Tee

This here, I have noticed, is among the major problems affecting stores, warehouses and supermarkets in Nigeria (both medium and large-scale vendors). Most of the time, they don’t usually get it right. You think slashing the price by 50% will solve your problem?? No, it won’t. Yes, it might temporarily solve the current problem and help you recover some money, but it doesn’t address the underlying cause and could affect your ROI. The Problem; This can start right from the procurement and replenishment planning stage, even before the products arrive at the Receiving and Inspection point and finally find their way to your shelves. Products with batch numbers and expiry dates must be properly checked, sorted and segregated at the R&I point. If you don’t do that, you will end up mixing batches with different expiry dates. Then you will have a problem that will cost you time, effort and money to rectify. Second problem is not adhering to the principle of FEFO/FIFO or mixing up the principles. Batch expiry items must follow the FEFO principle. If you are applying FIFO to products with different expiry dates without considering which batch expires first, then you may end up with this exact problem. Third problem is not monitoring your sales/consumption trends (fast-moving items vs slow-moving items). If you don’t properly track your consumption trends and plan your replenishment accordingly, you will end up having slow-moving inventory, and this problem will likely occur. Fourth is not investing in the training of your staff, porters and helpers. Have them trained in inventory and stock management. Set up refresher training monthly or quarterly. Lastly, invest in inventory optimisation tools. With the right tool, you can have a system in place that tells you when a batch is close to expiry or when you are running low on items. Solutions; Enforce a strong culture of checking, sorting and segregating items by batch and expiry dates at the Receiving and Inspection point. Train your porters/staff/helpers to always stack items with shorter expiry dates at the front of your shelves and items with longer expiry dates at the back. With this, customers can easily pick items with shorter expiry dates. Staff should also regularly check expiry dates and ensure that products approaching expiry are sold first. Or if you have extra storage, store items with longer expiry dates and display those with shorter expiry dates. Monitor your sales trends and plan your purchases based on actual demand to avoid overstocking. Invest in training your staff. Have them trained in inventory and stock management. Optimise your inventory. Invest in inventory optimisation tools. Excel will do for a start. Do these and see how you can reduce your losses due to poor inventory management and improve your ROI. @Abmoya_ can help in optimising your inventory and training your staff.