For small businesses that start growing, it is challenging to manage the inventory. The only way for companies to expand is to rent out a self-storage unit to manage their inventory smartly.
Apart from the extra space that you’ll get from the storage unit, you’ll focus more on scaling the business rather than thinking about inventory all the time.
Starting a business and scaling it is a commendable job. There are tons of things to consider when the business starts growing.
One primary concern of eCommerce business owners is managing the inventory. Whether it is a raw product or a finished one, maintaining the inventory needs time, energy, and resources.
Moreover, organizing, tracking the items, and follow-up the delivery requires accuracy and timely delivery. Here are some inventory management tips for small businesses out there that will help them create a flow where products will be stored, tracked, and delivered with ease.
We’ve gathered some intelligent ways to create a business’s inventory management by using a self-storage unit to create ease for your business. These tips are for all the startup owners, entrepreneurs, and medium-size companies who don’t know how to manage the inventory in a self-storage unit.
After reading this blog post, you will be able to sort out things in an organized manner creating more space for yet to come inventory.
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Dispose of The Unused Inventory
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The first tip towards managing the inventory in your self-storage is to clear out the items that are not in use. You’ve invested money in business. It is challenging to dispose of things, which are purchased for the sake of making a profit.
But at times, it is wise to give away or sell things that are not giving you any benefit. These are the things you’ve not used for a year or are unpopular among your customers.
Your workplace is cluttered with items that are not serving you with anything. Either donate these items, give them a complimentary gift, or throw them in a useless condition.
Mostly, the business owner fails to do so because they are stored somewhere away from daily use. And even if a business is not willing to dispose of the item, arrange them in a self-storage unit in a way that it can quickly be taken out when needed.
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Focus On The Best-Selling Items
All the smart business owners agree on the 80/20 rule even when they are unaware of using it. The rule says that 80% of your business comes from 20% of the merchandise. This means that few products are making you real money.
When you start doing the manual inventory, it is wise to place the best-selling items right in the front. Once you put these 20% items in the front, it will be easy to place the 80% items in an organized manner.
When the best-selling products are at a prime location, it will be easy to move them without disturbing the rest of the inventory.
In a self-storage unit, make an inventory of these items and place them in a clutter-free manner. This will surely save your precious time, energy, and resources.
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Organize The Inventory
Mainly, small business owners invest their money in an economic inventory management system. This idea, when executed with a self-storage unit, increases the efficiency of the business.
Often, startups make the mistake of placing the items in a storage unit in a haphazard manner, which harms them more. So, business owners can make an intelligent move to organize the products in a box, label them, and store them in self-storage to be easily accessed.
The business owners can also use stickers to mark and categorize the inventory so that the relevant items can be placed together.
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Rent A Separate Storage Unit For Business
One great mistake that new business owners make while storing the inventory in a self-storage unit is mixing the home inventory with the office inventory. This complicates things big time.
Maybe the entrepreneur feels that this can save some cost, but this approach backfires and creates chaos in the long haul.
Let’s take a live example of an entrepreneur. For the sake of privacy, let’s call her Suzie. She is running a soap-making business, and she is running it from home. Although Suzie has two different phones to take orders and another for personal use, she takes the inventory’s soap. She takes it home without entering it into the inventory system.
This makes it difficult to track the item and makes things challenging to clear the discrepancy in the final sales sheet.
This can easily be avoided if Suzie uses two inventories: home and office use. If she wants to use soap, she can mark the item when she takes it from the office inventory.
This is important because when startups start scaling their business, these small things become a big problem and difficult to manage.
It’s easy to set up a separate self-storage unit. Contact SSO storage London or IMS, and they’ll help you with the setup of your storage unit. You’ll be guided on the storage size, environment, and even the security and safety of your items.
As you scale your business, it gets challenging to manage the inventory. But with a storage unit, you’ll exactly know which of the products are stored in which storage unit and how much space is left in a particular storage unit.
The storage unit is a blessing if you are operating with a virtual office. You can easily order your self-storage unit online, and once you’re clear about which items you need to move in the storage, it will be easy to make the inventory and put the products in safe storage.
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Storing Important Documents
Paperwork is a necessary aspect of every business. Even legally, you are needed to keep certain documents safe. For instance, the employees’ tax documents, the sales and purchase receipts, customer data, and application required at the initial stage of the business.
All of these documents are super-important for every business. But relocating these documents is not a smart move. With a business storage unit, it becomes easy to store these documents safely and securely in a storage unit where specific security layers protect them.
Since these documents are crucial, they are packaged well and placed in a climate-controlled storage unit because humidity can harm the document. The extreme temperatures can also damage the document.
When packaging the documents, it is vital to remember that the documents are sorted out well. The documents must be placed above the ground level to keep them safe from drainage water or chemical spill.
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Storing The Furniture
When you start a business from home or rent a space, furniture is something that you need. Often, for small companies, home furniture is used. And when the office goes for renovation, the furniture requires a temporary storage place. A self-storage unit can help in this regard.
The chairs, table, and even off-the-season furniture can easily be stored in a storage unit without worrying about any damage done to the furniture. When you store the furniture, it is easy to renovate the office without feeling worried about that precious furniture.
However, it is necessary to mention that the furniture must be wrapped airtight to keep the same temperature. Moreover, just as documents, the furniture must be placed above ground to minimize the damage done.
Lastly, the furniture must be packed in a way that the corners are kept safe.
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Product Storage
Usually, the product inventory takes a lot of space. A professional storage unit like Bystored for Storage London helps organize the inventory in a way that helps businesses reach their inventory whenever they want.
Small businesses often have surplus inventory, which needs to be kept safe. Some of the inventory is seasonal inventory, which means there is no use of that inventory for the rest of the season. But it is necessary to store that inventory as well.
When packing the inventory, it is necessary to keep the record of the items carefully to access them later on with ease.
Similar, it is necessary to keep that inventory above the ground, which will protect the items in case of any emergency.
Closing Thoughts
For every business, inventory is an essential aspect of the company. Renting a storage unit helps keep the items safe and secure in a storage unit where management is easy.
Lastly, startups and businesses willing to scale their business need to rent a self-storage unit before they start growing. This helps them focus on other important business matters rather than keeping and worrying about the inventory.
Lastly, it is better to rent a storage unit right in the start to be managed efficiently as a startup. Even with the unused inventory, it will be easy to decide what to do with it. And renting a self-storage unit will not cost much. The merchandise will be stored economically.
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