Babystep 7: Inventory
Imagine — Suzy Q loves your almond milk lattes. It’s her coffee drink of choice in her area and she drives out of her way, sometimes even being slightly late for work, to grab one of your almond milk lattes before her shift.
But when she gets there, you’re out of almond milk. Disappointed, she goes to work and wishes that her day would have started with your latte. But she’s loyal so she gives it a second go.
Again, you’re out of almond milk. Now Suzy Q has decided that she’ll be starting her mornings with another coffee shop that is more reliable.
This is why inventory systems are more closely related to customer service systems than anything else. If you’re consistently out of people’s favorite products, it’s bad customer service.
A customer’s perception of quality can be understood as: the more closely a product fits what a customer expects — the higher the quality. This is counterintuitive because we tend to think of quality as being objective, and it is to trained coffee professionals, but it isn’t to a lot of consumers.
Which is why customers will typically value consistency over quality. In fact, they will often mistake consistency for quality. People will think, “If you make it the same way you did last time, that’s the good way.”
This is why freshness is important. Take a look at your products. Are you selling items that go stale quickly. Are you baking certain goods that go down in terms of quality within hours?
If you decide to have too many items that go bad quickly and are hard to keep in stock, let your customer know to expect that. Such as making a sign in front of your fresh croissants that says, “Baked daily, in stock until sold out.” That way people know to get to your coffee shop bright and early before they are sold out.
Your inventory systems should be created around the quantity you need per day and how long it takes to have your products delivered.
Make sure the newest items go toward the back of your shelves and try to make your inventory visual. Make labels so that you always know where everything is and paint the back of the shelf a certain color so you can see when you’re running out.
To make this practical, you need to:
Calculate the most you use per day
The longest it would take to deliver
Calculate when you have to order (Based on 1 & 2)
Make a physical marking whenever you store your product so that when you get to the minimum amount of safe stock, or order trigger point, you will see a clear marking ideally in red with the words, “Order Now!”
You can purchase SCI’s, “From Your Coffee Shop Dream, To Your Dream Coffee Shop” book here.
With SCI’s book, you’ll walk out these steps through the fictional, but all too relatable, story of Claire Wallace as she journeys toward her dream coffee shop.