Inventory Management for Small Shops (Without Expensive Software)
July 21, 2026
Running out of stock on a popular product is lost revenue. Overstocking a product that doesn’t sell is wasted capital. For a small business in Algeria, both mistakes can hurt for months.
But most inventory management software costs $50-200/month and is designed for businesses with warehouses and barcode scanners. A small shop with 50 products doesn’t need that.
Here’s the system I use, starting with paper and graduating to digital when volume requires it.
The Problem: “We Still Have Some” Is Not Inventory Management
Before I had a system, inventory was in people’s heads. “I think we still have some of those.” “Did we order more?” “How many did we sell last week?”
At 10 orders/day, this works-ish. At 30 orders/day, it breaks:
- You accept an order for a product you already sold out of
- You have to call the customer and cancel
- They don’t order again
- You lost a customer because you didn’t know your stock level
Stage 1: Paper System (0-20 Products)
Write each product on an index card. On the card:
- Product name and supplier
- Cost price and selling price
- Current stock (update with every sale or delivery)
Keep cards in a box, organized by category. Every morning, count the cash and check it against sales. If a product sells out, order more that day.
When to upgrade: When you have more than 20 products and can’t find the right card fast enough.
Stage 2: Spreadsheet System (20-100 Products)
Move to Google Sheets. Columns:
- Product name
- Category
- Supplier
- Cost price
- Selling price
- Current stock
- Minimum stock (reorder point)
- Supplier contact
When stock hits the minimum, order more. This is automated conditionally formatting: green = OK, yellow = reorder soon, red = reorder now.
When to upgrade: When you have more than 100 products or 3+ people entering data.
Stage 3: Simple Software (100-500 Products)
At this volume, a spreadsheet becomes slow. But you don’t need expensive software. A simple database with 5 tables handles it:
- Products (name, category, supplier, cost, price)
- Stock movements (date, product, quantity change, reason)
- Orders (customer, products, quantity, status, payment)
- Suppliers (name, contact, lead time)
- Inventory count (periodic physical count vs system count)
I built this for $0 using Supabase free tier (see this guide). It took 2 weekends.
How You Can Do It Too
- Start with paper if you have <20 products
- Move to Google Sheets at 20 products
- Add automated reorder alerts at 50 products
- Build or buy simple software at 100+ products
- Never buy expensive inventory software unless you have 1,000+ SKUs
FAQs
Q: How often should I count physical inventory?
A: Monthly for fast-moving products. Quarterly for slow-moving ones. Annual for everything.
Q: What’s the most common inventory mistake?
A: Not accounting for damaged or returned products. A product that comes back damaged is still “in stock” in your system but unsellable. Track returns separately.
Q: How much safety stock should I keep?
A: 2 weeks of average sales for imported products (long lead time). 1 week for locally sourced products.
Q: What’s the minimum stock level rule?
A: When stock hits 2 weeks of average sales, reorder. This gives you time for delivery delays.
Related: The Real Cost of Running an E-commerce Business in Algeria – the full cost breakdown. WhatsApp Order Chaos – managing orders without a system.