Stocktake???

WESTIEKATH

Just wondering how many stores close to complete a stocktake. I am finding that increasingly I have missing items to complete customer orders which is both embarrassing and annoying. I do not understand how I have so many items - one order I had 3 minifigures missing - now that I do not understand.
I really have to do something but to be honest I just dont know where or how to start any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Area 51 Bricks

I usually just scroll through my inventory and check piece buy piece over multiple days... There is probably a better (and faster) way to do it though...

Area 51 Bricks

I also forgot to add that I have had the same problem with inventory disappearing... sigh...

Calibrick

I tend to update my inventory every year when I add new lots - when I pull a bin to add more parts to it, I do a quick inventory check of what is there. It's paid off in spades (and to just shut down and reinventory sounds.... reallllllllllllllly boring........... ;-) Even if data entry was correct, I certainly overpull counts occasionally, thus creating a problem when someone buys me out. Once I started doing the above, my actual counts (and not having to write embarrassing emails to customers) dropped considerably. Still not the perfection I'd prefer, but it's definitely helped.

Calibrick

I should caveat the above with the fact it takes me about a year to input new lots I bought (and months before that presorting, cleaning, etc.). I'm kind of an army of one on that side of the biz, and we all know data entry is VERY slow if you're a US seller as you have to keep TWO inventories (one with actual cost per itty bitty part - I go to 5 decimal points), and of course the stock listings here).

Calibrick

Plus, I work a full time job on top of it, else it's be MUCH faster, lol.

andirunner

@WESTIEKATH this happens to me, too. I keep a +1 of every item (where practical), but still occasionally off on my inventory counts. I feel like I'm really careful in my entry and still have this problem sometimes. I've taken to inventorying one section at a time when I have a few free hours.

andirunner

@Calibrick I work full-time, too. Mostly this is for fun, but sometimes it gets busy!

Bricks_nw_uk

I was planning to shut today, and start, but my wife has got me on wrapping presents . I have decided to close between Christmas and New Year and do our stocktake. It needs doing as the inventories got screws earlier this year on the other platform and we keep finding little bits as orders come in. Fortunately we have mainly been able to cover stock from stuff not yet listed, but to be fair we shouldn't have too.
Basically I will start from drawer no 1 on both new and used and work through from there (2000 drawers to check) I am all taking the opportunity to do a bit of reorganisation as well

WESTIEKATH

Thank you all for your replies, I am so thankful that I am not the only one that finds stock just seems to disappear. It is especially annoying when a minifigure that I remember listing and not being sold just disappears > I have taken your advice and decided to do a stocktake box by box. I am careful when listing items but I think there is a naughty elf in my home. I work full time too and at this time of year it is no fun - especially the store where I work (which tells everyone there is no naughty list this year) hmmm dont know if that is right. Have to say working there this year has been extremely hard due to Covid and nasty customers :'( and BO and all you friendly stores and customers has really helped me through it. I really hope you all are keeping well and safe and wish you all a Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year. Love to you all.

Graham

That's interesting, my issue is opposite, I am finding I have more physical inventory than is listed, not small parts either - lot showed a dozen or so 4x10 plates "for sale" yet I physically had 75. That's my other thread. But seems like y'all have the opposite situation.

Somethings up somewhere

Considering a stock check, but 250k parts does not sound appealing, especially as of yet I don't know the cause

Calibrick

I'd like to expound a teeny bit on my reinventory approach in case it helps anyone else or any of you have ideas to help me simplify it... :-) It's particularly useful if you tend to move items around bins to make room for new stock, which I do quite a bit:

1. When you pull a bin to add any new stock to it, and it has not been inventoried in the past 365 days (or it's almost empty, so might as well just do it really quick), inventory that bin.

2. For EVERY item sighted, append the private note (which has the bin location) with the DATE you set eyes on that item/count.

Use copy/paste for this, don't hand-type each one - if it's correct, it's then consistently correct, and if it's wrong, well then that's consistent too. ;-) This is from your inventory search screen, e.g., I search for "C2-4", ending up with a private comment of "C2-4 (12/22/20)" if I had done that today.

This has saved my bacon at least three times I can think off offhand, e.g., someone orders an item, I can't find it where I say it is and it hasn't fallen into the bin below it... I then search my inventory for the sighted date in quote marks, which tells me every single bin I touched that specific day. Inevitably I had moved the item but forgot to hit Submit on the private note change.

3. Add a colored dot to the bin (I use one color per year; 2020 was pink, 2019 was purple - they're those little dots that are about 1/4" in diameter) - I use this after I've added new stock to see which bins I did NOT hit so I can do a quick inventory on those to finish off that lot round.

Also, I colocate all my minifigures in hanging pharmacy bags (I have 12 of them hanging on my wall) - that way if I marked the wrong minifig bag (I use BAG ONE, BAG TWO, and so on), worst case, I only have to go through the twelve bags vs. hundreds of bins and the big racks. I've been lucky though, have yet to have an incorrect minifig entry.

My biggest challenge seems to have been miscounts - either at data entry or at pulling. The above has mitigated that a lot, but I do still run into it. :-( Earlier this year I started doing what @andirunner does for high quantity items I stock, rounding the count down (so then when you're almost out of stock, you can readjust it easily to the 2 or 3 that are left). I'd rather have too many on hand than less than listed, that seems to be helping out too!!

andirunner

@Graham this has happened to me, too. I had one part that had like 11 listed and I had 92 of them (!). I kept trying to figure out if I’d typed the wrong number in before getting “submit.” That was the only thing I could think of.

Alas, it’s probably human error somehow, in my case. I hate it when I can’t make things perfect! 😊

Bricks-Shop

Hey,
we make every year in the beginning of January our Stocktaking. It's not only because we want to update our stock (there are mistakes as you know) but it's also that we have to do this because of the Tax Office.
There are different ways how to do stocktaking - during the year and count each position once or counting everything in one step.
We go through our stock (we have an own database) step by step, put everything on the table, count it, enter the number in our system and put the items back.
Each year we find items we didn't find for an order during the year - it's really amazing. Or the quantity is wrong. If it's to high - no problem. If it's to less - this is under the year always a problem.

Anyhow we have a lot of fun, two or three days just sitting and counting. Ordering a Pizza or some other junk food and having a beer at the end of the day.

Have a great start into 2021.

Best regards,
Oliver from Bricks-Shop.

andirunner

@Bricks-Shop I just had visions of me sitting at the kitchen table with my two teens "helping" me "count" while they watch TikTok videos and eat pizza on top of my Legos. LOL. I might just do it myself. HAHA. Have a great 2021.

Calibrick

Lolol Andi, I had nearly the same thought (except replace teenagers with husband <s>). ;-)

WESTIEKATH

@Cickalibrick - I will go 1 better replace husband with dog - only problem is if I drop it she immediately pounces and tries to eat them (smaller bits she has done many a time) - thankfully they come out other end but obviuosly i do not relist them
Have a great 2021 everyone

tons_of_bricks

We don't take a time to do a stock check of our entire inventory at once, we do it as we list. Whenever we go to list a certain piece, we check the stock of that piece before we list anymore. So we're constantly verifying our inventory while listing.