How a beauty and cosmetics shop sells
A cosmetics shop carries hundreds of small, similar products: one foundation in twelve shades, one lotion in three sizes, braiding hair in a dozen colours. Each sale is small, the number of items is large, and the hard part is knowing exactly what is on the shelf.
Customers range from shoppers buying one lipstick to hairdressers and beauticians stocking up for the week. Shops in Nairobi, Nakuru and Kisumu tend to face the same problems:
- Small, valuable items such as lipsticks and perfumes are easy to slip into a bag.
- A popular shade sells out, and nobody notices until a customer asks for it.
- Products pass their expiry date at the back of the shelf.
- Locally made products arrive with no barcode, so cashiers type in prices from memory.
Wave POS is for shops that sell beauty products. It does not book salon appointments or manage treatments.
Every shade and size with its own barcode
Each product can have variants, and each variant has its own barcode, price and stock. A few typical set-ups:
- Liquid foundation, 30 ml, in 12 shades: twelve variants at KSh 1,350 each, scanned from the barcode on each bottle.
- Body lotion in 200 ml, 400 ml and 600 ml: three variants at KSh 380, KSh 650 and KSh 890.
- Braiding hair in colours 1, 1B, 2, 4, 27 and 30: six variants at KSh 180 a pack.
- Matte lipstick in 10 shades: ten variants at KSh 450.
Because stock is kept per variant, you can see that shade 4 of the foundation has two bottles left while shade 9 has fourteen. If your price list lives in a spreadsheet, import it: the guide to moving from Excel shows how.
Expiry dates on the products that need them
Turn on batch tracking for the products that expire, such as sunscreens, relaxers, skin creams and serums, and record the batch number and expiry date as the stock arrives. Products that do not expire, such as combs and brushes, skip this step.
When stock does expire, write it off with a stock adjustment marked as expired. The adjustment waits for a manager’s approval, and once approved its cost shows as stock written off in the profit and loss report, so you can see what expiry is costing you. Read more about inventory management.
Labels for the items without a barcode
Print barcode labels with prices in batches for anything that arrives without a barcode you can use: shea butter in tubs from a local maker, hair clips and accessories, or products you repack into smaller containers. Shelf labels with prices keep the display tidy. See receipts and labels.
At the till the cashier scans, hears a beep for each item, and presses F12 to pay. Nobody needs to remember the price of a 50 ml nail polish remover.
Paying, returns and customer accounts
Customers pay by cash, card or M-Pesa, or a mix of methods in one sale. An M-Pesa payment is recorded with its transaction code, or with a prompt sent to the customer’s phone once your ZetuPay account is connected.
To take an unopened item back, scan the QR code on the receipt and refund to any method. The returned lotion or lipstick is added back to the stock count.
Hairdressers who buy every week can have a customer account with a credit limit. A worked example: a salon owner takes 10 packs of braiding hair at KSh 180 (KSh 1,800) and two relaxer kits at KSh 520 (KSh 1,040), a total of KSh 2,840 on her account, which has a KSh 20,000 limit. She pays on Friday at the till, and her ledger shows every sale and payment. A wholesale price that applies from a set quantity, say KSh 160 a pack from 20 packs, can reward her bigger orders.
See what sells, branch by branch
The product performance report lists your best sellers with their profit, and the stock that is not selling, for any dates, branch or category. With hundreds of small lines, it shows which shades to reorder and which to stop buying. Every report is described on the sales reports page.
With more than one shop, each branch has its own stock, tills and prices, and a transfer moves a shade from the branch that has too many to the one that has run out.