Where is the Hermitage?
An online order comes in for two bottles of a Northern Rhone red. The system says there are seven. The person on shift goes down to the cellar and cannot find them. They are not in the Rhone racks, not on the pallet by the stairs, not in the overflow room. Twenty minutes later, the manager remembers they were moved to the fine wine cage when the new delivery came in.
It happens a few times a week. Most of the time the bottles turn up. Occasionally they do not, and a customer gets a phone call and an apology.
A count is not a location
Stock systems in most shops answer 'how many?', not 'where?'. That is enough when the range is small and one person knows the cellar. It stops being enough when the range is several thousand lines across racks, cages, pallets and an overflow store, when stock moves to make space, and when new staff are picking.
- Cases are moved to make room and the move is not recorded.
- The same wine is split across several places, including the shop floor.
- Fine wine is kept in a separate secure area not everyone knows about.
- New staff have to learn the cellar from the one person who knows it.
- Stock counts find bottles in unexpected places but the record is not updated.
The cost of hunting
Time is the obvious cost: every search is picking time lost, and it compounds at Christmas. Less obvious is the stock that is written off because nobody could find it, then turns up later behind a pallet. And when only one person can find things, their day off becomes a problem for the whole shop.
Bin tracking we put in
- The cellar is mapped into bins: each rack section, cage shelf, pallet space and overflow position gets a short code and a printed label.
- Existing stock is located in one counting pass, using a phone or handheld scanner to record wine and bin together.
- New deliveries are put away with a scan of the case and the bin, so the location is recorded at the moment it is created.
- Picking lists for web, trade and shop orders show the bin for each item, sorted into a sensible walking route.
- Any move is a quick scan of the old bin, the case and the new bin.
- Small, regular spot counts check a few bins a day, so drift is caught early rather than at year end.
| Job | Before | With bin tracking |
|---|---|---|
| Picking an online order | Search from memory | Go to the bin on the list |
| Putting away a delivery | Wherever there is space | Scan to a bin |
| Making room | Cases moved, not recorded | Move scanned |
| Stock count | Whole cellar at once | A few bins a day |
| New staff picking | Shadow the manager | Follow the list |
We work with the stock system you have. Where it cannot hold a location field, the bin records sit alongside it and are linked by product code.
A cellar anyone can pick from
A new member of staff can pick a trade order on their second day. When a customer asks for a particular vintage, the answer is 'bin C14' rather than 'I'll have a look'. Stock counts become routine rather than a dreaded weekend. And the fine wine cage, which is the stock you can least afford to lose track of, is recorded to the shelf.
The first counting pass takes some effort, and we are honest about that. After that, keeping locations true is a scan at each move, which is less work than the hunting it replaces.
Recognise the hunt?
- Staff regularly search for bottles the system says you have.
- Only one or two people really know where everything is.
- Stock is spread across racks, cages, pallets and a separate store.
- Wine written off as missing sometimes reappears.
- Picking takes much longer at busy times than it should.