One of the biggest mistakes many small businesses make is taking inventory management lightly. Small business owners prefer to manage their stocks manually for various reasons, such as saving money, not wanting to leave behind the traditional method, and thinking that their inventory isn’t high enough to warrant a system.

Despite the rising demand for retail inventory software over the past five years, only 18% of small businesses use it. If you belong to 82%, it’s time to reconsider!

The Problem with Traditional Inventory Management

The biggest downside of traditional inventory management is its dependence on buffer inventory. Companies keep large amounts of inventory to anticipate emergencies and spikes in demand, fully relying on forecasts and manual observations. While it sounds good on paper, this method has several massive flaws:

• Waste of space. Keeping large amounts of inventory requires a lot of space, and that can be expensive in the long run. Even if you don't need to rent a warehouse, you’re sacrificing the space you could use to improve your profit otherwise.


• Waste of working capital. Traditional inventory management puts a strain on your daily cash flow. Without sufficient current assets, you can go bankrupt when the unexpected happens.


• Waste of inventory. Large amounts of inventory don’t guarantee you can sell them all. If the demand is low, you can end up with expensive deadstock.


• Other risks of inventory loss. Theft, loss, and incorrect stock count are common causes of business loss. Finding the source of these problems is difficult, if not impossible, without a proper system keeping track of your inventory levels at all times.

Why Retail Inventory Software is a Smart Investment

The number one advantage that retail inventory software offers is inventory visibility. All of your stock levels are projected in real-time upon request. The risk of inventory discrepancy caused by human error is significantly reduced, streamlining all the inventory management processes.

Inventory visibility is particularly essential for managing inventory across multiple locations. Once your business grows, you can easily configure the system to sync all the stock data for more efficient supply chains. No need to travel between warehouses just to cross-check your stock levels!

Here are other benefits of having inventory visibility via retail inventory software:

• Accurate inventory. Integrating the stock and inventory app with your point-of-sale systems keeps your stock levels updated in real-time. By knowing exactly when to restock, you get to maintain good relationships with customers and partners much easier.


• Reduced company costs. Inventory visibility practically eliminates the risks of overstocking and understocking, saving you storage costs.


• Your stock and inventory app can automate certain processes based on the triggers you previously set. The automation helps to eliminate inventory discrepancies, reduce labour costs and make the overall workflow more efficient.


• Greater productivity. Streamlining your inventory management processes makes it easier for the whole team to achieve higher productivity rates. This allows you to optimise the company’s existing workforce, saving you unnecessary labour costs.


• Better organisation. Categorising items based on the chosen parameters is no longer a chore, giving you a better understanding of the current stock levels.


• Better data security. You can restrict access to the company’s inventory, keeping the internal operations private.

Digital Stocktaking with Advstock Inventories

Advstock Inventories develops a cloud-based, self-service small business stocktaking app for retail, wholesale, manufacturing, and hospitality industries across Australia. Our small business stocktaking app is available in Apple and Android app stores. It means you can leverage your resources from anywhere to perform cost-effective stocktaking and design a custom stocktaking solution to optimise your business processes.

Advstock Inventories offers stocktaking apps for convenience stores, stocktaking apps for pharmacies, Stocktaking apps for food and beverage, and stocktaking apps for bars and clubs – each type comes with different features to support the niche industries.

Get in touch to know more about our self-service stock and inventory app!