Labelling and counting samples in a showroom

A showroom holds some of the most valuable stock in a trading company and some of the least controlled. Samples have no formal stock code, they leave the building for customer visits and trade fairs, they get scratched, given away or sold at a discount, and when the count comes round nobody can say whether a missing item is lost or simply out on loan.

Why samples slip out of control

The same few reasons appear almost everywhere:

• A sample has no code of its own, so it is counted under the SKU of the product it represents and mixed up with sellable stock.
• Samples move without paperwork: "just take it to show the customer".
• The condition changes. A display unit that has been handled for months is no longer a new product.
• Nobody owns the decision. Sales, the warehouse and finance each assume that one of the others keeps track.

Give every sample its own code

Track samples one by one, not by SKU, because two samples of the same SKU can differ: one on display, one a worn demonstration unit, one a sealed reference. Use a prefix and a serial number, for example S-0001 and S-0002, and print a label for each. Attach it to the item itself or to a tag on it, not only to the packaging, which is often swapped.

Keep a short table with the sample code, the SKU, the name, the condition, the location and a link to a photo. Photograph every sample when it is labelled. A photo ends most arguments about which unit is which.

A loan register that people will actually use

Use one sheet or a shared table with these columns: sample code, borrower, date out, expected return, purpose, date returned and condition on return. Three rules keep it alive:

1. Nothing leaves the showroom without a line in the register.
2. Every return is checked against the register and the condition is written down.
3. Once a month someone reviews the lines that are past their expected return date.

Keep the register at the showroom entrance and not on one person's computer. If filling it in takes more than a minute, people stop doing it.

How to count samples

At the count, scan every sample label in the showroom first. Then sort the codes that were not found into three groups: on loan with an open register line, written off with a documented reason, and missing. Only the last group is a real difference.

Suppose there are 120 sample codes. The scan finds 96 in the showroom. Eighteen have open loan lines, and four are recorded as broken with a note. Two are neither found nor explained. That leaves 2 differences, not 24. Without a register, all 24 would look like losses and the count would end with a long, pointless investigation. For loans that are past their date, ask the borrower to confirm by message, with a photo if possible.

Keep samples apart in the books

Samples should not sit in the sellable stock of the same SKU. Create a separate location or warehouse called "Samples", so that the quantity offered on a marketplace or in a price list is not inflated by display pieces. If a display unit is sold later, move it from the sample location to sales with a note, normally at a reduced price agreed with finance. Decide in advance who approves gifts, breakage and scrapping, and keep each approval with the register line.

A short routine

Once the first labelling is done, upkeep takes very little: label new samples on the day they arrive, check the register monthly and run a quick scan of the showroom every quarter. Appoint one person responsible for the showroom and rotate the quarterly scan between colleagues, so that more than one person knows the process. A small count done often is easier than one large count after a year, when memories of who borrowed what have faded.

InventoryHub numbers and labels items that have no codes, and a showroom can be counted as one more site on the same cut-off time as your warehouses. Fixed assets such as display racking can be tagged during the same visit.