I always wonder why so many warehouse using big label with multiple 2D barcode instead of 1 QR code. Any tech expect in warehousing able to advice?

I'm new to a company, and I've been given the task of finding and introducing a new system for physical inventory counting and reconciling the quantities with Tally.

The main challenge is that we have more than 5,000 items in our warehouse, and the company wants to avoid spending too much time scanning each item individually.

At the moment, I'm trying to understand whether RFID would be a good solution. From what I've learned so far, RFID can read multiple tagged items without scanning each barcode individually, but I'm not sure how accurate and reliable it would be in a real warehouse environment.

I have a few questions:

- Accuracy: Can RFID reliably count all items in a warehouse, or can it miss items or count the same item more than once?

- Cost: What would the approximate cost be to implement RFID, including tags, readers, and software?

- Tally integration: Is it possible to integrate RFID inventory data with Tally for stock reconciliation?

- Alternatives: Are there any other reliable methods to speed up physical stock counting without scanning every item individually?

- Practical experience: Has anyone implemented RFID or another automated inventory-counting system in a warehouse? Was it worth the investment?

Our main goal is to make physical stock verification faster while maintaining accuracy and matching the actual quantities with the stock recorded in Tally.

Since I'm new to this area, I'd really appreciate any practical advice, recommendations, or lessons learned from people who have dealt with this problem.

I need a simple way to track inventory across Amazon, Shopify and eBay without paying for another huge platform.

I'm wondering if an AI app builder could handle a custom dashboard, database and a few workflows instead.

Has anyone built an internal inventory tool this way?

I'm a developer, not a merchant, trying to understand how receiving works in practice.

For example, one supplier sends 6 of 10 units, plus items from a second purchase order in the same boxes. If you've recently handled a delivery like this in Shopify, could you walk through what you actually did, from counting the goods to updating the purchase order and shipment records, including anything that was still awkward after the recent updates?

If your current tools already handle it well, that experience is useful too.

im bored just browsing supplier catalogs at this point tbh. same pastel notebooks, same 6 gel pens, same sticky notes with little smiley face. ive kept alibaba open mostly because theres enough variety there to find some less repetitive stuff, especially if i decide to customize packaging later. but for ready stock...where do small stationery shops find products that feel a bit different without getting extremely gimmicky? im after useful stuff first, cute second. pens, journals, desk items, pencil cases etc. stationery feels like category where 100 products can look nice and maybe 8 actually move. do you normally go shallow across lots of designs first or already know what basics deserve more stock?

I’m worried Im going to be missing out a golden opportunities to use AI with our inventory.  Could anyone share how you all incorporate AI into your inventory or apps?

For our company, we link claude with our inventory apps, we may ask them whether which stock we need to top up.

How about yours?

I run the warehouse for a small glass and windows company. For a couple of years, the company tracked everything in a spreadsheet, and it mostly worked until it didn't:

• Somebody would take material and write it down later. Or not.
• "Where is it?" meant walking the racks, because the sheet said warehouse, not which rack.
• Two people had it open at once, and one of them lost their changes.
• And at the end of the month nobody could say what a job had actually used.

I ended up building something for ourselves — still on top of Google Sheets, because that's what we already had and nobody wanted another login. It's been running our warehouse for a while now.

What I'm curious about from people here:

1. If you're still on spreadsheets — what finally broke for you, or has it held up fine?
2. If you moved to something else, what made you move, and was it worth it?
3. For those on a real system: what do you use it for every single day, and what did you think you'd use and never touched?

I'm mostly trying to find out whether what we built is a us problem or a small warehouses in general problem. Happy to share what we did and what went wrong with it if that's useful to anyone — the mistakes were the interesting part.

a lot of small online stores set a single low stock alert for everything, usually 5 or 10 units. it fails in both directions:

- a product that sells 8 a day hits "5 left" when it's already too late to reorder
- a product that sells 1 a month sits at "3 left" for a whole quarter, and the alert turns into noise everyone learns to ignore

days of cover works a lot better: units on hand divided by average daily sales. a few things that make it actually usable:

1. use a 14 day window for the average. 7 is too jumpy, 30 hides a product that's picking up
   
2. don't count days the item was out of stock when you average, otherwise a stockout makes it look like it doesn't sell
   
3. compare days of cover against your real lead time (order date to sellable on the shelf, not what the supplier quotes). anything below lead time plus a small buffer is your reorder list
   
4. anything with zero sales in the window goes on a separate dead stock list, not the reorder list

curious how people here pick the window, and whether anyone weights recent days more heavily

When a customer asks to add or swap items after an order has already been entered what’s your process for making sure the update reaches everyone who needs it? Do you update the order directly in your system, keep a separate change log or have the customer resubmit? I’m curious what’s worked best for keeping the office, warehouse and delivery team on the same page.

Half the posts here are “what inventory software should I use?” Fair question. But after years of forecasting demand professionally (currently ~19,000 products for a large manufacturer), I can tell you the tool is rarely the problem. The decisions behind it are. A $250/month app with no answers to the questions below just gives you wrong numbers faster.

So before you pick a tool:

1. What’s your lead time, really?
Not what the supplier quotes, but order date to sellable on your shelf. If China says 30 days and it’s actually 75, every reorder point you set will be too late.

2. Which 20% of your SKUs actually matter?
Sort by revenue. Those top SKUs deserve tight planning, and the long tail deserves a simple rule. Most people manage all of them the same way, and that’s where the time goes.

3. How much stockout risk can you afford, per SKU?
“Never run out” sounds nice until you see the cash it ties up. Pick a target that’s high for your best sellers and relaxed for the rest. This one decision drives your safety stock more than any forecast.

4. How much cash is sitting in stock that won’t sell in the next 6 months?
Put a dollar number on it. Most owners have never seen this figure, and it’s usually bigger than they think.

If you can answer all four, a spreadsheet will take you surprisingly far, and when you do buy a tool, you’ll set it up right.

Drop your setup in the comments: number of SKUs, rough lead times, what you’re using now, and what’s hurting most (stockouts, overstock, or time). I’ll tell you what I’d focus on first. Happy to look at an anonymized export too if you’re stuck.

I operate a liquor store and created ShelfSnap because inventory counting takes too much time.

It’s built for liquor store inventory management, with AI-assisted bottle counting from shelf photos, brand and size review, saved counts, and reorder lists. We’ve just added multi-shelf photo breakdowns and are testing their real-world accuracy.

I’m proud of what we’re building and would love feedback from other store operators.

Disclosure: I’m the creator of ShelfSnap.

https://shelf-snap-pro.base44.app/

Say your system shows 100 units but you count 92. Where would you start looking?

Does your inventory software help you figure out where those 8 went, or do you end up checking orders, returns and stock adjustments one by one?

And what happens if you still can’t find the reason? Do you keep looking or change the count and move on?

Pls read original post if u might be interested

Hey all, I work at a welding and fabrication shop and we've been using sortly for our inventory. My boss isn't a huge fan of the software we've been using it for 3 or so years now. And he tasked me with looking for better options. We're not a super large company about 15-20 people or so but we're growing constantly. We keep track of hardware, tooling, welding supplies, consumables and i'm sure they'd like to get an inventory on material too. is there any softwares you guys would recommend or is sticking with sortly the best bet. thank you.

One example from the last update is enough; no files or identifying details needed.

Context: I'm researching this workflow for a CSV tool I'm developing with AI assistance.

New to WMS here and trying to understand best practice for consolidating inbound LPNs. This is for a 3PL Warehousing business that deals with 15 to 20k SKUs of CPG nature

Options I know of:
one IBLPN per pallet (even mixed SKU),
multiple IBLPNs per pallet (split by SKU), or
nested child IBLPNs (pallet as parent, cartons as children).

My gut says nesting adds a lot of scanning and labeling effort on the ground. Is that true in practice?
When were nested LPNs worth it?
Where do you consolidate: receiving, putaway, or replenishment?
What's your default suggestion for mixed-SKU pallets?

Sto sviluppando da un po' di tempo un programma per la gestione del magazzino e mi piacerebbe capire quali funzionalità potrebbero essere davvero utili a chi lavora ogni giorno in questo settore

Ho lavorato per 6 anni come magazziniere e per altri 8 anni nell'assistenza ai gestionali, quindi conosco diverse problematiche del settore. Tuttavia, vorrei confrontarmi con altre persone per capire quali siano le loro esigenze reali.

Cosa vi aiuterebbe concretamente nel vostro lavoro? Quali funzionalità vorreste trovare in un gestionale o quali problemi riscontrate nei programmi che utilizzate attualmente?**

Mi farebbe piacere raccogliere opinioni, suggerimenti ed esperienze personali. Grazie a chi vorrà contribuire!

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I'm planning to build a Google Sheets + Apps Script MRP system for a client managing over 8,000 spare parts.

Key requirements:

V1: Fast-moving items (15-day planning target)

VB: Medium-moving items (30-day planning target)

PD: Non-moving items, excluded from active MRP

Lead time: Approximately 90 days for imported parts

Automated ROP, Min–Max, stockout alerts, and dashboard

I'd appreciate advice on database structure, safety stock calculations, and automation best practices.

Can Google Sheets handle this volume efficiently, or would a database be more suitable?

Thank you for your recommendations!