Inventory management for small business in Pakistan

Most inventory guides are written for warehouses: barcode scanners, forecasting software, economic order quantities. A small store in Pakistan has a cupboard, a phone, and orders coming in from WhatsApp, Instagram DMs and its own store at the same time. This is the system that works at that size. It needs a sheet, a fixed day and a few habits.

Why stock goes wrong for small sellers

Before suspecting theft or a lost box, check these:

• Two places sell the same piece. A buyer confirms the last medium on WhatsApp while someone else orders it on Instagram. Both are told yes.
• The count lives in your head. It is right on Monday and wrong by Thursday.
• Returns are counted twice, or never. A refused parcel is marked back in stock while it is still with the courier, or it sits in a bag for a month and nobody adds it back.
• Sizes are lumped together. The sheet says 12 pieces of a design. Ten of them are XL.

One stock sheet, one row per size and colour

A Google Sheet works, because you and anyone who helps you can open it on a phone. A paper stock register works too, if it is the only one. What matters is that there is exactly one place, and every order touches it.

Make one row for each variant, not each product. “Lawn 3-piece, blue, medium” is its own row. These are the columns:

“Returning” is deliberately not added to free to sell. A parcel with the courier is not a piece you can promise. It joins in hand only when it is back on your shelf and checked.

The routine that keeps it right:

1. Order confirmed: add the pieces to held.
2. Parcel handed to the courier: take them off held and off in hand.
3. Order cancelled before dispatch: take them off held.
4. Courier marks a parcel returned: add it to returning.
5. Parcel back and checked: move it from returning to in hand.
6. New stock arrives: count it against the bill first, then add it to in hand.

For that last step, our guide to wholesale suppliers covers checking a delivery from the supplier piece by piece before you list it. Your cost per piece, which you will want next to each row later, is worked out in how to price your products.

SKUs and labels so pieces are not mixed up

Once you have more than a few designs, two blues in medium start to look the same in a plastic bag. Give each variant a SKU that a person can read: a few letters for the product, the colour, the size. Write it on the sheet and stick it on the bag or the shelf.

The free barcode generator and price tag maker builds SKUs in bulk from your sizes and colours and prints labels on A4 sticker sheets or thermal labels. You do not need a scanner to start. A printed SKU you can read is already enough to stop the wrong piece going in a parcel.

Count on a fixed day

Pick one day a week when orders are slow and count everything by hand. Not “when I get time”. The same day, every week. For each row:

• Count what is on the shelf. Do not look at the sheet first.
• Compare it with in hand. If they differ, the shelf is right; fix the sheet.
• Write down every difference and look for the cause: a parcel packed without updating the sheet, a piece given to a cousin, a return that came back and was never added.
• Update last counted.

If the count is off by the same kind of mistake every week, change the habit that causes it, not the count. A common one is updating the sheet after packing instead of at confirmation.

With a large range, count your best-selling quarter of rows every week and the rest once a month. The fast movers are where an error turns into an oversold order.

Sold out means sold out everywhere

The moment free to sell reaches zero, mark it in every place you sell, before you do anything else:

• Your store: set the size to sold out or the stock to zero.
• Instagram: edit the caption or add “sold out” to the post or highlight. Reply “sold out” to anyone who asked in the comments.
• WhatsApp: update the catalog item and your status if the piece is in it.
• Any reseller you supply: tell them in the same message thread they order from.

The last one is easy to forget. A reseller selling from your old photos will send you orders for stock you finished last week.

When stock is down to one or two of a size, say “last 2 pieces” rather than going quiet. It is true, it tells buyers to decide, and it warns you that this row needs care.

When you sell what you do not have

It will happen. What matters is how fast you tell the buyer. Do it the same day, before they start waiting for a rider.

1. Message, do not hide. “Maazrat, medium khatam ho gaya. Aap ka order hum se ghalti se confirm ho gaya.” A plain apology is better than a parcel that never comes.
2. Offer a real substitute. The same design in the nearest size or another colour you actually have, with a photo. Do not send a substitute without asking.
3. If they say no, cancel and refund. If they paid an advance or a delivery charge, send it back by bank or wallet transfer that day and share the transfer screenshot. Do not offer store credit unless they ask for it.
4. Fix the cause. Find out which channel sold the extra piece, and why the sheet did not stop it.

Our guide to handling customer complaints has more replies for when a buyer is already upset.

Returned parcels back into stock, after checking

Cash on delivery means refused parcels, and each one is stock away from your shelf until it comes back. Our guide to reducing COD returns covers bringing that number down. Here, it is about what to do when the bag arrives.

• Open it on video, the way you would a supplier delivery.
• Check the piece: tags on, no stains, no smell of perfume, nothing missing from a set, packaging still usable.
• If it is fine, move it from returning to in hand and back on sale.
• If it is not, keep it off the sheet’s free stock. Put it in a separate “damaged” list to repair, sell as seconds, or claim from the courier if their packing caused it.

Every week, compare your returning column against the courier’s list of returns in transit. A parcel that has been “returning” for weeks is one to chase with the courier, not to forget.

When to reorder, from your own sales

Reorder points do not need software. You need two numbers you already have: how many of a variant you sell in a normal day, and how many days your supplier takes from order to your door.

Reorder at = (pieces sold per day × supplier days) + a cushion of a few days’ sales

Example, not a market rate. A design sells 2 a day in medium. The supplier takes 7 days to deliver to you. You want 3 days of cushion. Reorder at (2 × 7) + (2 × 3) = 20. When free to sell for that row reaches 20, place the order.

Work out “sold per day” from the last four weeks of the sheet, not from hope. Then:

• Raise it before Ramadan, 11.11 or any sale you are planning, and ask the supplier if their lead time grows in those weeks too.
• Lower it for designs that have slowed down. A reorder point is not set once.
• Do not reorder a size just because a design sells. Look at which sizes sold. Often it is only two of them.

Dead stock and clearance

Once a month, sort the sheet by last sale and look at anything that has not moved in two or three months. That stock is your money, sitting in a cupboard. Options, roughly in this order:

1. Reshoot it. Sometimes a piece is slow because the photo is weak. New photos on a person can move it.
2. Bundle it. Pair it with something that sells: a dupatta with a suit, a pouch with a bag.
3. Put it in a planned sale. Eid and 11.11 are when buyers expect discounts. Our guides on running an Eid sale and the 11.11 sale cover offers that still leave you a margin.
4. Sell it as a lot. Offer the leftovers to another seller or a shop at close to your cost, and use the cash for stock that sells.

The discount calculator shows what a clearance price leaves you per piece. Then write down why the stock got stuck, so the next order from the supplier is smaller or skips that design.

Stock on your own store

On Storelala you can track stock for each size or colour. A tracked variant shows how many are in stock and how many are held for orders you have not sent yet. When a size runs out it shows as sold out on your store, and checkout will not take an order for more pieces than you have left. When you record a refused or returned parcel, the tracked pieces go back into stock, so record it once the parcel is back with you and checked.

Orders from WhatsApp and Instagram still need the same habit: update the stock when you confirm them, so your store and your DMs are selling from the same count.

Questions sellers ask

How do I manage inventory for a small business?

Keep one sheet for every product and every size or colour, with four numbers: in hand, held for confirmed orders, coming back as returns, and free to sell. Update it the moment an order is confirmed, count the real pieces on the same day every week, and mark anything at zero as sold out everywhere you sell.

How do I make a stock register in Excel or Google Sheets?

One row per variant, not per product: ‘Lawn 3pc, Blue, M’ is its own row. Columns for SKU, product, size or colour, in hand, held, returning, free to sell (in hand minus held), reorder point and last counted date. Use a formula only for free to sell, and type the rest by hand after each order and each count.

What is a reorder point?

The number of pieces left at which you place the next order with your supplier. Take how many you sell a day, multiply by how many days the supplier takes to deliver, and add a few days’ sales as a cushion. When free to sell reaches that number, reorder.

What should I do if I sold an item that is out of stock?

Message the buyer the same day, before they wait for a parcel. Say it plainly, offer the nearest size or colour you do have, and if they do not want it, cancel and return any advance by bank or wallet transfer that day. Then fix the count so it does not happen twice.

How do I clear old stock?

Find pieces that have not sold in the last two or three months, then put them in a bundle with something that does sell, or a clear discount for a fixed number of days. Do not keep reordering a design just because a few sizes are left; sell those first.

Storelala is the Shopify alternative in Pakistan: your own store at yourbrand.storelala.com, cash on delivery built into checkout, the courier and tracking number on every order, and no marketplace commission. It runs from your phone and is free to start, with no card needed. Start your store and keep one stock count for every size you sell.