Managing Your Physical Inventory

Now we come to the big space hogyour product inventory. That's right, you need someplace to store all the items you plan to sell.

Again, if your items are small, your storage needs are simpler. If you sell baseball cards, for example, it's easy to find space for a lot of small, flat items. If you sell basketballs, on the other hand, you'll need a lot more physical volume for storage.

Where should you store your inventory? Here are some suggestions:

• A spare closet

• Your garage

• Your attic

• Your basement

• A friend's garage (or attic or basement)

• A spare room

• A storage shed

• A rented storage bin

• Rented warehouse space

Naturally, the first few options are less expensive than the last few. If you absolutely positively have to rent storage space, make sure you figure those costs into your business plan. For most eBay businesses, however, you'll want to minimize your storage costswhich means minimizing your space needs, as much as possible. That means either keeping less stock on hand or selling physically smaller items. (In this fashion your storage capacity can help determine the types of items you intend to sell.)

Note

Here's another optiondon't stock anything for sale. That's right, depending on what you sell, you might not have to carry your own inventory. You may be able to employ the services of a fulfillment company. You make the sale (via eBay), but the fulfillment company carries the inventory and ships directly to your customers. A variation on this is to become an authorized dealer for a particular brand or product, and let the manufacturer handle the inventory and shipping. Learn more in Chapter 14, "Purchasing and Managing Your Inventory."

Finding the space is only part of the equation. If you're selling smaller items, you may need to install some sort of shelving to help organize your inventory. Consider the type of inexpensive plastic or metal shelving that you can find at your local hardware or home store. You might also need some sort of container to hold your really small items. Think about plastic drawers or bins, or even clear plastic bags. Again, home stores and office supply stores should stock what you need.

If you have a variety of items in your inventory, you'll also need some way to identify what you have on hand. That means some sort of labeling system, which can be as simple as handwritten pieces of paper or cards. If you really have a lot of different items, consider creating some sort of plan-o-gram or map to help you remember where you put what.

How much inventory should you stock? Not too muchespecially if space is at a minimum! I like to have no more than a few weeks' worth of inventory on hand; anything more than that and you're at risk if sales suddenly turn downward. On the other hand, you may need to buy larger quantities to get an attractive discount, or perhaps you may only be able to buy your items in large lots. In any case, the less stock you can keep on hand, the betterand the easier it will be to find space for.

Of course, you don't have to stock all your inventory where it's easy to get to. Just as with your shipping boxes, you can store a certain amount of inventory where it's convenient for immediate shipping and store the rest offsite until you need it. Just make sure you can get your hands on enough items to fulfill the sales you make. The last thing you want to do is sell something that doesn't exist!