Stock management can get out of hand very quickly.

Especially if your business is thriving, it can be the last thing on your mind to make sure your stock is organised and easily accessible for future purchases.
In this article, we discuss why it’s important to manage your inventory, organisation tips and tricks and how Apex Self Storage can support your business needs.

The benefits of inventory management

Stock management is an invaluable resource for your enterprise, enabling you to manage your business practices more effectively and with a high level of accuracy, stimulating growth and success.

Self storage facilities are the best location for stock management, equipping your business with an easy-to-use and accessible storage facility, tailored to your business needs. With Apex Self Storage you only pay for the space you need.

Our storage planner feature allows you to visualise how much space you will need and then we will recommend how much space you may require, depending on the items you require to be stored.

Organisation tips and tricks

There are many different tools you should be using to effectively manage the stock you keep in your self storage facility.

So, we’ve collated a few tips and tricks for organising your inventory within your self storage unit:

Barcoding

We recommend creating a barcoding system for your inventory. It can be impossible to keep count of all your stock manually, with stock levels changing all the time, especially when you receive a delivery, for example.

Keep track of everything in your inventory with a barcode attached to each product and associate each product type with a barcode location, whether this be on the boxes you’re storing your product in or placed according to each level of your shelving unit.

Stock locations

Make sure you store your most popular products at the front of your unit, ensuring accessibility of a high-turnover product. It’s also great practice to rotate the location of your stock.

When receiving a new delivery, we recommend moving this stock to the back, ensuring that the older, potentially more perishable, products move to the front of your unit, increasing their accessibility.

Let’s get technical

Although it can seem tedious, keeping an up-to-date spreadsheet, detailing all your inventory is a great business practice to get into the habit of.

Making regular updates, aligned with stock deliveries or stock level changes, will be incredibly valuable to all aspects of your business, including your employees, customers and suppliers.

Digital management

Creating a comprehensive spreadsheet for the sole purpose of organising your inventory will benefit your business enormously.

In this document, we recommend making a record of:

• Product numbers: document the unique codes associated with each of your product categories or types. This includes barcodes or ID labelling numbers, used both internally and by your suppliers, as these may differ. This is so that you have a full record of all of your products, for re-ordering purposes and general stock management.
• Quantities: The amount of stock you have in your books at any given time. This includes inventory you’ve ordered, any items on hold and all of the products you have within your storage unit.
• Storage locations: The areas within your self storage unit where you store each of your merchandise categories, as well as anything you have on display in your shop (if you have a brick-and-mortar location).
• Supplier information: This will include any contact information, case quantities, and average delivery times.
• Product costs: Include here how much it costs upon purchase from your provider and any thresholds for order discounts you may receive.
• Retail pricing: Document product prices, and any seasonal discounts you may use throughout the year.
• Additional information: This can include variables like size, brand, product category, and the expiration date for perishable goods.

Inventory audits

It’d also be incredibly helpful to conduct regular inventory audits, ensuring your product documentation is all up to date and accurately representative of your inventory levels, streamlining your business practices.

Organise your business with Apex Self Storage

Make the most of your your storage unit with Apex Self Storage. Get your free quote today!

You can also get in touch with us to find out more about how we can help your business thrive.