Inventory Buying Tools - The Edge

WHAT THEY ARE

Inventory management is the single biggest factor in the success of a retail business. Your goal is to sell as much product at the highest price from the smallest investment possible. To do so, you must vigilantly monitor, measure, and adjust your activities to make the most of your inventory with educated decisions. The Edge features a series of Buying Tools and reports to help you move older inventory and replenish more popular items.

WHAT THEY DO

These Buying Tools work together to take a proactive approach to managing your aging inventory. Popular inventory can be set to be automatically reordered and potentially profitable categories can be identified using your sales data through a series of reports. Aging inventory is managed through a tiered system of assigning spiff and price markdowns to items dynamically as they age. You can speed up the POS transaction process for your customers by eliminating the need for double entry in order to track transactions in Edge. A speedy checkout process is especially beneficial during busier retail times, such as the holiday season, Mother's Day, and Valentine's Day.

HOW THEY WORK

The Inventory Buying Tools feature consists of six steps and is designed to fulfill two roles:

Weekly Inventory Orders and Reorders.
Monthly AIMS Repricing.
These two roles are not dependent on one another and it is entirely possible to use either exclusively. However, the system works best when both are employed side-by-side.

Select Inventory > Buying Tools.
Select Weekly Buying Plan. The Weekly Buying Plan includes:

Reorder Fast Sellers: This yields the Rapid Reorder Report and Form. This step is used to set up the rapid reorder report and form. From the Settings options, the sale date range should always be Last Week (it will default to this; this step is designed to be run weekly).
Replenish Base Stock Report: This step will set up a report to aid in replenishing current sold inventory. From the Settings options, “current” refers to items that did not sell fast enough to be considered fast sellers, but did not sell slow enough to become aged inventory. The sale date range should always be Last Week (it will default to this; this step is designed to be run weekly).
Recovered Funds Redeployment Guide: This step will set up a report to aid in the the reinvestment of funds recovered through the sale of old inventory. From Settings, on Type & Status tab, Date Sold should always be 365 days (it will default to this).

Select OK. You can set the default for each step via presets.
Select Inventory > Buying Tools.
Select Monthly Aged Inventory Management. Monthly Aged Inventory Management includes:

Repricing: This step performs automated repricing based on markdown settings in category records.
Bonus Poster Generation: This step is used to generate a bonus poster showing all items that have a spiff assigned.
Signage Location Report: This is a simple report that will list current in-case signs by case location.

Select OK. Each buying tool step run will generate output in separate windows that are accessible from the tabs across the bottom of the window. To save this setup permanently, click Presets > Set as Default.

EXPAND YOUR EDGE EDUCATION

Can’t get enough of our Inventory Buying Tools? Click the button below to launch The Edge User site. Log-in and learn more, including how to set up automatic mark downs and repricing for Inventory Buying Tools, and detailed articles on how to work with the Weekly Buying Plan and Monthly Aged Inventory Management features. Then stick around to explore the site and empower your business through additional webinars, articles from The Edge Knowledgebase, or discussions with fellow Edge users.