It's the same price

I was at the pharmacy, waiting in the checkout line to pay for my groceries.

The girl in front of me was buying various products, including diapers. She mistakenly picked up a pack of diapers marked for Boys, but actually wanted one for Girls. She only realized the change after she had already registered all her other products for payment. It only remained to register the diapers.

The line was long, and the pharmacy was big. Going back to change the diaper pack would have everyone in line waiting.

Innocently, the girl spoke to the lady responsible for registering the products at the cash register: “You can register these diapers for Boys, I'll pay for the purchases, and then I'll go back to the shelf and exchange the package for the one for Girls”. "It's the same price, it won't make a difference".

I was apprehensive. “Don't do this”, I thought to myself. Does the cashier know that she cannot register different products as if they were the same? Was she trained for this? The barcode is not the same on both diapers. The system stock will not match the physical stock. This can cause breakages….

To my relief, the lady at the cashier replied “I can't do that, it will cause a discrepancy in the stock”.

“Phew”, I thought in relief, putting myself in the shoes of the pharmacy managers.

In this example, the cashier lady was perfect in her decision, but in Brazil, around 18% of the products that appear as available in retailers' systems actually do not physically exist in stock. The main causes are theft and breakage, but registry errors are also motivators.

These divergences mean that the products are not replenished on the shelves, as the managers responsible for supplying the stores analyze the system data and think that these items are not being sought after by consumers. But in reality, they are breaking.

To remedy the differences, there is no other way than to carry out a physical inventory. To facilitate this inventory, one way out is to create routines in the systems, making them indicate which products have not been sold for longer than their average turnover. In this way, it is not necessary to wait months for a complete new inventory to be carried out.

And, of course, training the ladies and gentlemen who work at the checkout counter makes all the difference.

References

<http://www.sm.com.br/detalhe/estoque-virtual>