The barcode scanner is one of the most important weapons in your inventory arsenal. If you want to drastically improve the efficiency of inventory tracking in all parts of your business, a barcode system is the best place to start. Ready. Aim. Scan.
Buying
POS barcode technology takes a lot of the pain and error out of the buying process. To optimize your inventory, it’s important that you order the right products. And part of ordering the right products is making sure that the SKUs/item numbers of those products are entered correctly on the purchase order. As you know, some item numbers can be a ridiculously long combination of numbers and letters. If you or one of your employees is tired or has had a long week, it’s not uncommon for those SKUs to be incorrectly entered. And a simple mistake like that can cost your company money.
If you have a good barcode system and the latest barcode scanner/reader technology, that won’t happen. Simply scan the barcodes of the items, listen for a beep, and then move on– confident that everything was entered correctly.
Receiving
Keeping things organized at your receiving dock when a shipment arrives can be extremely stressful. And having to manually enter item numbers into your inventory tracking system just makes it worse. With a barcode scanner, you can keep this process as simple as possible. Receiving will be more accurate and you’ll have less inventory discrepancies to work out later. Take advantage of your retail management solutions instead of them taking advantage of you.
Looking up an Item
Because many item numbers are difficult to remember, most point of sale and inventory systems have an easy way to search for inventory quickly using almost any keyword. But the best way to access the item is by simply scanning the barcode on it. If you need to make changes to an item, view pricing information, or check its sales history, the fastest way is with a barcode reader.
Selling
The selling process is where a barcode system for inventory really shines. And that’s because it improves the customer’s experience by making the whole transaction process faster. In almost all cases, a faster experience for the customer is a better one. No one wants to wait in a long line and no customer wants to watch you type an item number for the third time. They want to buy their products and get on with their day. Retail management solutions with top notch barcode capabilities allow them to do just that.
Don’t Be Left Behind.
You want an inventory management system that uses the latest in barcode technology. It should work beautifully with wireless Bluetooth scanners (for mobile point of sale apps) and with the most up-to-date readers for wired connections.
Without this type of system, items must be entered manually for all of the processes that we just talked about. When you’re dealing with an extra long SKU with a weird combination of numbers and letters, it’s painstaking to say the least. Barcode scanning speeds up the process immensely and virtually eliminates any entry errors. This results in less inventory discrepancies and less problems that you’ll inevitably need to solve later.