A custom app for retail stores

The register shows today’s sales, but not that the size medium is gone from the back room or that a best seller will be out by Thursday. Counting is an after-close job with a clipboard, and by the time it is typed up the numbers are already old.

Meanwhile money leaks out in small ways. A vendor’s new price list slips past unnoticed. Slow sellers take up a whole shelf. Counts don’t match sales, and nobody knows if it was theft, breakage or a miskeyed delivery. A customer asked you to hold an item, and the note is somewhere under the counter.

A quick video of a shelf becomes a count. Supplier invoices are read into stock as deliveries arrive, and when the numbers drift from what you sold, the app flags possible shrinkage. It suggests how much to reorder, predicts what runs out next week and sends each vendor its purchase order.

It also points at the money: slow sellers worth a discount, items that sell better together, vendor price increases, products near their expiry date, and the hours that are really busy. If you sell online, web and in-store stock stay in sync, and customers get a text when the item they asked about comes in.

It suits a gift shop, a hardware store, a boutique, a bike shop, a pet supply store, or two or three stores under one owner. The owner sees margins and trends, staff count and receive stock on a phone, and the counter tablet handles holds and loyalty points.