Cost Efficient Ways Of Organising Your Stock Room
For many small businesses that hold their own stock, storage of inventory can seem daunting to begin with. There are so many options out there, and a lot of them require investment. If you are just setting up a stock room or small warehouse, chances are you have recently moved into new premises, so you will have already spent a lot of money. The good news is, with a bit of forethought and imagination, housing your stock need not be painful.
Find a storage solution that works for you.
Your product offering is going to dictate the type of storage you will need. We sold lingerie and swimwear, so our products were lightweight and folded in clear plastic bags.
I may have spent hours swooning over beautiful state-of-the-art storage solutions, but it made sense for us to go with a DIY option!
We started out with very basic plastic sets of drawers. When we moved into our new stock room, and expanded our range, we went for an eco-friendly and very frugal option. We re-purposed the sturdy cardboard boxes that our supplier shipped all of our orders in, turning them into very handy stock bins for our swimsuits. We placed them at working height, on top of the plastic storage drawers, and we found them very easy to grab from. Each style was allocated six boxes, one box per style, and the front was clearly labelled.
In terms of labelling, because we had very recognisable products, we simply put our size labels on the front of each box. You should use whatever helps you to instantly recognise your products: SKU, name of product, colour etc.
We bought ten of these laundry bags from IKEA and used them as deeper stock bins for separates. You can see what you are picking without having to rummage; we simply had 2 bins for each size, one for tops and one for bottoms.
It is important to keep all similar products together, so we had all of our one-pieces around the walls of the stock room and the bikinis were in the centre of the space in front of the packing desk. Keeping alike products together will save you time.
I am not going to claim that our stock room was the most beautiful in the world, but it worked perfectly for us and cost us next to nothing to set up.
To summarise, the main things to look for when planning storage are:
- Suitability for your products
- Clear labelling for quick picking
- Easy to reach each product
- Efficient arrangement of products in your stock room
- Keep the floor area free for efficient movement
Packing Area
If (like us) your stock room also serves as your packing area, we found having the packing desk in the centre of the room to be most efficient. Unless it was a particularly busy day, one person picked and packed. We would go into the stock room with our stack of delivery notes and pick each order individually, packing each one in turn.
We arranged cardboard towers around the walls of the room, with the most popular style closest to the packing desk. Stacking the boxes vertically created a lot more space and kept the place tidier. And the beauty of the cardboard boxes was that, if we needed to move stock around, it was quick and easy to do so.
Once again, the actual desk we used to pack on was from IKEA, and was a simple large table top with higher, adjustable, legs. It served us well for many years!
And that is all you need for an organised and fit-for-purpose stock room. Keep on top of things with regular stock takes and you have everything you need to efficiently process wholesale orders.