The Effects Of Poor Stock Management On Your Business

As a small business owner I know that one can get caught up in the daily business operations. We may spend hours in production or research and development and procrastinate on the more tedious tasks of inventory management.

I myself am guilty of postponing stock taking over and over again. However, improper management can be costing you time and money. I have seen it in both my own business and at my work place.

Particularly with small businesses poor inventory system can result in the business to fail. This not only affects production but can directly affect customer satisfaction and company ratings. Proper management system can increase sales while decreasing costs, yielding a bigger profit margin.

Our business is small and our storage area is it seems even smaller. But space even though it affects the amount you are able to store at any given time is no reason for ineffective stock management. By making inventory more of a priority it can result in a reduction of the inventory costs. While it may look like Christmas when I see big packages come to my door with all the goodies enclosed it's not always possible to order certain items in bulk.


                            (STOCK PHOTO)

Lets take a look at some of the consequences of an ineffective inventory management.

OVER BUYING: Other than the fact that this can take up precious space, this can also result in stock reaching its expiry date. Each day that an item sits in your stock room it is actually costing you money.

                       UNDER BUYING: Being out of stock negatively affects production and customer service. This in turn affects both your reviews and profit.While substitutes may be used it can in the end affect the quality of the end product at a cost to you.

CUSTOMER DISSATISFACTION: This in fact should speak for itself. Poor stock management can directly affect your customers. When you are constantly out of stock of a particular item/product ingredient it affects your customer service negatively. Case in point. The restaurant at which I work gets two different types of Parmesan cheese. One looks like it was hand grated (the preferred choice) the other shredded to a powder form. There is a definite difference in not only the taste but the performance of the two cheeses. A customer who was well acquainted with our Alfredo actually tasted the difference when we used the shredded cheese. So much so that they had mentioned it to the server. A meal that the customer usually finds enjoyable was somewhat less palatable. This of course was a direct result of the stocks' availability from the restaurant's supplier.

POOR PURCHASING DECISIONS: This results in excess or inadequate stock levels.

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With good inventory management practices there would be an increase in productivity customer satisfaction and in turn having a reduction in loss of goods. Monitoring of inventory trends is easier resulting in the ability to make the best decision that provide the greatest return.


There are several inventory management software systems available. My best advice is to find one that best fits you and your business. While it is possible to manually track you inventory, Inventory management software makes this process easier saving you wasted man hours and money.

The fine folks at https://craftybase.com/ offer a 2 weeks free trial. I do love this system. It made things so much easier for me and more than likely I would return to the service that they provide. My reasons for cancelling had nothing to do with their service but more with the exchange rate and having to make the painful decision on whether or not the business could pay for such a service at this time.

As not everyone can initially afford an inventory system, over the next few months we would be looking for some of the free systems available. We are excited to see what there is to offer found and give our thoughts as to their performance. We are going to be mindful that free systems come with several limitations and would be taking that fact into consideration.

If you are capable (I'm not), you can create your own inventory system that is tailor made for you and your business.

So until then.

When is it not soap?

On April 30th we had our first market for the year. It was an enjoyable event. Always a pleasure meeting new vendors and of course the people that visit our booth. There was one woman in particular that picked up each bar and read the ingredients at the back. Kudos for her! I applaud her for taking an interest as to what goes on her skin.

For our body soaps we follow a basic recipe but what makes one bar different from the next is the additives we use. For example Aloe Vera, Activated Charcoal Coconut Milk or Honey.  There was one ingredient that caught her eye that was present in all of our soaps. And she asked quite simply "What is the purpose of the Sodium Hydroxide?" Yes. We do put on our label Sodium Hydroxide aka Lye. I went on to explain that soap is made by a chemical reaction (Saponification) between Oils and Sodium hydroxide (lye). This is how true soap is made.

Now I can imagine some of you are taking a closer look at your ingredients on your soap at this point and thinking "There is no lye here." Take a closer look.

Some soapmakers do not put sodium hydroxide on their labels because there is no lye in a finished product. That is to say once the chemical action is complete and the lye and oil molecules have combined the end products are soap and glycerin. So the active ingredient sodium hydroxide is no more. So how do they label their products? Read your label. If you see the words saponified oils of  Coconut, Olive, Cocoa butter then yes sodium hydroxide has been used.

Soap made with Coconut Milk and Turmeric

Well my bar doesn't have any saponified oils listed. Maybe not. Does your bar contain any of the following?
Sodium Cocoate - Generic name for Coconut oil mixed with Sodium Hydroxide.
Sodium Tallowate - Generic term for Tallow mixed with Sodium Hydroxide.
Sodium Palmate - Generic term for Palm oil mixed with Sodium Hydroxide.

It's not only important to read the label but also to understand what it is you are reading.Why is it labelled in such a manner? Well if you don't understand the soap making process, Sodium Hydroxide can be quite a terrifying word to see on your list of ingredients. But once the soap is made by an experienced soapmaker you have no reason to be fearful. All three methods of labeling are perfectly legal.

Why do we choose to put Sodium hydroxide on our labels? Well think of it this way. When you bake a cake you add your ingredients such as flour, eggs, milk, sugar and extract. If you were to sell that cake you would list your ingredients as such. In the same manner we list all the ingredients that go into the making our product.

Soap made with Cocoa Butter and Cocoa Nibs

What is soap? True soap is a substance used for washing that's made from a combination of oils and lye. Sodium hydroxide for bar soaps, Potassium hydroxide for liquid soaps or a combination of both.

Now that we understand what soap is when is it not soap?  I think the answer is now obvious. If it wasn't made using lye and oils then it isn't soap. This is a non - soap bar also called synthetic detergents. These products are either partially or completely made up of synthetic materials. Now what do we mean by synthetic? Here we mean any product that is made by chemical synthesis to imitate a natural product. In this case the natural product is soap. What are these products called if not soap? Beauty bars, moisturizing bars or cleansing bars. They can be called anything but not soap.

Lets take a look at one of these products. Aveeno Moisturizing bar. If you look at the ingredient listing you would notice that it doesn't list sodium hydroxide, saponified oils or the product of a soponified oil.

It does contain Disodium Lauryl Sulfosuccinate. This is an ingredient used in many skin and hair products. It is a degreaser, emulsifier and foaming agent. Another ingredient is Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate. This is a surfactant that is derived from coconut oil. Sodium Tricedeth Sulfate - Surfactant - Cleansing agent, Emulsifying agent, Foaming agent.

Other ingredients include: Oat kernel flour, Water, Stearic Acid (thickener/hardener), Glycerin (Humectant) Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil, Titanium Dioxide (Pigment) Citric Acid (AHA, PH adjuster and shelf stability) and Hydrogenated Castor Oil ( Emollient). If you look closer at the label itself, you would see that this product is described as soap free.

Both soap and non soap cleansers achieve the purpose for which it was made.  That is to say they both clean by attaching itself to dirt and excess oil on the skin to be washed away. The main difference is that non soap bars are made using synthetic chemicals as part of or all of their ingredients. In some cases sodium hydroxide is added to react with the chemicals to produce a non soap bar.

Well if sodium hydroxide is being added how would I know if it is a soap or non soap? Simply look at the ingredients. On a bar of soap the first few ingredients would include water, and the oils used in the making of the product. Whereas in a non soap's first few ingredients would be usually a surfactant or a degreaser.

So which one do you choose? This is a personal choice. It's been said that soaps clean better as the ingredients tend to be stronger than a non soap bar. It's also been said for that very same reason that non soap is gentler on the skin. This may be true for commercial soap, but a well formulated bar of handmade soap can be just as gentle as your favourite bar of non soap. How? In one word superfat. Superfatting is the process of adding more fats  to a recipe so that there is more fat in the mixture than the lye can react with during saponification. The end result is a gentle, moisturizing skin friendly bar of soap. It's your body. Your skin. Do what feels best for it.

Definitions.

Emollient - A preparation or substance that has a softening or soothing effect when applied to the skin.
Emulsifying Agent - A compound or substance that acts as a stabilizer for both water and oil and enables oils to be uniformly dispersed in water as an emulsion preventing it form separating.
Degreaser - A chemical product that dissolves water insoluble.
Humectant - A substance that absorbs or helps another substance to retain moisture.
Hydrogenated - To treat or combine chemically unsaturated compounds with hydrogen. Liquid vegetable oils are often hydrogenated to turn them to solids.
Saponification - is the alkaline hydrolysis of the fatty acid esters.
Surfactant - Are compounds that lower the surface tension between two liquids or between a liquid and a solid.