When inventory levels exceed forecasted demand, then we can use the term excess inventory or overstock. Usually, excess inventory happens when you purchase more products than you sell or there is no demand for your products or no proper product marketing or no proper inventory management, etc. If you have excess stock in your shop, you need to always solve the storage spaces and costs, service costs, capital costs, product expiry issues, etc. Anyway, as a small shop owner, excess inventory or overstock will create headaches for you because it will affect your profitability, especially for non-moving products.

excess inventory

Here, we can discuss about how we can get rid of excess inventory in your shop.

1) Highlight products, or remarketing:

When an item is not selling quickly, you need to change your marketing techniques. You can highlight the excess products in visible areas of your shop or display the excess products in different areas of your shop. This will give more attention to that product. Also, you can remarket that excess products or items by using different advertising methods like traditional or digital ads.

2) Run offers and sale events:

With the help of conducting sale events and running offers or promotions for excess products, we can get rid of excess inventory. Sales are a proven way to attract customers. So, you can run a weekend sale or one-day flash sale and give offers to customers for these excess inventory products.

3) Buy One Get One type promotion:

One of the most common and popular forms of sale promotion is to buy one get one because consumers perceive free stuff to be more valuable than discounts. If you have excess inventory that you want to clear out, this buy one get one type promotion could be a good option.

4) Bundle items/products:

To get rid of an excess inventory item, you can bundle your non-moving or excess inventory item with fast-moving items. Also, you can bundle multiple units of the same items with a discount.

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5) Free shipping and Free gifts:

It’s a good idea of offering an item from your excess inventory for free if customers buy an item or spends a certain amount of money for a particular product. Also, you can try a free shipping option for excess inventory products.

Also, read – 7 Simple Sales Promotion Ideas for Retail Stores

Now we can discuss how can excess inventory be prevented.

1) Use a Point of Sale system:

To prevent excess inventory in your shop, initially, you need to invest some money for buying a good Point of Sale system. If you are running a retail store or supermarket or even a textile shop, you can track and manage the inventory with good point of sale (POS) software. In today’s fast-moving world, you will require modern point-of-sale software like IVEPOS. It is an ideal POS software for small businesses. By using this IVEPOS you can always manage your inventory. IVEPOS will track inventory in real-time and also you can set stock levels and receive low stock notifications etc.

Also, read – Which software is recommended for doing Inventory Management

2) Always observe the market trends:

If you are running a business, then you need to always analyze the market and trends. If you have this observation you can get a good idea of each product’s current trends and based on that you can stock products.