Dead stock: find the forgotten shelf and turn it back into cash

Every shop has a shelf nobody looks at. In a baqala it is the bottom row of sauces bought for a promotion that never happened. In a perfume shop it is the gift sets left over from last Eid, still in their boxes behind the counter. They do not spoil, so nobody worries. But every item on that shelf is money you already paid the supplier, and it is earning nothing.

What dead stock really costs

These are example figures. Imagine a perfume shop in Karama with 14 gift sets bought at AED 85 each. That is AED 1,190 at cost, enough for a fresh order of the bestsellers. Add a carton of an air freshener nobody chose, a dozen bottles of an attar no one asks for, and a small shop can have several thousand dirhams on shelves that have not moved since spring. The space it takes is space a fast seller could use.

The trouble is that nobody sees it. Sales reports show what sold. What did not sell shows nowhere, until someone makes a list of it.

The slow-stock list

CreekPOS makes that list for you, per branch. A product is slow when it has stock and has not sold for 45 days, a number you can set anywhere from 7 to 365. For each product the list shows:

• the stock on hand and the money it holds at cost;
• the last sale, when the history reaches back that far;
• the supplier;
• what to do about it.

At the top is the total value tied up. The list downloads as Excel or CSV for your accountant or your own notes.

A product that arrived recently is not counted as slow: a new line gets its chance to sell first.

An action for every line

Each line gets at least one suggestion, chosen by plain rules:

They are suggestions: you decide what to do with each one.

It comes to you

You do not have to remember to look:

• a dashboard tile with the count, the value and the three biggest items;
• a block in the owner's summary e-mail, weekly by default (the mail of the first day of the week, which in the Emirates is Monday), with the top five by value; you can make it daily or switch it off, and the Telegram summary carries the same block;
• an owner alert once a week per branch: how many products, the days, the value and the biggest item, with a link to the list (when owner alerts are switched on);
• Ask your shop: type "what is not selling" and get the count, the value and the top five with their actions.

Clearing it: practical tips

• Start with the biggest value, not the biggest count. Five gift sets at AED 85 matter more than twenty sachets at AED 1.
• Return before you discount. If the supplier takes goods back under your terms, you recover the full cost; a discount recovers less. Return windows close, which is why the list only suggests a return for goods received in the last 90 days.
• Discount in one clear step, for a fixed period, and move the item where people stand: by the till, at eye level. A slow sauce at the bottom of the rack stays slow at any price.
• Bundle it with what sells. In a baqala, a slow sauce with a pasta that flies off the shelf; in a perfume shop, a slow attar with a bestselling bakhoor, or two slow sets as one gift before an occasion.
• Stop the reorder first. The cheapest dead stock is the carton you did not order.
• Give it fifteen minutes every Monday, when the summary arrives. A short list stays short.

Good to know

• It looks only at active products whose stock is tracked, and only at products that have stock.
• "Slow" counts from the last sale. When the last sale lies further back than the history the system reads, the line says "no sale in the last N days" instead of guessing a date.
• It is plain arithmetic on your own sales and stock, not a prediction.
• It does not change a price, a bundle or an order by itself.
• Where: CreekPOS Online on every plan, from Retail up. The buy-once desktop program has a Slow stock tab on its inventory screen, from Silver up.
• With two or more branches, CreekPOS Online also shows where a slow product does sell: see moving slow stock between branches.

See slow stock on the smart stock page and the stock alerts chapter of the manual.