I have a very small poster business and sell them in two locations at this time. I would like to have a system where I can bring in my laptop, scan barcodes(that I print?) and be able to see what has been sold monthly and be able to place new orders, and know
which location needs to be restocked.

The system I have right now takes hours using excel and is very error prone.

I am looking for the most cost effective way to stay on top of my inventory. The gross sales average $300-400/mo during the year and $1000-1200 during the holidays. I do not think it is a wise choice to get the $1000 POS systems but can seem to find a cheaper solution. Does anyone have any resources or ideas??

Thanks in advance for any help!
-Matt

Hi Matt,

We often find ourselves in need of machinery that we only use rarely, and we have two companies who rent the most interesting things who supply us with these items as wee need them... Perhaps you can look into renting the POS once a month by the hour?

I obviously don't understand the logistics of such a thing, because I don't use one, but if that could work, I'd look into it.

T

Tina Brooks, VP Marketing
Brooks Pepperfire Foods, Inc.
Makers of Peppermaster Hot Sauces
http://www.peppermaster.com

Eat more peppers!

While I agree with the fact that sometimes we get stuff we don't use very often, I know that a decent barcode system is something that you can find a zillion uses for.

If you get a setup that saves you 10 hours and if you look at it as your rate is $50 per hour, you can very quickly justify the purchase.

A USB wand that will fit directly onto your laptop is well under $100, a barcode printer is under $100, and usually the barcode wand will come with some software to help you create and read the barcode stickers and assign the data to some storage source like excel or access. So for under $300 and a little time to learn how to use it you can have an amazingly effective time saver.

You can also use these things for home inventory, and direct feeds into Point of Sale POS systems. I'd recommend getting one of the free use gun units with a usb connector that will let you upload to your PC or laptop. These are easier to deal with and carry around. Mostly under $200 you can have them set up to read multiple features and have multiple codes on one retail item.

Make sure that you get a decent printer that can use pre-formatted stick on code stickers.

There are some very good free applications out there that let you use barcodes for inventory or provide a basic sales and order processing system.

All the best.

Gail

"Things are difficult only while you don't understand them."