FieldNotes: What Is Perpetual Inventory?

Perpetual inventory is a wonder of our time, and we encourage every retailer to apply it. But, you may ask, what the heck is it?

To illustrate the concept, I will describe a common scenario from the old school approach:

Pauline, your store manager, wrote up an order for next week’s shipment of beach gear this morning. This evening, she will go and submit those orders in your ordering software. Unfortunately, in the time since she looked at the shelves, 47 products were sold from that section. A heat wave arrives and your shelves go way out of whack.

That’s not Pauline’s fault. That’s periodic inventory, through which a store gets a clear snapshot of inventory needs periodically, and does the best it can with that info.

Perpetual inventory eliminates the lapsed time between inventory and ordering, and eliminates the guesswork. 

FieldStack does perpetual retail inventory, and it’s real time:

• “You” always know what’s in your store, and replenish automatically.
• There is no pause between the time the order is written and when it is submitted. 
• There is no pause between when the order is submitted and your distributors see your order. 

FieldStack doesn’t place your order until the very last second before the truck is packed. So the truck is packed based on the most up-to-date info on your needs, automatically. 

Plus, our solution will deftly manage your retail supply chain, determining what products you can get from which distributor, how long will it take for each product to arrive, and, how much you need to have in stock. 

We’ll even set the algorithms to work with your custom variables: What’s your appetite for running out of that product? Can you ever go without, or do always want to maintain at least two samples on shelf? 

Really, we can do that.