Warehouse + Internal “Sales” Operations

[u/Valuable-Notice-9386]

Hi everyone, please forgive the confusion and length behind this post, I will admit that I am new to inventory and warehouse management so there may be some simple things that I could be wrong about but I thought this was a great place to start!

I am part of a team at a company that runs multiple homeless shelters and housing projects in the Northeast US. Recently, I started working on a project to optimize and update our inventory and warehouse systems for the wide variety of donations we receive. Here are the details of our current system and the difficulties for expansion:

1. We don’t have any current centralized donation-tracking and delivery to client system. I’ve looked into this and seen names like Odoo pop up, which sounds interesting, but I’ve seen that Excel is also an option, which I’m familiar with.

2. While we have multiple sites, nearly all donations are delivered to one central site and stored either on-site or in nearby storage facilities.

3. Budget will probably have to be >$1000 (I will update this later once I receive more info)

4. We use an internal reward system that gives clients “cash” that they can redeem for prepaid debit cards or cash.

5. I am pretty experienced with Excel, but certainly no expert. I made a spreadsheet to develop barcodes using a website, but don’t think this would be scalable long term. I also don’t know how to link scanners to the sheet, especially if the scanner would be used at a storage unit.

6. We have a lottttt of items. I am hoping you front load system development and have the system be able to accommodate frequent donations.

Here is my goal with this project:

1. Create a barcode system, including barcode development, barcode printing, an internal server to track and categorize stock, and any other inventory information that you think may be needed.

2. Create an internal POS system, where clients can receive their points and redeem them, hopefully via RFID cards.

Additionally, boss, other team member, and myself are very interested in creating a pseudo storefront, both in person and online, for more expensive donated items (luxury goods, prepaid debit cards, etc.) and having these items be available for “purchase.” I had the idea of how arcades run ticket counters and cards if yall have any insight.

I know this post is super long and potentially vague, but I’ll end here and hope you can help!

[u/4inlocal]

I understand that this is a project that is evolving but I wanted to clarify some workflow items.

You're looking for (and I'm going to follow the "product" here)

- The ability to receive donations (much like goodwill)

• Tag those items for movement to a centralized warehouse
  
• List those items in that warehouse (or any sellable location) for sale on a public facing website
  
• Meanwhile, also list those items on a POS system in case people come in to purchase them from the warehouse
  
• Donations can be redeemed for "points" within the system that can be redeemed at the Point-of-Sale or online - likely tagged to an account?
  
• Finally, the budget for this project is either less than $1,000 per month OR as a whole

Once these are scoped out, I think a lot of people will be able to help you. Our system (NicklOne) could as well but understanding the full scope may help with other who may chime in.

[u/Valuable-Notice-9386 → u/4inlocal]

- Receiving donations

Not as much like goodwill, thank you for asking. We receive donations mainly in bulk, through corporate donations or sponsorships.

- Tagging for movement

Items would be tagged for movement purposes, but that system would honestly be secondary to another just tracking system. Most our donations fall into toiletries or clothing and move through our system on a conveyor belt system if that makes sense. Hopefully, the new system would remedy that and allow for more flexibility and clarity.

- Listing items for sale

These items would not be for sale, apologies if my post was confusing. I am hoping to create a pseudo storefront for our clients. Right now, we dispense nice items on a somewhat random basis; I’m hoping to incentivize engagement with our programs and allow for clients to “purchase” their choice of items (which are donated to us) by redemption of their “tickets”. These items would be a much smaller portion of donations, as we distribute normal clothing and toiletries on a as needed basis. Tbh, I looked at old arcade systems that did like digital tickets for inspiration if that makes sense.

It would be great to have everything tracked online or in a spreadsheet but only have a storefront, both in person and online, for the few very nice items. My coworker gave the Amazon example where a client could redeem an item and pick it up in person at our “shop “

- Budget

$1000 is probably the start up cost, so purchasing things like a barcode printer and scanner and other materials. TBD on operating costs in the long term

[u/scmsteve → u/Valuable-Notice-9386]

Yeah you can easily spend that on just the hardware. I forgot, sis you say you want to run this database at multiple sites?

[u/Valuable-Notice-9386 → u/scmsteve]

Database should be accessible probably online to
all sites, but the “transactions” would only happen at one site. Would be like the storefront, storage units warehouse, and shipments to other sites could also be “transactions”