3 Types of Inventory and Sales Reports to Use in Your Retail Store

Reporting and analytics are essential to any retailer because they tell you exactly what’s going on in your business. Analyzing your data correctly enables you to make well-informed decisions around things like stock ordering, promotions, and staffing, among other things.

 

However, having too much data (or worse — looking at the wrong info) can lead to mishaps, overwhelm, and a lot of business headaches. That’s why it’s important to run the right reports for your retail stores.

 

Need help doing that? We’ve put together a list of the top retail reports you should keep an eye on.

 

Check them out!

 

Inventory Reports

Keeping your product assortments fresh and relevant is a must if you want to stay in business, so track your inventory like a hawk. You can do that with the following reports:

 

1. Inventory On Hand

You always want to know how much merchandise you have in your stores, so if there’s a report that you should run regularly, it should be this one.

 

Your “inventory on hand” report should show how many product units you have in each store as well as the current stock value. That information tells you how much capital you have in your inventory, which in turn can help you in your financial plans and forecasts.

 

For example, knowing how much capital you have tied up in stock (i.e., current stock value), is quite handy when you’re budgeting for next season.

 

2. Low Stock

Out of stocks are a no-no in retail. Not only do they lead to lost sales, but out-of-stocks also result in reduced customer satisfaction and can send people straight to your competitors.

 

Prevent that by regularly generating stock reports that display items that are running low. For best results, set a re-order point for your products and make sure that you’re notified when your stock levels reach a certain point so you can replenish as necessary.

 

Looking at low stock reports on a regular basis can also enable you to spot patterns around which products are constantly running low. If a particular is always showing on this report, for instance, that could indicate the need to increase your order quantities.

 

Tristam Eriksson, Retail Business Development Manager at the vape store Vapouriz shares that he and his team reguarly review their re-order levels “to ensure availability is maintained.” He adds that they “also use negative stock reporting and slow-seller reports on SelectedEpos” to make sure their assortments are in good shape.

 

Note: If you’re using SelectedEpos and want an overview of how to use your inventory on hand and low stock report, we’ve put together a handy video here:

 

 

3. Product Performance Report

How fast are items selling? Which products are making the most money? Such questions can be answered by your product performance report.

 

Ideally, this report should tell you how much merchandise you’ve sold over a given time period as well as a summary of items sold per month or per week. Use the product performance report to determine which items are worth investing in and which ones shouldn’t be re-ordered.

 

A good product performance report should tell you the date when you first sold an item as well as the date of the last sale for that product. If there’s a big gap between the first and last sale date, then that may indicate that an item selling as fast as it should.

 

Christmas Elves, a store that sells holiday goods and decor, uses product performance reports extensively in their business. According to Jason McIntyre, owner of Christmas Elves, he’s always looking at how fast items are selling per week and uses that to make stock ordering decisions.

 

By looking at when sales spike and which products are selling the most, Jason and his team can get a clearer idea of how many units to order. Jason says he also tracks sales velocity reports for specific products and their overall categories, and this gives him an idea of which related products to sell in his store.

 

Featured Resource

 

SelectedEpos’s Excel inventory and sales template helps you stay on top of your inventory and sales by putting vital retail data at your fingertips.

 

We compiled some of the most important metrics that you should track in your retail business, and put them into easy-to-use spreadsheets that automatically calculate metrics such as GMROI, conversion rate, stock turn, margins, and more.

 

Sales Reports

Sales are critical to retail success, which is why you always need a clear idea of how much money is coming into your business. Here are some of the sales reports that can provide the best insights: