How to Manage Inventory When Your Warehouse Is Your Living Room

Does a Spreadsheet Actually Work?

Yes. Period. If you carry fewer than 100 distinct products and ship fewer than 30 orders per week, a well-built spreadsheet is more than enough. I have seen stores doing CLP 3 million a month with a Google Sheet as their only inventory control.

The problem is never the tool. The problem is not having any system at all or having one that nobody updates.

The bare minimum your spreadsheet needs:

• SKU (a unique code per product/variant)
• Product name
• Current stock
• Minimum stock (to know when to reorder)
• Unit cost
• Location (yes, even if it is "shelf 2, blue box")

Update the stock every time a product comes in or goes out. If you do not do it on the spot, you will never do it.

When Should I Move to a More Serious System?

There are three clear signals:

1. You sell on more than one channel (online store + marketplace + Instagram). Keeping stock synchronized manually is a nightmare.
2. You have more than 200 SKUs. The spreadsheet starts lagging and errors multiply.
3. You lose sales to overselling. If a customer buys something you no longer have in stock, it is time to automate.

Options that work well in Chile for small stores:

• Shopify has built-in inventory. If you already use Shopify, turn on low-stock alerts and locations. You do not need anything else until you grow significantly.
• Odoo (Community Edition). Free and powerful, but you need someone technical to configure it.
• Bsale. A Chilean platform that integrates with the SII (Chile's tax authority) and includes inventory management. A good option if you already invoice through them.

Three Rules That Save Your Inventory

1. Do a physical count once a month. No matter what software you use. Sit down on a quiet day, count everything, and correct the discrepancies. Stores that skip this always end up with phantom numbers.

2. Define your safety stock. If a product takes 15 days to arrive from your supplier and you sell 2 per week, your minimum stock is 5 units (2 weeks plus a buffer). Reorder when you hit that number, not when you run out.

3. Classify your products using ABC analysis.

• A (20% of products, 80% of sales): Never run out of these.
• B (30% of products, 15% of sales): Moderate stock.
• C (50% of products, 5% of sales): Consider whether they are worth keeping. Every SKU you hold takes up space and ties up capital.

Inventory is boring. Nobody starts a business to count boxes. But the difference between a store that grows and one that stalls often comes down to knowing exactly what you have, where it is, and when to reorder.

If your inventory has become a mess and you do not know where to start, reach out. We have helped stores get organized from scratch.