How To Prevent Shrinkage In Your New Business

Shrinkage can be a real threat to business, no matter how old they are. However, when you’ve just started out on your business journey, it’s more of a threat than ever. You could lose thousands if some stock goes missing, and that could slow down your business growth by at least a couple of years. Your whole plan could go out the window. 

So, how can you prevent such a disaster from happening? By safeguarding against shrinkage using some workplace practices that’ll reduce the chances of it by at least half. You don’t have to stress over losing inventory when you’re prepared for it! With that in mind, here are some methods that tend to work the best.

Have a Robust Tracking System

What goes in and out of your stock room? If you have a warehouse, how do you know what’s in there? You won’t unless you have a robust and intuitive tracking system. Something you can automate to count your stock each way, and to order more when a certain threshold is reached. This way you take the human element out, which can help to prevent miscounts, or stop stock from being misplaced. 

Design a Safe Warehouse Layout

The warehouse is a big place, and that means anything can happen to stock while it’s in there. Sure, this is where you pack and ship off your items and store them for safe keeping, but anything could happen if you don’t have a safe layout to follow. For example, installing some impact resistant doors can help any falling boxes from shelves or fork lifts receive a softer landing. At the least you should also be using fortified ladders to reach the higher shelves, as well as keep the aisles well lit to prevent trip hazards. 

Make Sure Your Stock is Always Watched

Your stock is safely packed away, but who’s keeping an eye on it? Hopefully you are with a fully wired CCTV system. You need to have your stock under watchful eye at all times, to make sure you’ve got a visual record of what happens to it and who handles it. If anything goes missing, you can immediately check the cameras for the full story. Make sure cameras are placed in strategic positions such as down aisles and back rooms to get a full look at what’s going on. 

Train Your Employees Well

Finally, do your employees a favor and make sure they’re trained in handling stock and rotating a stock room. You need people you can trust to work in there, and that means granting them some experienced and skilled responsibility. So train them. Training programs never go amiss, and you’ll always have at least two members of staff who can handle working in this delicate area. 

Shrinkage can be dangerous, but it’s far less of a threat when you know what your stock is doing. Take time to implement the above ideas and spend less time stressing over your supply chain. 

How To Prevent Shrinkage In Your New Business