Stocktaking in 4 hours instead of 2 days

Context and challenge

Records were kept in scattered spreadsheets: purchasing with one employee, stock levels with another, sales in the till software. Nobody knew the real stock levels: stocktaking took two days and meant closing the store, and discrepancies between records and actual stock reached 6–8% of the product range. There were no online sales at all, even though customers regularly asked about delivery.

Solution and the team’s role

Analysis. We traced the whole product chain — from goods receipt at the warehouse to the receipt at the till — and found the points where data was lost or entered twice.

Design. We designed a single product database as the core: the inventory system, tills, accounting and the future online shop all work with the same stock levels. We also worked out separately how everything runs when the internet connection drops — critical for retail.

Development. We launched purchasing, stock and goods-receipt management with barcode scanning. Then an online shop on the same product database: prices and stock on the website are always up to date with no manual exports. We connected payment acceptance and the exchange with accounting.

Launch and training. We trained merchandisers and cashiers on site and ran the first two stocktakes together with the staff. We left short video guides for every operation.

What we changed after launch

Data from the first months showed that purchase orders were being drawn up with a safety margin judged by eye — money was tied up in slow-moving stock. We added automatic reorder point calculation based on the actual sales rate of each product: the supplier order is generated as a draft, and the merchandiser only checks it.