Running a bookstore in 2022 is quite nerve-wracking! You have to be advanced in your business approach to hold your people – without denting your budget at all.
The most important and difficult thing for retail is managing their inventory. For bookstores, this task is no less than a big hurdle. When you have limited shelf space and need to manage a whole lot of books, one requires an effective system to keep everything under control.
For such situations, an inventory system for bookstores is required. So let’s understand more about it and see what exactly an inventory system is and how it helps bookstores:
What Is A Bookstore Inventory Management System?
An inventory management system is a software that helps the bookstore keep track of its inventory and sales. This system makes sure that you and your employees can have a proper and accurate record of all the inventory. A bookshop management software takes care of everything from managing the stocks and checking the overall sales to filling in the orders.
After installing this system, everything else will fall into its place easily. It requires minimum training for handling the whole system. So, anybody can learn it easily. But before installing, let’s see what benefits bookstore owners will experience after installing an inventory system in bookstores:
Benefits Of Bookstore Inventory Management System
Why are People Marching towards Online bookstores. Inventory management is essential for everyone, no matter how big or small your business is. Here are some of the benefits of inventory management that will help in understanding its necessity is mentioned below:
Provides Accurate Inventory Information
With the help of a bookstore inventory management system, one can easily manage and track the inventory. This system monitors everything when the product enters the place and when it leaves. Some bookshop management software systems even provide bookstores with facilities like payments and sales.
You can also incorporate it with your existing point-of-sale system. Businesses with an accurate inventory list can easily form better relationships and establish better relationships with their customers and partners.
Helps In Reducing The Cost Of An E-Commerce Business
It is difficult to manage the bundle of stock piled up in a bookstore when the inventory starts filling up. With the help of bookshop management software, one can easily maintain the inventory record. One can also see where exactly the product is located so that less time is wasted on finding it.
With the help of features like insight reporting, you will be able to see whether or not the customers are interested in the product. This helps the business invest less in products that get low sales.
Improvement In Supply Chain Operation
Doesn’t it get frustrating when you have to wait a long time for the arrival of your product? A lucrative inventory management system makes sure that there is no such delay. In addition, it helps establish a proper supply chain diversification plan that ensures that if one supplier cannot deliver on time, others can. Businesses can also make sure to order well on time to avoid such issues.
Adding New Channels For Sales
If you are trying to penetrate the market with a new sales channel, a lucrative bookshop management system would surely aid you in this. It makes adding new channels a simpler task. With the help of an inventory system for bookstores, owners can centralize all the sales channels into one central place.
This system also has features like syncing the real-time inventory and forecasting, which is essential for businesses that sell products at more than one location.
Prevents Overselling
Overselling is one of the least talked about challenges that businesses face. Without having an accurate system to handle all the stock, one can run out of products at the most crucial stage. This will spoil your market reputation and also lead to wasting all of your budgets.
All the labor that you have been putting into creating kickass marketing can go all in vain. An inventory system is required to ensure you have plenty of stock available at all times. In addition, it will ensure that you have enough products across your sales channels.
Now that you are all cleared about the benefits of an inventory system for bookstores, let’s see how to begin with it:
How To Kick Start Your Bookstore Inventory Management System?
Bookstore inventory management system may sound like a fancy term, but it is quite simple, to begin with. One does not require much technical knowledge to begin with it. Let’s see what the steps involved in starting your bookshop management system:
Step 1: Organize & Track Inventory
There is no point in managing the inventory if you cannot track it. So here are some of the ways to do it:
Setting Up An Inventory Ledger
An inventory ledger will contain all the information about when a certain product was sold and purchased. In a day there can numerous products that can be sold. So, a good inventory system along with using a barcode scanner from CodeCorp to track the products and the inventory is required to ensure the business purchases the correct items and amounts for their next delivery.
Make sure to check the following points in your inventory ledger:
- Date of sale or purchase
- Transaction description
- Total price paid
- Unit Price
- Quantity
- Product Name
Putting Up A POS (Point-Of-Sale) System
Instead of applying the old pen and paper system, it is time to use a more modern approach. With a POS system bookstore can plug into a barcode scanner, print receipts, process card payments, and make the whole checkout process easy.
Remember one thing; most POS systems are tailored according to the industry. So, bookshop owners should invest in a POS system specifically designed for bookstores.
Step 2: Decision On When To Reorder The Stock
After seeing major success, the next thing is to keep it booming. For this, an inventory system will keep track of all the sales and purchases and will accurately provide you with an alert on when to start reordering. Here are a few techniques that one can use to purchase inventory easily:
Check The Historic Sales Record
By checking the historical records, one can notice the patterns in sales data and see which product is required more. Analyzing the previous history will help you invest less in any random product.
Just In Time Purchasing
With the help of this system, your supplier will only produce the amount required to fill the customer’s order and nothing more.
Make Use Of PO (Purchase Order)
There was a period when people used to manage their orders by simply calling their supplier and waiting for the order to arrive. Nowadays, people are making use of a PO (Purchase Order). It is a document that you provide your vendor with and state all your requirements.
Step 3: Secure Future
Last but not least is securing the future of the business. For this, there are a few points that bookstore owners should keep in mind:
- Maintaining steady communication between suppliers
- Earn the trust of your supplier
- Make the suppliers part of your decision making
Conclusion
As mentioned above, effective inventory management can help you in many ways. From helping you figure out how much inventory you require to managing the sales channel, a bookstore inventory management system helps bookshop owners handle all these tasks seamlessly. These days it has become one of the key aspects for gaining success in the business.
Are you still going traditional for your store management, bring the efficiency of the inventory management system and cut down your business costs by half!
