Poor inventory control costing Retail Businesses huge percentage losses

According to Patrick McDermott, Managing Director of Stocktaking.ie, retail businesses are enduring losses of up to 10% due to poor inventory control. Speaking at the launch of the new Retail Stocktaking division of Stocktaking.ie, he said “Retail businesses often don’t undertake regular inventories with the result that losses due to theft, spoilage or under-deliveries can often go unnoticed until the year end”.

“For stores with multi-million euro turnovers, this can mean losses in the hundreds of thousands of euros and often the difference between profit and loss at the year end.” He added that in light of the current economic climate it is essential that profit margins are protected in order to ensure the sustainability of jobs and ultimately the future of the business.

The retail sector in Ireland employs more than 220,000 people and accounts for more than 11% of state employment so is a hugely important sector in the Irish economy and each business must protect its assets and workers with prudent management control.

In the past, lack of suitable technology or available providers of a dedicated retail inventory service prevented the undertaking of regular high quality stocktaking; In fact, some retail businesses have been flying in teams of stocktakers from the UK at considerable cost to provide this service, however the new retail division of Stocktaking.ie has closed that gap by utilizing the most advanced barcode scanning equipment and proprietary software to deliver a same day inventory result for retail businesses from pharmacies to large symbol supermarkets.

“Retail businesses should be reviewing overall inventory reports quarterly at a minimum” McDermott added “and making informed decisions about their business at each stage. We have seen retail businesses go under due to lack of management control and so we have always recommended regularly analysing your inventory losses in order to prevent the business getting to this stage of unprofitability”