How often has a customer left your liquor store without making a purchase because the product they were looking for was out of stock? You have invested in innovative liquor store promotion ideas to get them in the door, and now you’ve lost the sale. This scenario is one many liquor store owners are familiar with, and it usually means missing out on not just one sale, but many. After all, you’ve just proven to this customer that you don’t consistently carry the products they need. Why would they come back?
The good news is, there is a simple way to avoid scenarios like the one outlined above: Maintaining an effective liquor inventory sheet and investing in a top liquor store inventory software system.
This post will explore several of the components every liquor store owner should include on their inventory sheets. By incorporating the information in this post into your business practices, you should be able to keep a close eye on your sales and inventory counting methods, making stocking issues a problem of the past.
What Are the Necessary Components of an Effective Liquor Inventory Sheet?
If you were to ask a room full of retail small business owners what their least favorite part of managing their business is, I would bet more than half would say inventory. After all, sitting in a stockroom counting bottles is not a very glamorous part of business ownership. However, by regularly maintaining an inventory sheet for your liquor stock, you can make this task less tedious and more accurate.
Accurate liquor store inventory management is essential for ensuring there is no fraud or theft taking place in your business, keeping tabs on your store’s financial health, and making sure you are restocking the right products at the right times.
Inventory tracking is something with which your POS system can assist. At POS Nation, we understand the importance of accurate inventory tracking. Build and price out a POS system that will work for your store, and read on to learn more about the components you should be tracking concerning your liquor inventory.
Descriptive Information
Numbers are all well and good, but for you and your staff to understand what those numbers mean, you will need to make sure you are tracking descriptive information about your products.
Product Name
The first descriptive information you should be tracking in your inventory sheet is the product name information. These fields should include not only the specific product name but also the brand name and the flavor, if applicable.
Product Description
You should also be storing product descriptions in your inventory sheet. Product description fields should include columns for things like the size of the bottle or product and other physical details of the product.
Additionally, you can use fields here to log information about the product’s location in your store for easy reference and any sales-related information that would be helpful for sales staff. You can track this information while out on the sales floor using handheld inventory devices.
Monetary Information
Financial information is crucial to track when it comes to inventory. The monetary fields of your liquor inventory sheet are essential for ensuring the financial health of your liquor store and for setting and maintaining your budget.
Individual Unit Price
Each line item on your inventory sheet should include both the sale price and the purchase price of an individual unit of that product.
Inventory Value
You should also include the overall value of your store’s current stock of this particular product. This information is essential for understanding how much of your expected profits come from each product your store is carrying. Additionally, this information is vital to have on hand for insurance claims in the unfortunate event that something happens to your store or stock.
Tracking Information
It’s crucial to log tracking information in your inventory sheet, in addition to monetary and descriptive information. The fields in this section of your sheet will assist you in tasks like reordering, making sure you have a handle on the number of units you have of each product, and how quickly those units are selling.
Internal ID
You should give each product in your store a unique product ID number. This number is helpful for reporting and easily referencing various products in the system without needing to type in the entire product name.
Quantity in Stock
On an inventory sheet, quantity of stock is possibly the first thing we think of tracking. So, of course, your inventory sheet should contain information about how many units you currently have in stock of each product. This number should be updated with each sale to keep track of the number of each product you have in store, ensuring that you don’t run out of stock. This can be achieved with the help of a liquor store POS provider.
Reordering Information
The last type of information you should make sure to include on your inventory sheet pertains to your reordering process. Firstly, what is the reorder limit for each product? In other words, when your quantity of a given product gets down to a certain number, you will need to make sure you reorder to prevent your store from running out of stock and missing out on a sale. Identify that number for each product and keep track of it.
The reorder number and the speed at which your quantity is reducing should also allow you to calculate an anticipated reorder date for each product. Make sure to keep this information in your inventory sheet to simplify reordering processes for your store.
The Essential Components of an Effective Liquor Inventory Sheet
Every liquor store has its quirks regarding inventory, and you may find that you need to track items that are not on this list, but every single store should strive to include the information listed here on their inventory sheets.
Tracking inventory doesn’t have to be a tedious task. With the right point of sale system in place, inventory tracking can be reliable and straightforward. POS Nation provides both hardware and software for all your liquor store’s point of sale needs. See how POS Nation’s products can simplify your inventory management today!
