SalevaSetting up a new shop's product list: names, units, categories and opening stock
How to build a shop's product list from nothing so it stays useful for years: naming products so the right one is billed, choosing the unit each item is sold in, a short set of categories, cost prices, and counting the opening stock.
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The shutters are up, the shelves are full, and the first customer asks for a packet of tea. You know the price. Then the second customer asks for half a kilo of sugar, a small shampoo and two eggs, and you realise you will be adding up prices in your head all day, with no idea at closing time what was sold.
Every shop that keeps records starts with a product list. It is the most boring job in the shop and the one that decides whether everything after it works. A list built in a hurry gives you wrong bills, stock numbers nobody believes and reports that say nothing. A list built with a few simple rules lasts for years.
This article is for a new shop, or for an old shop moving its records onto paper or a phone for the first time. The aim is a list you can build in a few evenings and keep clean without effort.
Start with what sells, not with everything
The mistake most people make is trying to enter every single item before selling anything. A small general store can easily hold a thousand different products, and typing all of them in one go takes days. By the end you are tired, the names are inconsistent, and half the prices are guesses.
Build it in three rounds instead:
- The fast sellers first. Walk the shop and pick the products customers ask for every day: milk, bread, eggs, sugar, tea, cooking oil, flour, the common soaps and the cold drinks. For most shops this is somewhere around fifty to a hundred items, and they are most of the day's sales.
- One shelf at a time. Over the next week or two, take one shelf each evening and enter everything on it. One shelf is small enough to finish and check properly.
- Everything else as it sells. The odd item that sells twice a month can be added the first time a customer brings it to the counter.
Fast sellers are where wrong names and prices cost you most, so do them while you are fresh.
Name every product the same way
A product's name is how you, and anyone who helps you, find it at the counter. Two people looking for the same item should type the same few letters and find it at once. That only happens if every name follows the same pattern.
A pattern that works for most shops is brand, then product, then size:
| Avoid | Better |
|---|---|
| Oil | Sunrise Cooking Oil 1 L |
| Shampoo small | Fresh Shampoo 180 ml |
| Biscuit 20 | Crunch Biscuits Family Pack |
| Soap (red) | Rose Bath Soap 100 g |
The brand names here are made up; use the ones on your own shelves.
A few rules make the pattern hold:
- Always put the size in the name. When you sell the same thing in two sizes, the size in the name is what stops the wrong one being billed. The 500 g and the 1 kg are two products, not one.
- Write units the same way everywhere. Choose "ml", "L", "g" and "kg" and stick to them. "1 litre", "1L" and "1 ltr" in the same list make searching harder.
- Use the name customers use. If everyone in your area calls a product by a local name, put that word in the name too, so you find it when they say it.
- Leave prices out of names. "Biscuit 20" stops being true the day the price changes. The price belongs in its own field.
Choose the unit each product is sold in
Every product needs one clear answer to the question "one of what?" Most stock problems in a new shop come from mixing up the unit you buy in with the unit you sell in.
There are three kinds of product in most shops:
- Counted pieces. Packets, bottles, bars of soap, tins. The unit is one piece. You buy them by the carton, but you sell and count them by the piece.
- Weighed goods. Rice, lentils, sugar, flour and anything else you sell loose. The unit is the kilogram, priced per kilo and sold by weight. Do not invent units like "one bag" for loose goods that customers buy in different amounts; your stock will never match.
- Packs that are sometimes split. A dozen eggs, a strip of tablets, a box of matches with ten in it. Decide which you sell more often. If you mostly sell single eggs, the product is one egg and a dozen is twelve. If you only ever sell full trays, the product is the tray.
Whatever you choose, write the opening stock and every delivery in the same unit. If the product is "one piece" and a carton of 24 arrives, you add 24, not 1. This one rule prevents most of the strange stock numbers new shops see in their first month.
If you are unsure which pack size is better value when you buy, the unit price calculator compares them per kilo or per piece.
Keep categories few and obvious
Categories group products so you can find them faster and see which part of the shop earns. They help only if there are few of them and every product clearly belongs to one.
For a general store, eight to twelve categories are usually plenty. For example:
- Dairy and bread
- Grocery (rice, flour, lentils, sugar, oil)
- Tea, coffee and drinks
- Biscuits, snacks and sweets
- Spices and cooking items
- Soaps, shampoo and personal care
- Cleaning and household
- Baby care
- Stationery and small items
Some simple rules keep categories useful:
- Follow your shelves. If the shop is laid out by type, the categories should match the shelves. Then a stock count by shelf is also a count by category.
- One product, one category. If you find yourself unsure where something goes, the categories are too close together. Merge them.
- Do not make a category for one product. A category with two items in it is a sign it should be part of a larger one.
- Avoid "Other". An "Other" category grows until half the shop is in it. Put a thing in the nearest real category instead.
Record what each product costs you
A product list with only selling prices tells you how much you sold. A list with cost prices as well tells you how much you made, which is the number that actually matters.
Enter the cost price for each product as you add it. Take it from the latest supplier bill, worked out per unit. If a carton of 24 bottles cost Rs 1,200, the cost price of one bottle is Rs 50. These figures are only an example.
Where the bill does not make it easy:
- Free goods in the carton. If the supplier gave 25 for the price of 24, divide by 25, not 24. Your real cost per piece is lower.
- Transport. If you pay a rickshaw to bring stock from the market, spread that cost over what you brought. It is part of the cost of the goods.
- No bill at all. Write down your best honest figure and mark it to check. A rough cost is more useful than none, as long as you correct it with the next delivery.
The selling price comes after the cost. If you have not set prices yet, how to price products walks through margins, rounding and loose goods, and the profit margin calculator checks the figure for any single product.
Count the opening stock once, properly
The product list says what you sell. The opening stock says how much of it you have on the first day. Every stock number after that is calculated from this starting point, so it needs to be counted, not guessed.
Do it in one sitting, with the shop closed, shelf by shelf:
- Count pieces, not cartons, unless a carton is still sealed with the quantity printed on it.
- Weigh loose goods on your own scale and write the weight in kilograms.
- Count the storeroom too. The cartons in the back are part of the stock.
- Leave out anything damaged or expired. Put it aside in a box marked "not for sale" and decide what to do with it later. It should not enter the list as sellable stock.
If you are entering the list on a phone, enter each shelf's count right after counting that shelf, so a half-finished evening still leaves complete shelves. The full stock take guide has more on organising a count, and it applies just as well to the very first one.
Once the opening stock is in, the most important habit begins: every delivery is entered the day it arrives, and every sale goes through the counter. If either of those slips, the opening count is wasted within a month.
Labels and barcodes: decide early
Most packaged goods already carry a barcode. If you plan to scan at the counter, it is easiest to scan each product's code while you are adding it, instead of going back later.
For products with no barcode, sell them by name or print your own labels. The barcode label maker prints simple labels from any computer. There is more on what to scan and what to skip in barcode scanning for a small shop.
Either way, keep one rule: one code means exactly one product. If two different products end up with the same code, treat one as unbarcoded and sell it by name.
Keep the list clean after the first week
A product list does not stay tidy by itself. A few minutes a week keeps it that way:
- Fix names the moment you notice them. A misspelt name you leave today will be searched for wrongly a hundred times.
- Update cost prices with each delivery, especially when a supplier raises a rate.
- Merge duplicates. If the same product has been entered twice under slightly different names, keep one, move the stock to it, and remove the other.
- Remove products you have stopped stocking so they do not clutter searches.
- Set a minimum stock for your fast sellers once you know how quickly they move. Reorder levels explains how to choose the figure.
A clean list of three hundred products is worth more than a messy list of a thousand. Accuracy on what sells beats completeness on what does not.
Questions shopkeepers ask
How long does it take to set up a product list?
For a small general store, the fast sellers can usually be entered in an evening, and the rest of the shop over one or two weeks of an hour each evening. Building it in rounds means you can start selling with records on the first day rather than waiting until the list is complete.
Should each flavour or colour be a separate product?
If you need to know how many of each you have, yes. A shampoo sold in two scents that you restock separately should be two products. If you never care which flavour sold and restock them together, one product is simpler. Shops selling clothing or shoes usually treat size and colour as variants of one product rather than separate items.
What if I do not know the cost price of old stock?
Use the cost from the most recent bill for the same product, or your best honest estimate, and mark it to check. When the next delivery arrives, update it to the real figure. A close estimate on the first day is far better than leaving the cost empty, because without it you cannot see profit at all.
My supplier sells in cartons but I sell single pieces. How do I record it?
Make the product the single piece. When a carton arrives, add the number of pieces in it to stock, and work out the cost per piece from the carton price. Keeping one unit for buying, counting and selling is what keeps the stock number honest.
Can I start selling before the list is finished?
Yes, and you should. Enter the fast sellers first and start billing them through the counter. Products not yet on the list can be added the first time a customer buys them. Waiting until every item is entered only delays the habit that matters most.
Saleva is built so the list can grow while you sell. A product needs only a name and a selling price to start, a barcode the app does not know can be turned into a new product at the counter, and the camera can read a product's name and size off the packet or turn a supplier's invoice into a draft purchase. The products and stock guide shows where each of these is.
Try this in Saleva
Saleva is a free Android point-of-sale app for small shops: selling, stock, customer dues, staff and an online shop page. Selling works with no internet at all.