- mapping the flow of merchandise in and out of a department
- identifying fast and slow sellers
- indicating the prominence that should be given in the assortment to various prices, sizes, colors, etc.
- keeping sections of the stock within predetermined maximum and minimum quantities
Unit control is of least value if the system is slow, cumbersome, or otherwise unsuited to the buyer's needs. It is of no value if the buyer does not use the information it supplies.
Systems can contribute little to operations that are dedicated to new, experimental fashion ideas and few-of-a-kind stocks.
Kinds of Unit Control Systems
Even in stores where the management provides unit control systems and has resident experts on hand to supervise them, you as a buyer need to be personally familiar with the various approaches, so that you can
- extract the information you want, and
- institute or request changes if the present system does not give you that information.
- periodic stock counts that record inventory at intervals and permit sales to be calculated
- perpetual inventory systems that record sales and permit inventory to be calculated.
Periodic Stock Counts
Such systems are primarily for:
- items with long selling life, that should be replaced regularly, as they sell out
- observations of broad groupings of the stock for information not adequately covered through other systems.
Example: Assume that the princess line in dresses appears to be gaining popularity among your customers. A periodic count control that cuts across all price lines and other subdivisions of your department will help you
- keep the style well represented in stock and
- observe its progress,
- count fast-moving fashions frequently, especially at the start of the season when you are watching demand trends
- count classics and other fairly basic items less frequently and at regular intervals
- distribute the counts among the days of the week and among the members of the selling staff so that no day or person is over loaded
- consider dropping from the assortment any items that show little or no sales activity between counts
- look into the sales potential of items that sell out between counts
- compare sales for each period with those for preceding periods, as even the most basic items or categories can be on an upward or downward trend.
Such systems make it possible to watch in close detail the progress of specific styles or groups of styles. They record the entire history of each style.
At the heart of such systems, when manually operated, is the style card, on which is entered for the style concerned all orders, receipts, sales, returns, price changes. Every transaction is recorded, even as to colors and sizes involved.
Style cards may be kept in a file, book, or rack. Some systems rack the cards along a wall and use colored tabs to indicate such points as sales that day, customer returns, new in stock and still without its first sale, etc.
All the information needed for decision is in one place. A buyer can see which numbers are moving briskly, which need to be reordered, which are awaiting delivery, which sizes and colors are selling better than others, what effect recent ads and displays have had, etc.
For trend information, compilations must be made from the individual style cards by price line, vendor, and color.
When using a manually-operated style-card system, make sure that:
- you do not load it down with unnecessary detail
- the reports that are drawn off are organized along lines useful to you
- entries are made rapidly enough so that you do not have to check the selling floor and the branches at every turn.
The difference: You run your eye across line after line of typed report, instead of looking through a series of style cards, in order to see where action is needed. Mark exceptionally fast or slow sellers and exceptionally light or heavy stocks, as you run through the report.
