How to manage clothing inventory by size and colour

1. Make every size and colour its own stock item

Each combination of style, size and colour is a separate variant with its own barcode and its own quantity. A style in four sizes and three colours is twelve stock items. It sounds like more work, but it is the only way the system can tell you that medium black is sold out while extra-large grey is not.

Use a consistent article or style code so all variants of a style group together in reports — for example LAWN-26-014 with the size and colour after it.

2. Label everything as it arrives

Untagged stock is invisible stock. Print barcode labels when a delivery is received, before the pieces go to the shop floor. Small roll labels (38 × 25 mm or 50 × 25 mm) suit swing tags; A4 label sheets work if you print in batches. If the brand's tag already carries an EAN or UPC barcode, use that instead of adding another.

3. Read the size run, not just the total

Most styles sell from the middle sizes outward. Look at sell-through by size: if medium has sold 80% and extra-large 20%, the style is not 'half sold' — it is about to break, because the size most customers want is nearly gone. Reorder or transfer the fast sizes and plan to clear the slow ones.

• Sell-through Units sold divided by units received, for each size.
• Weeks of cover Stock on hand divided by average weekly sales, for each size.
• Broken size runs Styles where key sizes are out of stock while others remain.

4. Move stock to where it sells

Different branches sell different sizes and colours. Before reordering, check whether another branch or the warehouse is holding the sizes you need. Transfer by scanning each piece out and having the receiving branch scan it in — that way a short delivery is caught on the same day.

5. Count regularly, and count by scanning

A full stock count once a year is not enough for fashion. Count one section or category every week or two by scanning the shelves, and compare the count with the system. A stock discrepancy report valued in rupees shows where losses are happening — a particular branch, category or shift — so you can act on it.

6. Deal with dead stock early

Stock that has not sold for a season is costing you money and shelf space. Review a dead-stock report every month: move slow items to the branch where they sell, bundle them, or mark them down before the next season's arrivals push them further back.

Doing it without a spreadsheet

All of this can be done in spreadsheets, but they fall out of date the moment a sale is made. A POS that tracks stock by variant updates the numbers with every sale, return, purchase and transfer. Cloud POS Retail, for example, shows stock by size across branches, flags sizes about to run out and reports sell-through by style and size.