Most retailers won’t read this. They’d rather not work on their data, probably because they’ve never seen what good business data can do for them. They have no idea what they’re missing.
Those retailers are easy to compete with.
Small business retailers get stuck in their heads about bad data. They decide it’s so bad that they spend months, sometimes years, talking about it and worrying about it. They don’t take a single step to fix it. Being time poor becomes the excuse, and complaining becomes the only action.
We hear it all the time. Product names nobody understands. Departments that made sense ten years ago. Suppliers who stopped trading years ago still sitting in the system. Stock levels nobody trusts, so nobody uses the reports. Then the business makes buying decisions on gut feel, because the numbers “can’t be right”.
In almost every business we’ve seen and worked with, the fix is a two-day job for two people. It needs clear, firm management behind it.
Throw it out and start again
The best way to fix bad data is to throw it out and build it again.
Most retailers try to clean their data one product at a time, in between serving customers. It never ends. A fresh, firm reset works far better than a slow tidy-up that drags on for a year.
What the two days look like
Step one: do the stocktake.
Count everything. Not a sample, not just the big categories. Everything. By the end of the day, the stock levels in your system should match what’s on your shelves and in your stockroom.
Step two: clear out what’s at zero.
Run a report of every item with zero stock on hand. Then ask one question: has it sold in the last six months?
- If it hasn’t, delete it. Don’t mark it inactive or hide it. Remove it. You don’t stock it, you haven’t sold it, and keeping it only clutters every report you run.
- If it has, keep it, and decide whether you’ll reorder it.
Next:
- Remove suppliers you no longer buy from.
- Rebuild your departments around how you trade today.
- Check cost prices on your top sellers against recent invoices.
- Write down three or four rules for adding new products, so the mess doesn’t come back.
Two people works best. One makes the decisions, the other does the data entry. Don’t let anyone talk you into keeping something “just in case”.
A reset for the business, not just the data
Throwing out old data does more than clean up your system. It resets the business.
Once the data is clean, you’re looking at the shop as it really is today. You can see what you actually stock, what actually sells and where your money actually sits. That’s a new foundation, and you can build on it.
Reports you stopped trusting become useful again. Reordering works. You can spot the lines that make money and the ones that only take up space. Clean data gives you commercially valuable insights that you can’t get while old data clouds every number.
Keep it clean
The data didn’t get bad on its own. It got bad because nobody owned it. After the reset, give one person responsibility for keeping it right. Check it monthly. If new products go in without following the rules, say so.
Our advice
Too many retailers spend too much time worrying. Worrying does nothing for you or your business. In fact, it makes things worse.
Complaining achieves nothing. Doing something does.
And if you’re a supplier to retailers who hears the same complaints over and over, what are you doing to turn those complaints into action?
If you’re a Tower customer and want help planning a reset, this is the advice we provide.
If you’re not with Tower and your current system makes this hard, we’d love to show you how Tower handles it. Call 1300 662 957 or email sales@towersystems.com.au.
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