate inventory knowledge leads to overordering on certain product lines, underordering on fast-moving ones, and out-of-stock items nobody spots until a customer asks, or until you’re midway through peak season.
And when customers can’t find what they’re looking for, the consequences go beyond a single lost sale. 46% of UK retailers experienced stockouts resulting in lost sales during peak trading events, and 41% of consumers say they’d stop shopping with a retailer altogether if out-of-stocks became a regular occurrence.
With OpSuite EPoS:
- You get real-time stock visibility across every department and location
- Every goods receipt, sale, and stock transfer is tracked automatically
- Purchase ordering is built in, so restocking is a simpler process
Myth 5: “What works for one site will work for two”
Opening a second location is a sign the business is growing. But what worked informally at one site – the rough-and-ready ordering and the shared spreadsheets – starts to crack when there are two (or more) of everything.
Stock transfers get murky, and pricing drifts between locations. Meanwhile a promotion runs at one site but not the other.
It’s worth noting that businesses using real-time inventory data see 35% improvements in stock accuracy – the kind of gain that compounds quickly once you’re running more than one site.
With OpSuite EPoS:
- Pricing, promotions, and stock are managed centrally and applied across every location
- Stock transfers between sites are tracked properly so nothing disappears in transit
- One change in the back office updates every till, everywhere
Is your current inventory management setup working for you?
If any of the myths we mentioned above sounded familiar, it’s probably worth taking a closer look at how your current inventory management system is serving you, and whether there’s a better way. Assessing your current setup – what’s working and what’s not – will give you a clear picture of whether there are problems creeping in that affect your sales and your customers. It’ll also give a better idea of whether updating your system will help you keep shelves stocked when it matters.
Want to speak to the experts about how you’re currently managing inventory?
Just get in touch.
OpSuite by Davidson-Richards is a retail management platform built by sector insiders, for specialist retailers. Processing over £1bn in transactions annually, and trusted by retailers for over 45 years.