Guides and ideas for running a shop: point of sale, stock and the numbers that matter.
Buy by the crate, sell by the bottle, count in bottles. The three units every product has, a conversion table in UGX you can copy, and what one unit mistake costs.
One stock record for every branch and channel. The four services it makes possible, how much stock a Lagos retailer's website should show, and the five steps to set it up.
The best public test of AI forecasting used Walmart's data. Worked in Egyptian pounds, it shows why a better forecast pays a distributor and barely moves a mini-market.
Every entry stock makes in the books, worked through one month of a Nairobi shop in Kenyan shillings: buying, selling, returns, damage and the count, under perpetual and periodic records.
What a supplier sold to its shops against what they sold on: the gap worked for a Nairobi distributor and five shops, the late-payment warning it gives, and when sell-in isn't revenue yet.
Six ways to get orders to customers, compared on who holds the stock, who delivers and what each order costs. A Kampala shop's break-even worked out, and the questions to ask a courier.
Selling goods you never stock, honestly. A Nairobi order worked line by line, who dropshipping suits in Africa and who it doesn't, how to vet a supplier, and when to start holding stock.
Stockout cost is the profit a gap takes, not the price of the missing item. Here is the formula, a worked TZS example, and how to decide which products deserve a bigger buffer.
A stockout is having none of a product when a customer wants it. Here is the stockout rate formula four ways, and why your best sellers' rate is the one to watch.
One delivery of school shoes in Kampala, worked by size and colour: the formula, the target your own cost and price set, the week-4 check, and next season's order.
Ten orders at a Nairobi wholesaler, worked in shillings: the average says 3.3 days, the median 2.5, and cutting the cycle to 2 days collects KES 1,300,000 sooner.
RFID, sensors, GPS and smart shelves, each with when it pays. Worked in shillings, the same fridge alarm pays five times over in a pharmacy and not at all in a mini-market.
