How to do a stock count in a retail store

What is a stock count, and why does a shop need one?

A stock count, or stocktake, is a physical check of what is on your shelves and in your stock room, compared with what your records say should be there. The records drift for ordinary reasons: a delivery booked with the wrong quantity, a size M sold as a size L, a return put back on the rail but never recorded, a damaged piece thrown away, and sometimes theft.

A count does two jobs. It corrects the numbers, so you stop selling stock you do not have and stop reordering stock you already own. And it shows you where the drift comes from, which matters more: a shop that finds the same shelf short every month has learned something it can fix.

Full count or cycle count: which one do you need?

A full count covers everything at one location in one go. It gives you a clean starting point and is usually done once or twice a year, at the end of a season or before the year's accounts. It is also the slowest kind: in a clothing shop with a few thousand pieces, plan for the whole team and a closed or quiet shop.

A cycle count covers a slice of the stock on a schedule: one category this week, another next week, until everything has been counted over a month or a quarter. Each count is short enough to finish before opening, and errors are found weeks earlier instead of once a year. Most shops do best with both: cycle counts through the year, and a full count when a season closes.

Which items should you count most often?

• Items that are expensive or easy to pocket: perfumes, shoes and accessories near the counter.
• Fast sellers, where a small error quickly becomes an empty shelf.
• Products with many sizes and colours, where one wrong scan moves stock from one variant to another.
• Anything that came up short at the last count.

How do you prepare for a stock count?

• Pick a quiet time, before opening or after closing, and tell the team the day before.
• Record every delivery, supplier return and transfer that has physically arrived or left, so the records are up to date.
• Settle open refunds and exchanges, and put returned items back where they belong.
• Tidy the area: group each product by size and colour, and put loose pieces back on their rail or shelf.
• Split the shop into zones, such as a wall, a rail or a shelf unit, and give each zone to one person or a pair.
• Decide in advance how figures will be recorded: a printed count sheet, a tablet or a barcode scanner.

How do you count, step by step?

1. Start at one end of a zone and work in one direction, so nothing is counted twice.
2. Count every size and colour as its own line: five shirts are not one figure if they are three M and two L.
3. Write down what you see, not what you expect to see.
4. Mark each finished shelf or rail, so everyone knows it is done.
5. When a zone is finished, have a second person check a few lines at random before moving on.

What is blind counting, and why does it give better numbers?

In a blind count, the person counting does not see the quantity the system expects. They see the item and write down what is there. It sounds like a small detail, and it is the biggest improvement most shops can make to their counts.

When people can see the expected figure, they tend to agree with it. Eleven pieces against an expected twelve looks like a miscount, so it becomes twelve, and the missing piece disappears from view. Blind counting removes that pull. It is also fairer to staff: nobody can be suspected of adjusting a count to hide a loss when nobody saw the target.

What should you do with the differences?

A difference between the count and the records is called a variance: a shortage when pieces are missing, a surplus when there are more than expected. Before you accept one, check the usual explanations: a delivery that arrived but was not booked, a transfer still on its way between branches, a sale rung on another till, or a scan of the wrong size. Recount any line where the difference is large or expensive; a second count by a different person settles most doubts.

Then record the correction as an adjustment with a reason, rather than typing the new number over the old one. The adjustment keeps the history: what the system said, what you found, who posted it and when. Over a few counts, those adjustments show which products, shelves or branches lose stock regularly, and that pattern is where to look first.

How PointLit handles this

In PointLit, open Stock counts, pick the branch and tick Blind count before you press Start count, so the system quantity stays hidden. A count can be limited to one Collection, and lines you never enter are left alone, so a weekly count of one rail works as a cycle count. Enter what was counted, press Save counts as you go, then review System, Counted and Delta and press Post adjustment. Each difference becomes a line in the stock ledger, and the Stock count variance and Stock shrinkage reports show where stock goes missing over time.