Why Barcodes are a Must For Your Inventory

Barcodes are Inexpensive and Efficient

While the initial expense for a barcode software may cost you around $50 to a couple of hundred dollars (depending on which software you purchase), printing them is pretty much dirt-cheap. You can buy thousands of blank barcode labels for less than $20 in Amazon. Once you’ve encoded the needed information into the software, you can leave the printer to do its work, or if you have a barcode labeller, you can directly put it into each individual item in your inventory, saving you time and energy.

There is No Need to Train People Extensively to Use Them

Since barcode scanners only require you to point and shoot, training your manpower to use them literally takes a few minutes. They don’t need to take off time from their duties to learn how to use barcodes, nor do you have to spend on overtime for it. Moreover, you don’t have to familiarize them on the whole procedure- just the basics, while you take charge of the actual management.

Barcodes Give More Accurate Inventory Monitoring

Compared to manually counting your stock, which can potentially be riddled with human errors, scanning barcodes to manage your inventory is more precise. You can just scan the items in your warehouse for a quick count, or better yet, if you make use of an inventory management system, purchased items can already be deducted from the count, so that inventory is updated in real time. Barcodes not only save you money from having to hire extra people to count the items; scanning them literally takes less than a second, so you can be done with the task faster than usual.

Data is Readily Available and Can Be Customized

One great benefit of barcodes is that the data is already reflected once you scan them. There’s no need to cross-reference any files or check any additional documents- there’s no need to wait at all, since the data will be shown in an instant upon scanning. Barcodes are highly flexible that they can be customized to contain a variety of data, like the item’s categorical classification, supplier, and color, to name a few. Even delivery and shipment data can be stored within these lines, which is valuable data for perishable items or those with a short shelf life.

Barcodes Prevent Under and Over Stocking

Since you have an accurate count of the inventory in your hands, you will be able to track when to order for a new batch of stocks when your current on-hand items are running low. You can easily identify which items need to be ordered- you won’t ever run out of stock for your store with proper inventory management, as long as your supplier has that item in stock in their shelves. The same goes for the opposite- since you have the data on how long before the stocks get sold, you won’t be ordering them too soon before necessary, minimizing the possibility of excess stocks under your roof.

You Can Make Better Business Decisions

Once again, since you have the data on which products are in demand and which ones are a little bit hard to sell, you make better decisions and focus your business into those that have high sell rates, and be able to enjoy higher profits from your store. You can slowly phase out items that don’t work, or perhaps create a promo for slow moving items. You can also see which products sell on a particular season and stock up on them right before demand and prices go up. Making well-informed decisions is crucial to your business’ success, and using barcodes push you in that direction.

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Without the right tools, not only can inventory management be a headache- with errors in inventory, there can be serious repercussions in business operations. A disorganized and unchecked inventory can lead to items going out of stock, which ultimately ends in profit loss due to all the potential sales lost. Items can go missing without a trace if not properly monitored, resulting to actual loss on your part. Barcodes not only help keep your inventory organized, but also saves time and effort in managing and monitoring it, not to mention that they are extremely cost-effective.

If you are looking to purchase a barcode label software, then you might want to check out Handifox- they offer a free trial for 14 days for HandiFox Online and 30 days for Handifox Desktop. You can check out an extensive review of their program over at Comparakeet, so you can be better informed of what they have in store.

Angelica Carsolin, Comparakeet