Whether you’re opening a new store, doing a monthly count, or selling your store, completing a physical inventory count can be time-consuming if you’re not prepared. Though liquor stores generally fall in the retail category, they experience inventory challenges that most other retail stores don’t face. If you’re not keeping an accurate count of your inventory, your shrinkage can get increasingly worse, potentially impacting your business’s profits significantly.
Cycle counting is your best friend
Most think inventory counting means shutting down the store or counting after hours. Both come with increased labour costs, and shutting down means lost revenue as well. Instead, try cycle counting.
Divide the store into sections and create a rotating schedule to count each section during store hours, perhaps at a quieter time of day. For example, count Section 1 today, Section 2 tomorrow and Section 3 the day after.
Not only is this much quicker and easier, it also leads to more regular inventory counts, which will highlight inventory issues before they become inventory problems.
Designate your counters
Designating your counters in advance will help organize your count. Train your counters in best practices, including any tools used for the count. The number of counters required for the count depends on the size of your store. By utilizing multiple trained counters, the count will be completed in less time, with more sections or departments counted.
Section your liquor store by department
If you’re unable to count your entire store in one day, then try cycle counting. Count one section or department at a time over a time period. Sectioning your count by the department will allow you to get accurate results for each department without overlapping products in the count.
You can section your count by wine, beer, liquor and coolers. For sub-sections, you can count regions, featured products, and more. Always count top to bottom, left to right.
Count your inventory regularly
Counting your liquor store inventory regularly is the best way to guarantee accurate results. Otherwise, there’s no reliable way to track and capture inventory and the discrepancy is bound increase over time. Doing a physical count annually will take your team much longer to complete, due to the preparation needed. But if you count more regularly, you will be more in the habit of organizing the inventory. This is especially important in a retail sector like liquor, where shrinkage is higher, on average, due to breakage (glass bottles) and theft. By counting your inventory regularly, you can create solutions before shrinkage issues become large problems.
Bonus tip: use inventory counting software!
PureCount’s inventory counting software helps retail stores save time by more than 80%, in counting and processing post-count data. It measures variance and easily incorporates recounts into your inventory database. It also provides results with the highest accuracy, so you can optimize business decisions and increase your bottom line.