It’s simple,  garbage in = garbage out.

Whether you are 10 days away from opening or have been in business for 10 years, implementing processes to maintain data hygiene is essential to keep your data organized and useful - both in your POS system and via third-party integrations.

Taking a systematic approach to data management will streamline operations, minimize errors, save time, and improve the efficiency of your staff and store. This all leads to happier customers, a happier team, and a happier buyer (you).

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1. Product naming conventions

The name of your products in your POS system is a great first place to start logging product information for easy search and reference.

Different POS systems may have varying fields available for tracking information like classification, weight, or sub-category. Because of this, recording relevant information in the Product Name field allows full visibility to this information in any report you pull or system you integrate with.

Check out the example below of a well-written and descriptive product name. This retailer uses a defined product hierarchy to granularly classify this product.

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By including key product associations in the name, this product is searchable in any report or system and you can glean a lot of information from the name alone. Structure and consistency are the keys to success here!

The basic attributes to include are:

• Category
• Brand
• Strain or flavor
• Weight or size
• Classification/varietal

Consider what attributes you need to search by adding potency, tier, subcategory, or even vendor in your Product Names.

Want to be able to easily hone in on all the 1G prerolls within your inventory? Looking to check on the run rates of all your live resin extracts? Need to see stock levels on 1:1 THC:CBD tinctures?

Including these “extra” details in the Product Name allows you to search for and holistically view product group data.

For example, this Happy Buyers user was able to easily find the run rates of all their Jeeter live resin vapes by adding in filters for Jeeter + Vapes and the using the text search component to view only “live resin”products.

Action

1. Identify the information you want to be able to see and search for on any given product: Brand, category, sub-category, strain/flavor, weight/size, single/multi-pack, varietal, terpenes, etc.
2. Create a template for the naming convention of all products
3. Audit your current product list and identify what cleanup is needed
4. Implement your new product naming SOP with your internal teams & audit regularly to catch anomalies early

PRO-TIP: Print out the product naming convention template and hang it near your computer or prominently in the backroom for reference.

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2. Fill out product fields

Having a well-defined product naming convention is a good first step, but you shouldn’t stop here! While it may feel redundant if you log all info in the product name, filling out the relevant product fields in your POS system is just as important.

When associated product fields are not properly filled out, you will have a harder time locating products from that brand, in that category, or by other searchable fields. Using these fields also lowers your margin for error - if there was a mistake in one field, you may be able to find that product using another.

In Happy Buyers, this affects how you can slice and dice your data using field searches.

Check out the example below - this retailer is logging the brand name in the product name, but not filling out the actual brand field in their POS system. This voids the use of searching for products using the brand field.

This setup can impact your ability to run demand reports, sort products, and create purchase requests.

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Here’s what your purchase request looks like when you don’t have brands logged:

Not very pretty looking, right? And this can easily cause confusion for your vendors, your coworkers, or even your boss!

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Now let’s look at how you can search in Happy Buyers when relevant product fields are filled out:

Filtering by brand, category, price and text search, this retailer can find and build reports for STIIIZY 2g prerolls at $36.

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Actions to take

1. Download your current product catalog from your POS
2. Scan the export for any blank fields and highlight products with missing data
3. Update products individually or look to your POS support team for assistance with batch updating the product information

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3. Reviewing your data

Here’s a scenario that may feel familiar - in a rush to intake the inventory just delivered, you didn’t notice the typo made in the brand field for “AbosluteXtracts.” Three days later, you’re trying to compare run rates for your AbsoluteXtracts products, but can’t find one of the SKUs you know you just unboxed.

It’s hard to catch things like this on the fly. By implementing a process of regularly auditing your product catalog for anomalies, it will allow for easier searching and reporting in your point-of-sale and other integrated systems moving forward. We have also heard from our retail customers that Happy Buyers helps surface any bad data and identify where cleanup may be needed!

Action

1. Download your current product catalog from your POS
2. Scan the list to identify any errors, duplicates, or empty fields
3. Edit the field(s) in your POS

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4. Inventory rooms management

Now that you can search for and effectively find products in your inventory software and spreadsheets, can you track them down physically?

Structuring a layout of sellable and non-sellable inventory rooms and defining them with both a physical, dedicated space in your facility and a label in your POS system will help you keep track of your products and identify where bottlenecks or shrinking may be occurring.

For some, a simple Front of House and Back of House set up may be sufficient. For others, creating individual rooms within your Front of House and Back of House areas may align better with your processes and enable you to granularly track product movement.

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There’s no one size fits all for inventory rooms, but don’t worry, Happy Cabbage is here to help!

When getting started with Happy Buyers, your dedicated Customer Success Manager will work with you to identify which rooms should be marked as sellable and which should be excluded (non-sellable) with your existing rooms set up.

In Happy Buyers, we take consideration to the operational sellable/non-sellable status of the room to factor in out-of-stock events and provide you with a hyper accurate product run rate. Excluded rooms treat the inventory stored there as non-sellable, like Quarantine or Waste, and are not factored into your current inventory count or run rates in Happy Buyers.

By assigning inventory to different rooms as needed, you can keep track of products and prioritize which ones to sell first to practice First In, First Out (FIFO) inventory management. In industries where products have a limited shelf life, like cannabis, using a FIFO inventory practice where older products are sold first eliminates product waste due to expiration.

Inventory rooms can also point you to the source of potential loss or theft. For example, if you see two units in Return in the data but can only locate one unit physically, you can better identify what may have occurred by knowing where, when, and who had access to that area.

In Happy Buyers, you can monitor the last registered event date for any product in any inventory room. By opening the View panel on a particular SKU, you’ll find when and where that specific product last had activity and how much stock is in each room.

Action

1. Consider your retail workflow and plan out the different lifecycle stages a product may move through, from intake to the sales floor (and sometimes from the sales floor to a non-sellable room like return or waste)
2. Identify physical areas for each inventory room you need to accommodate
3. Properly define and label areas to keep an orderly backroom (and make it easier to find products and do inventory counts)
4. Physically and in your POS, track/manifest room movements as products move in, through, and out your dispensary doors
   

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In summary

Maintaining a standardized and structured approach to how you name products, record product data, and store products will lead to streamlined and consistent inventory management processes.

For all new processes, dedicate time weekly for auditing that SOPs are being followed. Frequent reviews of your processes and cycle counting can actually save you time - keeping a close eye on operations ensures that the mess doesn’t get out of hand.

Not sure where to start? Have too large of an inventory to do it all in one swoop? Divide and conquer! Dedicate a day to a category or two to focus on inventory count, clean up, and benchmarking - and repeat regularly.

• Monday = Flower & Prerolls
• Tuesday = Tablets, Tinctures & Topicals
• Wednesday = Edibles & Drinks
• Thursday = Vapes & Concentrates

Actions to take

1. Review your POS product naming conventions
2. Fill out relevant POS product fields
3. Organize your inventory rooms
4. Run a demand report in Happy Buyers using -
   • A category
   • A brand
   • A price (or price range)
   • Keyword search

Go from garbage in = garbage out to good data in = good data out.

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