As we moved through the aisles of our mega-department store, my son noticed pieces of paper with large block lettering on many items. He asked what the letters 'DNI' stood for. I explained to him that the store was conducting a physical inventory and that particular merchandise shouldn't be counted, or rather, was classified as 'Do Not Inventory'. Looking around at the size of the store, I was very thankful I was not part of that inventory process.
August is one of the better times of the year for many retailers to conduct a physical inventory. Employee vacations are over, school has not yet started and all that holiday merchandise is still packed up. If your store will conduct its first physical inventory soon, take a look at our how-to guide.
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At IKEA Netherlands where I worked for a few years they never did a store wide inventory. They just regularly count different items when the sales unexpectedly drop or there isn’t enough shelf space where the article was supposed to be etc.
I am not sure if IKEA US works in the same way (whether their account finds that acceptable).