A revision on the sales floor

A children's toy shop in a shopping centre, with about 1,800 positions on the floor. Stock in a warehouse stays where it is put; on a sales floor something changes every minute: a customer picks up a box, leaves it on another shelf, wanders round with it, or leaves an item at the till saying "I'll collect it later". That is why a revision on the sales floor differs from an ordinary warehouse count: it needs preparation, and the timing and rules must be agreed beforehand.

What complicates the floor

In a warehouse goods sit in one place; on the floor many things throw the count off:

• customers leave goods on the wrong shelf, so the same item turns up in two or three places;
• display samples and testers: whether they are on the books depends on what has been agreed;
• items set aside at the till ("later") and items paid for but not yet handed over;
• returned goods waiting on the returns shelf;
• goods between the floor and the stockroom: one balance, two places;
• the price on the tag does not match the price in the system.

Time and rules

The best time is after closing or before opening: no customers, a quiet floor. If you must count by day, divide the floor into zones and fix the till cut-off clearly. General rules:

1. Before counting starts, write down the till cut-off: the number and time of the last receipt. Later sales are accounted separately from the count.
2. Put the floor in order first. A "return round": put goods left on the wrong shelves back where they belong. It is not part of the count but a step before it.
3. Two teams count the floor and the stockroom at the same time, with no transfers between them.
4. Make a list of "hidden places": display window, under the till, returns shelf, sample shelf, set-aside rack. Close each place with its own sheet.
5. Testers and display samples are recorded separately: count them, but do not add them to saleable stock.

An example: from 10 pm to 2 am

The shop closed at 22:00 and the cashier printed the cut-off receipt. Two teams of three worked. The first half hour went on the "return round": about 140 items that customers had put in the wrong place went back to their shelves. Then the count began.

The result showed two differences. First, 6 items left under the till with "I'll collect later" were missing from the hidden-places list, and without counting them a shortage of 6 would have appeared. Second, 14 testers that had earlier been written off as "samples" were standing on the floor, so a surplus of 14 turned up. Neither was theft; both came from the way the floor itself works.

Reading the result and what next

On the floor a shortage most often arises between the floor and the stockroom, so split the result into three groups. First: a shortage on the floor and an equal surplus in the stockroom. That is a missing or late transfer document, not theft. Second: goods found in hidden places. Add them to the list and put them on the count sheet in advance next time. Third: an unexplained difference, to be rechecked within a week with a short mini-count.

The most useful habit for a floor is a weekly mini-count: the twenty most expensive positions and the display window, fifteen minutes for each. A small but regular check catches many of the big revision's differences in advance.

Typical mistakes

• counting by day, among customers and without a till cut-off;
• not tidying the floor before counting: goods on the wrong shelf produce the most false differences;
• forgetting invisible places such as the display window, the till and the returns shelf;
• one person counting the floor and the stockroom in turn while goods move between them;
• not checking price tags, although during a count it is easy to compare each tag with the system price.

Conclusion

Success on the sales floor depends not on speed but on preparation: a quiet time, a clear till cut-off, tidy shelves and a list of hidden places. In a small shop this takes two or three hours, in a big hall a night, and the weekly mini-count saves time at the next revision. The Reviziya team can help you set up a counting routine for a sales floor.