～Explore the operational challenges of stocktaking for retailers in Malaysia, including staffing, lost sales opportunities, timely review of results, and the role of professional support.～
Challenges in Stocktaking
Stocktaking requires retailers to confirm where products are located, what items they are, and how many units are physically available. This process must be conducted without omissions, which means it requires sufficient manpower, clear procedures, accurate inventory counting, and timely review.
For retailers in Malaysia, stocktaking can be especially challenging because store operations often involve multiple outlets, a wide range of SKUs, and demand fluctuations linked to public holidays, festive seasons such as Hari Raya, Chinese New Year and Deepavali, school holidays, year-end promotions, major shopping events, sales campaigns, and tourism-related demand. In modern retail formats such as convenience stores, supermarkets, hypermarkets, specialty stores, pharmacies, and shopping malls, maintaining inventory accuracy is essential not only for financial closing but also for daily store operations, inventory control, and customer service.
1. Securing Stocktaking Staff and Maintaining Accuracy
One of the biggest challenges in stocktaking is securing enough qualified staff. Ideally, store employees can conduct the stocktake themselves because they understand the store layout, product categories, and daily operations. However, in many cases this is difficult, especially for retailers with multiple stores or locations that operate long business hours.
Common options include receiving support from other stores or headquarters, hiring temporary part-time staff, requesting support from business partners, or outsourcing to a professional stocktaking company. Cost is an important factor, but stocktaking also requires the skills and experience needed to count inventory accurately. Prior training, clear work rules, responsibility, and motivation all affect the quality of the results.
Temporary staff or external support may not be familiar with stocktaking procedures. Even if a major counting error occurs, they may not feel the same level of responsibility as internal employees. Staff from other stores or headquarters may have better awareness, but their level of commitment may still differ from staff working in their own store.
Accuracy is particularly important when retailers handle a large number of SKUs, seasonal products, promotional items, or fast-moving goods. Errors in physical stocktaking can create discrepancies between book inventory and actual inventory, making it difficult to understand true inventory levels. This may also affect automated ordering systems, digital inventory management systems, and inventory replenishment decisions.
By outsourcing to a specialist stocktaking company, retailers can benefit from trained staff, professional inventory counting skills, and a consistent level of quality. Professional stocktaking staff are expected to count many items accurately and efficiently within a limited time. Their accuracy and productivity can also be checked through sampling, count records, and other quality control methods. However, outsourcing involves cost, so companies should make a balanced decision based on efficiency, accuracy, operational burden, and overall cost-effectiveness.
2. Loss of Sales Opportunities
In most cases, stocktaking is conducted when customers are not present — in other words, when the store is closed. This means that a store may need to stop operations during the stocktake, creating a risk of lost sales opportunities and reduced customer traffic.
Many retailers in Malaysia operate without regular closing days, particularly stores located in shopping malls, transport hubs, tourist areas, or high-traffic commercial districts. Closing a store for stocktaking may not only reduce sales but also give competitors an opportunity to attract customers during peak trading periods. This issue can become more significant during festive seasons, year-end promotions, school holidays, and major shopping events, when customer traffic and inventory movement tend to increase.
To avoid a full closure, retailers may consider opening later than usual, closing earlier than usual, conducting the stocktake after closing hours, or conducting stocktaking during business hours in exceptional cases. However, stocktaking during business hours requires careful control because products may continue to move through sales, returns, transfers, or replenishment while counting is taking place.
Ideally, stocktaking should be completed without changing business hours. However, it is often difficult for store staff alone to conduct stocktaking after closing, late at night, or early in the morning. In such cases, outsourcing to a professional stocktaking company can be an effective way to minimise operational disruption while maintaining inventory accuracy. When considering the cost of outsourcing, retailers should also include the potential sales loss caused by closing the store, as well as the additional workload placed on store employees.
3. Timely Review of Stocktake Results
After stocktaking, stocktake results must be compiled quickly and accurately. If any figures appear unusual, they should be reviewed and confirmed as soon as possible. To finalise profit, companies need beginning inventory, sales information, purchase information, and ending physical stocktaking results. This makes timely verification essential for financial closing, cost of goods sold (COGS) calculation, and gross profit confirmation.
Post-stocktake review is also important for improving inventory accuracy and inventory management. If discrepancies are found between book inventory and physical inventory count results, retailers need to understand the possible causes. These may include misregistration, incorrect receiving, transfer errors, sales processing errors, disposal not being recorded, product misplacement, theft, or operational mistakes.
Retailers should pay attention not only to inventory shortages but also to inventory overage, where the actual physical inventory is higher than the system inventory. Inventory overage may indicate unrecorded receiving, incorrect sales registration, transfer errors, or other operational issues. Reviewing both shortages and overages helps retailers improve inventory data reliability and identify areas where store operations and inventory controls need to be strengthened.
Stocktaking can also help identify shrinkage, or inventory loss caused by factors other than recorded sales or disposal. Understanding shrinkage is important for inventory loss control, loss prevention, fraud prevention, and operational improvement. However, post-stocktake review can be difficult when companies do not have enough staff to verify the results, or when there are no clear rules on what should be checked.
Before conducting stocktaking, retailers should decide when the review will be conducted, who will be responsible, how the results will be checked, what level of discrepancy requires investigation, and what staffing structure is required. By preparing these points in advance, companies can review stocktaking results more quickly and use them effectively for financial closing, inventory management, and store operation improvement.
For Companies Facing Stocktaking Challenges
Many companies conduct stocktaking in-house but face challenges such as slow progress, concerns about accuracy, inconsistent procedures, difficulty securing staff, and limited time for result review. Stocktaking is not simply the act of counting products. It is an important business process directly connected to financial closing, profit calculation, product management, inventory loss control, fraud prevention, and operational improvement.
For retailers in Malaysia, stocktaking accuracy can also provide more reliable data for automated ordering systems and digital inventory management. When inventory data is incorrect, retailers may face out-of-stock situations, excess inventory, inaccurate replenishment, and unnecessary workload at store level. This is particularly important for businesses managing multiple outlets, mall-based stores, fast-moving categories, or large numbers of SKUs.
To conduct accurate and efficient stocktaking, companies need reliable data management, thorough preparation, an appropriate staffing structure, consistent procedures, and effective post-stocktake review. Improving inventory accuracy can help reduce workload, minimise inventory loss, identify inventory overage and operational errors, and support more efficient store operations.
AJIS is a professional stocktaking service provider that supports the entire process, from product counting to data delivery. As Japan’s No.1 stocktaking company by domestic market share, AJIS provides customers with extensive experience, proven expertise, reliable stocktaking solutions, and professional inventory counting services. For retailers in Malaysia looking to strengthen inventory accuracy and reduce operational burden, professional stocktaking support can be one practical option to consider.
👉 Stocktaking Service – AJIS Malaysia
Read previous article: Column 1 Why is stocking necessary for retailer – Part 1
Read previous article: Column 2 How Stocktaking Improves Inventory Accuracy and Store Operations - Part 2
Read previous article: Column 3 Common Pitfalls in Stocktaking: Financial Closing and SKU Management - Part 3
Editor: AJIS Group
AJIS Group is a global corporate group led by AJIS Co., Ltd., which has been a leading provider of stocktaking services and retail support services in Japan. The Group operates in the United States, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines.
With a proven track record of working with more than 3,000 companies and supporting a cumulative total of over one million stores annually, AJIS Group helps address a wide range of challenges faced by the retail and distribution industries. Its services include stocktaking, store operations support, sales floor improvement, and promotional support.
By providing practical services tailored to the market characteristics of each country and region, AJIS Group contributes to improving store operational efficiency and enhancing the value of sales floors.