8 Tips To Manage Jewelry Inventory

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As a retail business owner, your inventory is the key to your success.

But for your business to reach its full potential, you need to maximize the value of your inventory by managing it effectively.

In the jewelry industry, individual items are highly valuable. This makes it even more important to keep track of each one and your store’s inventory as a whole. When you manage these items correctly, you minimize loss and theft, increase sales, and keep customers happy.

When you fail to manage your inventory effectively, you see overstock, stockouts, inaccurate numbers, and slumps in sales. In this blog, we’ll go over eight tips to manage jewelry inventory, so you can make the most of each item in your store.

Let’s get started.

1. Organize Jewelry Inventory Effectively

Keeping items organized is an important part of inventory management. Decide how you want to sort the jewelry items in your store, and do your best to keep everything in its place.

You can sort jewelry items by:

Type (ring, necklace, etc.)
Gemstone
Color
Price

No matter how you organize your jewelry store, keep it consistent, so returning customers can find what they’re looking for. Too many changes to your store layout too frequently may confuse customers. A consistent layout you and your employees are familiar with makes it easier to guide customers around the store and answer their questions.

You can also use displays to emphasize certain jewelry items. These may be new arrivals, top sellers, or high-margin items you want to sell a lot of. Displays located near the front of the store draw customers’ eyes and make items more likely to sell than if they were in the back or hidden in the corner.

2. Implement a Barcode System

Using a barcode system makes inventory management much easier. You can print out a unique barcode for each item in your jewelry store, which you can then scan to quickly bring up its data when needed. This speeds up sales transactions, customer service, and inventory audits. Many retail stores use a digital inventory management system — if you do, make sure your digital system is compatible with a barcode system.

3. Adopt a Digital Inventory Management System

The days of managing inventory counts with a pen and paper have passed. Now, you need a digital system that keeps track of your inventory counts and updates automatically. Modern point of sale (POS) systems are perfect for managing your inventory and are equipped with many other features to help you run your jewelry store.

A jewelry-specific POS system grants you access to jewel suppliers. If you purchase inventory right from your system, your inventory counts update to reflect the new inventory. They also update when you make sales, so your numbers stay accurate. Cloud-based POS systems are accessed from any web-enabled device, so you can check your inventory numbers from your computer, tablet, or smartphone.

These systems also track key metrics like revenue, cost, and profit. You can use the tools offered by POS systems to create presentations that make this data easier to understand. As you better understand your sales data, you gain insight to your most and least popular products, which helps you make more informed inventory management decisions.

4. Order the Correct Amount of Inventory

One of the main goals of inventory management is to avoid overstock and stockouts. Overstock inventory takes up space on your shelves and reduces inventory turnover, and stockouts cause you to lose sales. To avoid these scenarios, pay close attention to how the various products you offer are performing and order the correct amount of inventory.

Check your inventory totals often — along with the reports generated by a digital inventory management system. If diamond rings are selling well, try placing a larger order. If diamond earrings aren’t selling, place a smaller order.

You can also try to increase sales of a certain product rather than reducing the size of your order. If you want to sell more necklaces, for example, try marketing them on social media, creating a display of these items at the front of your store, or offering a limited-time discount.

Maintaining good relationships with jewelry suppliers makes it easier to place customized orders. When suppliers know you’re reliable, pay on time, and hold up your end of the bargain, they’re more willing to work with you on custom quantities and lower prices — including bulk discounts.

5. Plan for Seasonal Trends

Some items are seasonal, which means they sell more during certain times of the year. For these items, you can order less during the off-season, and order more in preparation for the season when it’s popular. Looking at past sales data for specific products helps you identify which items are most affected by seasonality. This way, you order the correct amount of inventory based on the time of year.

Seasons when jewelry items are most popular are great times to engage in focused marketing efforts. During times like Valentine’s Day or the holiday season, create content for social media or paid ads on external websites. You can put extra emphasis on your most popular items to maximize their sales, or try to promote items that sit on the shelves to increase turnover for these items.

The more prepared you are for seasonal jewelry trends, the more successful your store is.

6. Set Automatic Reorder Points

A POS system allows you to set automatic reorder points for specific products. If a popular product, like a diamond ring, tends to sell out at your jewelry store, you can set your system up to automatically place a new order when stock drops below a certain point. This ensures you never run out of your top-selling items.

These reorder points most likely need to be set only for some items. Look at data reports generated by your POS system to understand which products run the highest risk of selling out — these are the ones that can benefit from setting an automatic reorder point.

7. Run Discounts on Stubborn Inventory

One of the realities of retail is that some inventory just sells better than others. Some items turn over quickly, while others sit on the shelves. Discounts and limited-time offers can be useful to move this stubborn inventory. Try implementing clearance sales, buy one, get one (BOGO) deals, and other sales to encourage people to buy.

You can also bundle items together. For instance, you can sell a pair of earrings with a necklace for a reduced price, as opposed to selling both items individually. These bundles may be more interesting to customers, as they’re more likely to make a purchase if they feel they’re getting a good deal.

8. Conduct Regular Inventory Audits

Even with a sophisticated digital inventory management system, it’s important to conduct occasional inventory audits to correct discrepancies. On a routine basis, count out your inventory and cross-reference them with the totals in your system. If you notice errors, correct them in the system, so all your numbers are accurate.

Use These Tips To Manage Jewelry Inventory With Jewel360

Effective inventory management keeps product turning over and increases sales at your jewelry store. Use these tips to manage jewelry inventory, so you can sell more jewelry and prevent inventory issues like stockouts or overstock.

Remember to analyze sales data, so you can order the correct amount of inventory, plan for seasonal trends, and set automatic reorder points. Run discounts to move stubborn inventory, and regularly conduct inventory audits, so you can keep your numbers accurate.

To truly optimize your inventory management, you need a POS system. Jewel360 is a cloud-based POS system designed specifically for jewelry stores. With a full suite of both general and jewelry-specific features, you can track inventory numbers, place orders with jewelry suppliers, and ring up customers from any web-enabled device.

To see what Jewel360 does for your jewelry business, schedule a demo today!