Inventory Receiving Process-do you have one?

[TallTayl]

Over the last two days i have received many shipments from different suppliers. The way two were packaged made me look extra hard at the contents.

Yesterday i received an order of big tea light cups that were bagged in plastic shopping bags. I ordered 400 and saw 5 bags. Thought oh no they shipped too many, but then noticed all the bags were at different fill levels. Sat and counted to find i was short 16 pieces.

Today i opened a shipment that was so horribly packaged i was tempted to send it back. 500 regular tea light cups all loose in the box with 10 other items including fragile molds and equipment with nothing to separate anything. A wad of paper was shoved on top. Counted those cups and found short 29. Now these i have an order for, so had i not had some on the shelf from another supplier i would be out of luck.

Have read a lot of complaints on facebook groups about being shorted oils, fragrances, etc. reminds me that we have to be absolutely diligent about Receiving things thoroughly. By Receiving, I mean having a standard process to count, tag and stock. My normal process on small items is to weigh 10-25 units and then weigh the whole batch doing the quick math to see if it is close enough. Things are often within a few grams. These were both off by hundreds of grams

Also highlights that our own packaging to our customers could cause that same sort of inquiry by our customers. A wee bit of care and i would not have thought twice about either order. Would have been puzzled later, but none the wiser.

[Guest OldGlory]

Having been in retail most of my adult life, I am accustomed to receiving inventory counting it piece by piece. I also learned the hard way to weigh my oils. A one lb bottle of FO can be off by more than an ounce! If you are doing this for a living and rely on a certain margin of profit you really need to count/weigh it all.

When I am short I contact the supplier and ask them to correct the mistake.

[Jcandleattic]

I pretty much do the same as OG. Count, and stock everything. if it's off by a little, I make note of it, and if it consistently happens with the same supplier then I will contact them. 

If it's off by a lot (say more that 3-4 small items or more than an ounce or tow of FO) then I contact them nicely but expect the situation to be rectified. Even though a lot of times you almost KNOW that the supplier is doing this on purpose to cut their bottom line, if you are not accusatory and act like it was a genuine mistake on their end, then almost every time they are more than willing to make up the difference without any hassle. 

However, there are those few you end up having to argue with, and I HATE that. 

[Guest OldGlory]

I think you learn a lot about your supplier when you have problems - being shorted, a product not acting like it should, etc. It says SO much about their involvement and concern for the customer. People make mistakes. How it is recovered is important.

 

We, the ones making the purchases, make mistakes too, when "receiving" items into our inventory. About a year ago I thought I had counted my new purchases very thoroughly, was short a bag of 100 wicks, and called the supplier to let them know of the discrepancy immediately. They said they would give me the wicks next time I was there. As the week went on, I found those "missing" wicks between bags of dozens of tins. When I went to pick up the next order I told them it had been my mistake, not theirs. They even called out the young man who did the packing and let me tell him in person that I found the part of the order I thought was missing and I apologized to him. I could see the look of relief on his face. There was a lot of trust built that day!

[Lumina]

I never really thought to count the tea cups or wicks when they come in.  hmm.  Now I will have to start doing this.  I really expected to recieve what I ordered.

 

Cindy

[moonshine]

I never thought about it either- and how do you weigh all the oils? Have extra bottles on hand?

[Guest OldGlory]

99% of my oils come from Aztec (although I will be adding a few soon that do not), so when I emptied a bottle I weighed it and put that info on an index card for future reference. I found that oils that have a lot of citrus are sometimes light- I think because it evaporates faster than others.

[TallTayl]

I never thought about it either- and how do you weigh all the oils? Have extra bottles on hand?

I weigh the typical bottles and use that as the Tare weight.

Depending on the specific gravity an ounce can vary greatly in volume!

A popular supplier was busted several times over the past year or two for selling in weight, but filling to volume and counting the container into the weight. So someone buying a lb of say coconut oil was getting 14 weighed ounces or less. Their defense? It was an oil therefore measured by volume. Too bad that is not how it works.

Edited to add, places like WSP sell fragrances by fluid ounce as posted in the listing. The MSDS/CoA links publish the specific gravity. You need to do some simple math to figure out how many weighed ounces are in that bottle.

NDA sells by fluid ounce for anything under a kilo, then by weight above a kilo. It took a long while for me to figure out which vendors measure how and under what circumstances.

Edited June 7, 2015 by TallTayl

[Vernie1]

Oh wow, I have never thought about weighing my oils or counting wicks to make sure it's accurate but I will from now on. Thanks for sharing this info.

[wthomas57]

I also weigh all my oils. Ive had some less than they should be.. but usually they are a big more if anything from the suppliers I use.

Also, be cautious if you use NG for any oils as they sell by volume rather than weight. Its super annoying because I have to convert them all to fluid oz before adding them to my inventory tracking since I use them by weight and not volume. With that being said... the majority of the FOs I buy from them actually come out to be more in weight compared to other competitors. So, its some extra work if you care about doing that, but its worth noting. It also means you need to make sure they are filled. With NG its easier because they just up the bottles to fill line so I've never had any issues

 

But short answer.. yes I weigh all FOs. I also count all major supplies for the most part. However, I haven't counted wicks in packs of 100 or more. Should I? Probably, but losing a few cents here or there probably isn't worth my time at the moment. I am more concerned about wax, FOs and containers.