thinking about stocktake (coral)

[aquatic ian]

As another small retailer im interested in knowing , how do you other guys out there track individual pieces of coral ,through the store , or do you like myself not bother at the moment ?

I can recognise many pieces ,and have a good idea of what the cost was likely to have been (and many suppliers stuff) ,but have no way of telling how long a particular piece may have been in stock , which collector it may have come from or ultimatlly what the price recieved versus price paid is , what the cost was should it happen to die , etc (especially since the recieving member of staff,might be different to the selling member )

has any one come up with a simple , ingenious meathod of tracking such a tricky stock item ?
I was thinking about barcoded strips , or maybe coloured stips ,our system is a bit too small to be able to seperate every thing out

any sugestions welcome
cheers ian

 

[JennM]

No I don't track stuff "electronically" per se. Either my husband or I tank everything ourselves, and I do all the ordering, and I "know" my livestock inventory.

Fishes are dated - each tank has a price card with each specimen listed and its arrival date.

Corals, I don't have that luxury, nor do I feel that it's as relevant. If a customer wants to know, I can look up the invoice, as I choose my specimens from a list ( no "lot" boxes ), so I can attach a specific invoice/order to each piece, and prices are set according to the price I paid and/or what I know a piece can fetch. Sometimes I pay "too much" for an ugly duckling piece, which I sell for less, but conversely, sometimes I get a real gem at an excellent price, and I can get more for it than the standard "mathematical" markup equasion. I think it's important to LOOK at each piece and assess it individually.

I'm lucky I guess in that I more or less have a photographic memory... I can recognize and remember individual pieces and dates...

I don't lose too many (knock on wood) but I do try to save colonies that are injured. I've got a large clientele that loves to peruse the "scratch n' dent" section... these are sold inexpensively and it's a nice challenge for the avid hobbyist to bring something "back" from mediocre health, to something beautiful and thriving.

So no I don't use bar codes or whatnot. At inventory-taking time, I calculate an average price multiplied by the number of pieces.

HTH

Jenn

 

[aquatic ian]

thanks jenn ,
i apreciate the input , i like to asses each piece too .

I find i can remember most pieces as well , but i just know what a difference the electronic system makes to the dry goods etc ...

i also like to offer employment from the store ,but that of course means you cant do every thing yourself , and thats the position im thinking from

do you price mark every piece?

the tags for the fish sound like a good idea , how do you hang them from your tanks?

cheers ian

 

[JennM]

Each fish tank has a plastic pocket which contains an index card. I use a word processor to store the text from each tank... each week when I add new fishes, I re-print new cards, removing those which have been sold (or the occasional DAA) and add on the new arrivals. I'm often behind in this, but I am currently caught up

Corals I group by price. I have a tank for SPS, I mark those individually, soft corals by price, ie: $39.99 in one group, $49.99 in another and etc., and LPS corals are the same... my SPS tank has 4 x 400 W mh, LPS has 3 x 250 w and softies have 3 x 175 watt. They are all on the same central system with a sump/refugium. Has done well for 2 + years now.

HTH

Jenn

 

[Anonymous]

We use a computerized POS system. Every fish/coral is issued a SKU with the first four digits being the date of arrival. Makes it easy for the customer to tell how long something has been in the shop, and it's easy for us to tell when to discount to move a particular item. And since we rarely recieve more than one shipment on a single day we are able to track performance by shipment and supplier to give long term data on the different whoelsalers we use.

 

[aquatic ian]

thanks rover ,
thats what im thinking , how do you id each coral once its in the system so to speak?
do you actually tag them or tank them seperatlyand mark the tanks acordingly ? can you track them as they move through stock tanks ?or do you just tend to try and sell em off when they have been in too long?

what info do you use on the sku(asuming this is like a barcode) apart from the arival date and do you actually try and use a reader or just punch it in
Like jenn i have a very good idea of what ive got and what it cost etc , but actual data might be so much more usefull

cheers again ian

 

[Kalkbreath]

My new project is to track 500 or so clams , 200 total mixed corals another 200+ frags +200 Lps, 100+ Aqua SPS , 100 Soft corals, 50 shrooms, Then there is the groups of corals , combos of three coral that are sold as a group{ie three for $89} And lastly 100 plus fairy wrasses and 20 +clownfish pairs with host Anemones . Each of these 1500+ animals are individually photographed and listed on a website. After planning this project for three years now, I have come up with a grid system to keep track of individual livestock. Five across and ten down kinda set up. Kinda like the old battleship game with the pegs. I have known stores to keep track of fifty or so items .......but over a thousand is something new. .......I have no worries that this project will cause me to go insane .........because as you all know I have been quite insane for a number of years.... :wink: Its going to be quite an adventure as soon as we start shipping and items get sold and then replaced 8O

 

[aquatic ian]

fortunatly kalk, i dont need to track those kinds of numbers ,

would be great if you could share a bit more about how you propose to track yours ,if you dont mind.

are the photos going to be the main identification method or will the placement within the tank identify individual pieces ?

will simillar pieces have their own place within your "graph" or will similar pieces be grouped together?

are you planning to do this electronically or manually ?


also you mentioned that other stores have managed fifty pieces or so , which method apears to be the most efficient to yourself ?

i ask a lot of questions dont i ?

thanks again ian

 

[Anonymous]

We don't have tons of coral in the shop so a simple description attatched tothe sku is all that is needed. We rarely have more than two of any particular piece of coral so and it's easy enough to remember which piece has been there the longest. We don't always discount something just because it has been in a while, but we usually use the info when offering group discounts and such. We may need to tweak the plan a bit as our sales increase but it has worked well so far. The sku number is tid to a description and price in the data base, so fish guy bags it up and customer brings it to the cashier, and cashier types it in and voila. We have 5-6 people working in the fish section in any given week, so a simple (dummy proof) system is necessary. Another idea we are toying around with is issuing each fish employee a no price sku that also gets put on the bag so we can track who sold what if we need to later (incompatibility issues, not asking appropriate questions and screening, customer fibs, etc.)

 

[Kalkbreath]

I guess the grid or graph would be the main tracking method. The photo Id would help double check the system . If the tiltle of photo image is red monti C16 ........and the person [customer or employee] is holding a bag with a blue tort acro. then the photo system would point out something is off. Customers and employees can "read" the grid system as it is layed out in the tanks. The coral which is in row five starting from the top and is third from the left in row five would be either 5-3 or E-3 ......if the first row is either row "one" or Row "A". Pricing in our store is not an issue due to the fact that everything in a particular grid is the same price. The object here is to match up the right coral with the Online order. But any store could use this method to track information like price or origin .

 

[Anonymous]

Sounds needlessly complicated to me. If you buy your stock in batches, (which I assume you are with those quantities), why not track by batch?

 

[Kalkbreath]

This is geared to the new online store . Each fish and coral is WYSIWYG. If a guy in montana picks f-35 He wants us to ship F-35. With almost 1000 individual animals on the site......A grid system with the photo is the only way to be sure the guy in montana gets the specific corals or fairy wrasses he chose on the website. just a word discription wont cut it. Take the aqua clams for instance, there are three to five hundred and they all look alike........."blue maxima 2 inch" only goes so far

 

[aquatic ian]

hat off to you kalk , i thought it would b too hard
i know that if i buy from a wholesaler/collector its always always sight unseen
could it mean that you too get stuck with pieces that would have otherwise been shipped that week ?
cheers again ian

 

[JennM]

Keep your hat on, Ian...

He's been touting this website since middle of last year

His brick and mortar store site is still just a home page, though I see that the have changed the "Go Live" date from August 2003, to March 31, 2004.

What time is it?

Jenn

 

[Kalkbreath]

Yes ,I have been taking my time.......but I do have four hundred blue clams in stock and one hundred or so Bali Aquacultured ........Fifty rose anemones and ten blue carpets etc and the new larger coral section of the store does not even have water in it..............Just wait until the twenty new coral vats are ready for livestock. :wink: