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  • Writer's pictureCairnstack
    • Mar 18, 2021
    • 3 min read

Important Inventory Questions


Inventory questions

While I ran my own A/V company, I was always thinking about what I could do to make my business run more efficiently and smoothly. Of course, I thought a lot about inventory control and how to best keep track of it and maintain appropriate levels. Since I did extensive research and spoke with other business owners, I wanted to share some of the important questions to ask about inventory systems.

These are some of the important inventory control questions that I regularly asked myself:

  1. What is my average inventory level?

  2. How much specific inventory do I have?

  3. Where is a particular item located?

  4. When do I need to reorder a certain item?

  6. What is the remaining warranty on my stock and installed inventory?

  7. How much slow moving or obsolete inventory do you have?

  8. Do you ever delay receipt of material to keep inventory investment down?

  9. Is there any inventory that you consistently run out of?

  10. How often do you cycle count your inventory? How much variance do you have? What are the causes of the variance?

  11. What measurements do you have that show how well inventory and orders are being managed?

  12. How effective is layout of your current warehouse or storage facility?

Here are some inventory management questions to ask yourself when setting up a new inventory system:

  1. What are your primary items to be ordered?

  2. What about secondary (supplemental)?

  3. What stock do I already have on hand?

  4. Where will I store my inventory and how will it be organized?

  5. How much will this cost?

  6. How will I track and manage my inventory?

  7. Do I need to track inventory by SKU or unique product IDs?

  8. How will I keep shoppers up-to-date on the inventory I have on hand?

  9. Is there any way I can alert interested shoppers when I get products back in stock?

  10. Do I want to offer the ability to pre-order?

  11. How will I know when I need to order more of an item? Can I set up notifications?

  12. What kinds of outside influences could impact demand for my products?

  13. Roughly when can those influencers be expected?

  14. Where and how will I source my products? How much will this cost?

  15. How can I forecast demand?

  16. Are there resources available to help me calculate this so I do not over create or buy too much inventory?

  17. How can I accurately report on my current inventory levels and assess inventory performance?

  18. Do I plan to sell in a variety of online marketplaces or in a brick and mortar storefront? How will I manage inventory across all of these channels?

  19. If I run into obsolescence, how can I get rid of inventory?

  20. Can I still gain revenue?

These are questions that all inventory managers should be able to answer. I routinely asked myself these questions in order to help my business be more profitable and improve my inventory management techniques. We considered these inventory control questions and answers as we were developing TRXio. Inventory management is a key part of getting any small business to run smoothly and successfully.

TRXio (pronounced “tracks-i-o”) is a scalable inventory management solution for any size organization and business. TRXio helps you organize inventory, create consistency and minimize costs while providing you accurate and real-time reports, analytics and data on the status and item detail of your products, inventory and equipment.

Learn how TRXio can help your business answer these important inventory questions for a small business. For more information, or help with your inventory control questions, please contact us at 844-868-7225.


Answers to Other Inventory Control Questions and Answers:

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