Slow-moving and dead stock: how to find it and what to do

Every shop has a corner. You know the one. It holds the box of left-handed widgets someone ordered for a customer who never came back, a pallet of last year's seasonal item, and three of something nobody can identify. The corner is a small museum of past optimism.

It is also money. Each of those boxes was paid for, and the cash is not coming back until the box sells. Finding your corner, putting a number on it and deciding what to do is one of the quickest ways to free up cash.

Decide what slow means

Slow-moving stock sells, but slowly. Dead stock has not moved at all for a long time. The line between them is yours to draw, and it differs by item: six months without a pick might be normal for a spare part and alarming for a seasonal product.

Find it with your own history

1. Export the item list with its quantity and unit cost.
2. Export the pick history for the last six to twelve months. Export it every month, since some logs keep only the latest few hundred entries.
3. Count picks per item and find the items with few or none.
4. Multiply quantity by unit cost for those items to see how much money is sitting there.

What to do with it

• Stop reordering until it sells down.
• Discount it, or bundle it with something that sells.
• Ask the supplier whether they take returns, and at what cost.
• Donate or give it away, if that suits you better than the storage cost.
• Write it off. Ask your accountant how that is booked.

A slow item you never reorder is a clearance sale in the making. A slow item you keep reordering is a habit.

Items with expiry dates

Stock with an expiry date has a deadline built in. Check it against the dates in your batches, and deal with the batches closest to expiry first. A discount in time is worth more than a bin liner later.

Stop it coming back

Before you order something unusual, ask who is waiting for it. Special orders for a single customer are the biggest source of orphan stock. Take a deposit, or note on the purchase order who it is for. Inventory turnover shows how fast the rest is moving.

A simple clearance plan

Once you have a list, treat it like a small project, not a guilty secret. Sort it by money tied up. Take the top ten and give each one a decision and a date.

• This week: stop reordering all ten.
• Next two weeks: ask suppliers about returns for the ones that are still sealed.
• Within a month: discount or bundle what is left, starting with the oldest.
• End of the quarter: write off what has not moved, and say what you learned.

The goal is not to recover every dollar. It is to turn a corner of dust back into shelf space and cash, and to make the next special order a little more careful.