Comments on: Uncover Thousands in Savings, Hidden in Your Inventory

By: Susan G. Vinson

Susan G. Vinson — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:13:02 +0000

I would like permission to reprint the article entitled “Uncover Thousands in savings, Hidden in Your Inventory” by Grant Wickes. This article would appear in our quarterly newsletter with a national circulation of about 400.

CDI is an affiliation of independent wholesale paper, jan/san, and restaurant equipment distributors and manufacturers.

Thank you for your favorable consideration in this regard.

Susan G. Vinson, President
CONSOLIDATED DISTRIBUTORS, INC.
Monroe, Louisiana
(800) 245-9169

By: Small Business Trends: Uncover Thousands in Savings, Hidden in Your Inventory | Distributor's EDGE

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:17:32 +0000

[...] Small Business Trends Excerpt: When sales drop and budgets get tight, small businesses begin desperately seeking ways to cut costs. The options, however, are not attractive. Cutting people is painful, while slashing marketing has devastating long-term effects. Surprisingly, there’s an answer to this problem right within a business owner’s four walls: inventory. [...]

By: Justin

Justin — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 04:47:03 +0000

With my experience in Materials Management and Inventory Control, barcoding systems have always proven financially beneficial not to mention much easier to track inventory and control stock-outs. Businesses, big or small, can benefit from a well planned that thoughout barcode system.

By: Grant Wickes

Grant Wickes — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 12:33:49 +0000

Hello @Chris: Smart phones are doing some amazing stuff Two startups are creating an ability to read 2D barcodes (these are little postage stamp looking barcodes that are made up of seemingly random dashes and dots in a square).

Have a look at this recent article in USA Today regarding these companies and the direction they are going. It really has some interesting potential http://bit.ly/ULAEE

@BiancaAquino Thanks for the comment. Not only are barcodes going strong, there is such under utilization of this technology in small business, the growth potential is enormous.

Our new customer surveys (folks that have just purchased our solutions) indicate that over 93% of these customers have never used any barcode based automation beforeIt’s amazingeven though barcodes and productivity solutions around barcodes have been available for 30 years, the vast majority of small business have not used this. We just need to get the word out. So thanks for your help!

Cheers, Grant (@gwickes)

By: Mary Grace Ignacio

Mary Grace Ignacio — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 04:55:38 +0000

I have first appreciated this technology on our project way back my college years! Aside from its really useful capabilities, it is really affordable and perfect for small business owners who are on tight budget.

By: Grant Wickes

Grant Wickes — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 22:59:32 +0000

Hi @Amanda. Thanks for reading and commenting. What’s great about barcodes for small business is how affordable it is. You can get started for less than $200 for a starter kit that includes a scanner, barcode label software and basic tracking software. Good for a small startup or home based business.
We have inventory software starts at around $600. If you add a mobile scanner and barcode printer, you can get a complete solution starting at $2,000. The price is a one time license and there is no on-going fees or charges.

“Higher end” solutions are available from other vendors that still target SMB customers in more vertical or specialized needs with prices ranging from $5K – $15K

By: Anita Campbell

Anita Campbell — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 20:36:32 +0000

Hi Grant, thanks for the explanation about using barcodes.

I used to follow the field of RFID, which can be an inventory tracking alternative to barcodes.

What is the cost differential between setting up an RFID tagging system, and a barcode system, for your inventory?

– Anita

By: Grant Wickes

Grant Wickes — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 13:44:39 +0000

Hi @MartinLindeskog thanks for the comment you ask a number of good questions one of the key things to service the small business segment well (as a technology vendor) is to have a complete solution (hardware, software and support) from one vendor. That’s one way we try and make it easy and affordable for business owners to implement.

@TedHurlbut: agreed! The independent or smaller retailer can gain significant cost savings with barcodes and a POS system. We have a retail glass shop (case study link: http://bit.ly/FT0x1) that implemented a POS system determined what stock was moving (ie what stuff customers really wanted), improving inventory management of these items, and increased sales 200% (since they stocked what was needed)

More later… keep the comments and ideas coming.

Cheers, Grant (@gwickes)

By: Bianca Aquino

Bianca Aquino — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 04:08:35 +0000

Grant, I have long appreciated the barcode technology. It feels even better that it still lives up to its name. Also, Yes, inventory is really important. This is what most of our always-busy entrepreneurs often have not look over to.

By: RedHotFranchises

RedHotFranchises — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 01:36:10 +0000

This is the most reliable way to designate Bar Codes for Packaging Online, better than the traditional way of using quick books to manage the inventory. Not only does it save money it saves lots of time as well!