Track your event product

The most important part of any event is curating the right product, which can mean holding back great items for weeks or even months.

It's critical to keep this product well-organized, so you can track how much you have, and find it when it's time to set up for the event. This is easy with ResaleAI's backstock feature.

1) Add new categories?

• For each event, add a new backstock category for that product, so you can easily track it.
• Open ResaleAI and go to the Backstock page. Click the menu dots in the top-right, then choose "Backstock settings"

• Within backstock settings, choose the section for "Manage your backstock categories"

• In that section, choose "Add category"

Note:

• A manager may need to click the lock icon to enter their PIN first, before you can access settings.
• If you add categories from a laptop/phone, you may need to refresh ResaleAI at the POS computers before you see a new category show up!

2) Determine how many bins you need ?

• It can be helpful to set a target total number of bins for your event.
• Depending on how many bins you need, you can determine how early you need to start holding back product. Then, use that to set a goal of bins per week.
• If it's a smaller drop, you may decide you only need 6-12 bins. You could save back for 3-4 weeks, with a goal of 2-3 bins per week.
• For a larger Back to School or Black Friday event, you may need 50 bins or more. You may need to save up for 3 months, with a goal of at least 4 bins per week.

3) Monitor the quantity of bins over time ?

• During the day, your team can see how many bins have been added on the Daybook, by clicking the KPIs at the bottom to expand

• Each day, you will see the list of new bins logged in that day in the nightly email report. So you will see day-to-day how many bins of event product are added.

• On the Weekly or Monthly reports, you can also see the quantity of bins logged in so far for each category for that week or month. Your manager can use this to ensure they are hitting the target for each week.

• Before the event, filter or search on the Backstock page to view all the event bins.

• Change the sort to be "Newest first" and you'll see the last bin that was added.

• If it's been a few days without any new event bins being added, add a note on the Daybook to make sure your team is holding back the right kind of product!

• When it's time to put out those bins before the event, you can change the sort to be by bin number instead. Then you can more easily pull those bins from your back room, if the bins are in order by number.

Other tips for managing event product

Approval process

• Some stores find it's helpful to have a manager review the event product before it is fully logged in to backstock. That way, when it's time to put the product on the sales floor, there are no surprises about the quantity or quality of items for the event.

• You can set up whatever process works best for your team. You could stack the new event bins in a certain area, without a lid on them (and let your team know that any bins without a lid have not been logged in, and need review). The manager on duty must review them before the end of their shift. Once reviewed, they put the lid on the bin, log it in to ResaleAI, and place it on the shelf.

• Or, you could add another location in the backstock settings called "Needs review". The "Next location" for that would be "Back room". When employees log in a new event bin, they would choose the location "Needs review". The manager would locate the bins in the "Needs review" list, and mark them as the normal "Back room" location after they've been reviewed.

Sneak peek items

• For social media posts, it can be helpful to use a separate bin to store items from sneak peek posts. You can keep the category as the "Event name", but put "Sneak peek" or "Posted on IG" in the notes of the bin. That way, your team can ensure those products are featured front and center for the event day, if customers are searching for items they saw on social media.

Curating product

• If you're light on bins, or have a very particular event (like a brand that you don't always get a lot of), you may want to also assign a keyholder to go through recent backstock bins or walk the sales floor and pick a additional items to supplement. Just be sure they log in any new bins that they fill up!

Sorting and organizing product

• Use the notes on each bin to know more specifically what product you have. For example, bin 0100 is category “Back to school event” and the note is “Men’s sneakers” 

• You could even create several new categories, like: "BTS - Shoes", "BTS - Tops", "BTS-Backpacks", etc. if you will be holding back many bins of each.

• Sometimes you may not be able to group the items until you've held back more bins. It may be an additional task in the days before the event
  • Have a team leader pull all the event bins, open them, and roughly sort into groups
  • Put them back in the bins, and edit the notes to say what type of product is in which bin
  • Ex: a bin for men's sneakers, a bin for new with tags
  • This can help you see how much you've held back and plan for how and where to merchandise it

• If your team goes back later to hang the product, edit the note to say the bin has been pre-hung.