Stock and Delivery Toolkit
Stock and Delivery Toolkit
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Chapter 1: One stock count across shop, website and Instagram
Most overselling starts with a simple problem. The shop has its own count. The website has another. Instagram has no count at all, just a memory of what is "probably still there". Three numbers for one product means at least two are wrong.
The rule: one source of truth
Choose one place where the real stock number lives. Every sale, from every channel, reduces that number. Every delivery from a supplier increases it.
Your options, from simplest to strongest:
| Option | Good for | Weak point |
|---|---|---|
| A shared spreadsheet | Under 50 products, one or two people selling | Depends on people updating it every time |
| Your store platform's inventory | Brands with a website that handles most sales | Shop and DM sales must still be entered by hand |
| A point of sale linked to your store platform | Brands with a physical shop and a website | Costs more and takes setup time |
If you are starting from nothing, start with the spreadsheet. Move to software when the spreadsheet starts to slow you down, not before.
Give every item a SKU
A SKU (stock keeping unit) is a short code for one exact item. Not "the linen shirt", but "the linen shirt, white, size M".
Keep the format simple and readable: product short name LSH, color WHT, size M, so the SKU is LSH-WHT-M. Write it on the shelf label and in the spreadsheet.
Recording sales from every channel
Shop sales. Use your till or a sales book. At closing time, the shop lead updates the stock sheet.
Instagram and WhatsApp sales. These are the ones that get missed. Make it a rule: the moment payment lands, the person handling the chat reduces stock. Not at the end of the day. Right away.
Example: Halima runs a modest fashion brand in Mombasa with a small shop and a strong Instagram. She kept losing track of abayas sold through DMs. She added a "Sold via DM" tab to her stock sheet and pinned it on the team's phones. Overselling dropped from five or six times a month to almost zero.
But a clean count only tells you what you have today. Halima's bigger problem was still ahead: her bestselling black abaya kept running out for two weeks at a time, right when her posts were doing best. The fix was one simple formula, and once she saw her own numbers in it, she realized she had been reordering far too late...
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