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It’s not pretty, but I threw together a short video showing how I currently organize/store/find my inventory. I started my current “system” around the 400 listing mark, and have grown to 2,500ish without needing to change, just expand.
Thought it might be helpful for someone else.
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I know some sellers love their method of folding clothes in bins, but we are very much TEAM HANG. We also hang all our clothes in storage because we find we can fit much more clothes in a smaller space. Plus it’s easier to sort.
Interesting that all your hard goods seem pretty small. The big stuff really takes up space on our shelves.
I know you guys are moving soon, but do you have a sense of the size of inventory you want to have? I know the goal is to sell the most and have the smallest inventory. Wondering if you have a hard line on what you’d be willing to grow to.
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Yeah, with 800-1000 clothing items listed, hanging seems to work well for me. We do fold and shelve a few more delicate items, but the bulk get hung. The only clothing items that take any amount of time to find on the racks are black t shirts, just because of how many there are. They probably take 30-60 seconds, where a red t shirt would take 10-15.
We have a few larger items on some of the lower shelves, and a few others stored elsewhere, but the majority aren’t any bigger than 24” in one dimension.
As for desired inventory size, the sky is the limit. Once we move, and are settled into a spot with more space and time, I don’t see stopping or slowing down. 5k items? 10k? No set goal in mind. I’ll probably ease off the gas and spend time on other income streams once our eBay income is above and beyond our actual needs, but until then, I’ll keep growing.
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thanks for sharing! this is a very simple way of starting an inventory system, it’s kind of how we do it too, but with only some of our inventory, i think if we hire someone full time, we would go back and number all our bins and shelves and SKU them too.
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When we were around the 400 item mark, it took two of us about two hours to label shelves, and to update the listings. One person would call out an items and shelf number, the other would update the listing.
Once we’ve got more space, I’ll continue the same system, but may throw in some more permanent shelves, and a few larger ones for bigger items.
When we moved last, and when we move again in a few months, each shelf gets boxed/numbered separately, and then unpacked in our new location.
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Thanks for sharing this – I’m currently on TEAM BAG AND TAG for clothing, but it’s starting to eat up a lot of bin space…I’m going to move to TEAM HANG at my new place. My thoughts at the moment are to have a fixed high level hanging area (a heavy duty pipe near the ceiling) and then roller racks on the floor underneath to stack my clothes in 2 levels.
Storage space is weirdly the biggest challenge I keep having as I expand – it constantly needs to be re-assessed and organized.
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I can put 20-25 clothing items in a tote folded. Each rack holds 4 totes on a row and has 5 rows.
That is 400-500 per rack. I currently have 3 of these metal racks, so that is up to 1500 clothing items on what is the equivalent space of 18 linear feet of hanging rod. I’m using floor to ceiling space due to the racks which is far more space efficient.Ballparking it looks like your clothing racks are about 8 feet long and you have 3 for 24 feet of hanger rod. How many clothing items do you have on it?
I’m definitely team totes/racks for standard clothing. I have two dedicated hanging rods for coats/jackets.
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I was incorrect. My racks are 60″ wide, so I can fit up to 1500 clothing items in 15 linear feet of shelving floor to ceiling.
I also just checked the last two totes I filled with clothes. One had 20 items and the other had 26.
I put everything that isn’t a coat into them, so each tote has shorts, shirts, sweatshirts, jeans, pants, Sweaters, and light jackets. I load the totes with the tote on its side and stack the clothes. Once it is packed full I can access the tags/labels of every item from the top.I put my shoes in the same totes, and can usually do about 12-15 pair of mixed mens/womens shoes. per tote. So I can store up to 300 pair of shoes per rack.
The totes I use are the cheap $5 clear ones from Walmart.
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So, I’m TEAM BAG as well. Makes shipping faster which I love, has a more compact storage process, and I like the extra protection from bugs, dust, and water. Bags folded and taped, in a plastic bin (though I admit I’m behind in purchasing so I’m using recycled cardboard boxes right now).
This helps if we need to move clothes to the warehouse as well (suits, sport coats, sweaters are there now). Easier to move back and forth if it is bagged up. Plus, when something sells, I print the label at the house, put it on the proper box/tyvex/PFR/tuff mailer, go to the warehouse, drop it in, and straight to the Post Office.
For us, Pre-Bagged makes our life much easier.
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Winchester,
If you used Double Clothing Racks, you would need half of the space you are taking for the clothes. Now they would go close to the ceiling, but you would save a lot of valuable space.
Mark
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