Salon Inventory Management: 7 things to avoid making a critical error

If you are working in a salon or running it yourself, then you need to know a few important points about salon inventory management. ‘Why salon business management is critical for a salon?’, is an essential question that we need ask ourselves. Salon inventory management is a process of managing essential and correct inventory levels of stocks of your salon. These stocks are usually the products that are used in any salon business and closely correlates with customer experience of a salon.

Imagine if one of your hairdressers was applying hair color to one of your customers and that very same hair color runs out. You also find that your salon doesn’t have a backup. It would be an experience that no customer should go through. This is why salon inventory management is important, which can help with replenishment of the stock at your salon correctly. There are seven points that you should know about salon inventory management.

1. The Benefits

Salon inventory management pertains to huge advantages for your beauty salon business. When done right, your business's cash flow is vastly improved. It simultaneously helps improves profits and customer experience. The customer becomes a returning customer if he or she is happy with the experience. It streamlines the ordering process and reduces shrinkage of stock. Also in the end, it saves your and your client’s precious time.

2. A salon business is not a guessing game

The process accrues consistent checking of salon inventory lists and the correct timing of orders. This type of process is also called Just in time Inventory, which is a popular way of stocking inventory in many multinational businesses.

3. Set stock goals before initiating salon inventory management

It is essential that you have to set some major stock goals in order to simplify what you want to do for example stock loss/shrinkage targets or maybe the lowest level of cost accrued.

4. Know what to include in the inventory management of salons

One should know that every bit of a stock that is directly related to the customer experience should be included in the stock inventory management.

5. Knowledgeable about the inventory data to record

The kind of data that should be recorded depends on the size of the business. One should always record correct information about the distributor and the product itself. The information can be a reference number, product name, brand name, distributor name, current stock levels, and the different prices.

6. Know the estimated inventory usage in the salon

The owner should require their employees to report the actual usage of inventory in the salon on a day to day basis. This is important to quickly adapt to the ever-changing landscape of salon management.

7. Know about different methods to track salon inventory

There are many ways one can keep track of salon inventory. These methods include but are not limited to, inventory spreadsheets, inventory software like MyCuts, and the paper inventory list (not recommended because it is not automated).