Berezka Retail's first stock scan found 792 overstocked products. Eight days later, 581 were left.
Nearly half the capital in them was in alcoholic drinks. marql told the products that had stopped selling from the ones with too much stock, and listed moves between stores. By 1 October the capital in the list was 8% lower.
“The first thing that we saw that was an improvement using marql was the rotation between stores, that really improved. We knew exactly where to send the products from one store to another.”
Berezka runs 20 Eastern European delis in Romania, in a group of 109 stores
Berezka sells food from Eastern Europe: smoked fish, caviar, pelmeni and vodka, and dishes from its own kitchen. It opened in Romania in December 2014, five years after the group's first store in Varna, and 16 of its 20 Romanian stores are in and around Bucharest. marql reads the chain's sales and stock straight from its ERP.
Romania20
Bulgaria71
Cyprus12
Serbia4
Spain2
The first scan found 792 products with more than 90 days of stock, nearly half of their capital in alcohol
On 23 September marql counted every product whose stock would last more than 90 days at the pace it sold over the last 90. All of that stock counts at cost as frozen capital: money already paid for goods that are not turning into sales, and not free for the ones that are. Alcoholic drinks are only 140 of the 792 products.
Then meat & fish 15%, canned food 8%, frozen food 8%, sweets and desserts 7%, packaged food 6%, non-alcoholic drinks 3%, snacks 3% and seven smaller categories 5%. Share of capital at cost in the 792 products, by category, 23 September. Consumables excluded.
marql told the products that had stopped selling from the ones with too much stock, and gave each its own options
A premium vodka and a cold-smoked halibut tied up almost the same capital. At a bottle a month, the vodka on hand would last more than 30 years; at about 2.5 kg a day, the halibut would last three and a half months. Holding off on reordering fits the halibut and would leave the vodka where it is, so marql says which kind of stock a product is before it lists what to do.
Premium vodka, 0.7 l
XAOMA Ultrapremium
Cold-smoked halibut
Halibut afumat la rece
The reading, 23 September
What marql proposed
- Stop reordering
- A clearance promotion
- A bundle with fast-selling premium drinks
- A return or swap with the supplier
- Delist it if none of these works in 60–90 days
- Hold off on reordering
- A promotion
- A transfer to busier stores
- Do nothing and monitor
- A smaller standing order if cover stays above 90 days
Across the chain, marql keeps a list of moves between stores: a product that sits unsold on one shelf and runs short on another. On 30 September it held 200.
Mixed sweets by the kilo
31 kg
Lavash, packs of 10
42 packs
Black sturgeon caviar, 500 g
1 jar
Eight days later, 211 fewer products were past the 90-day line
The same scan on 1 October, with the same 90-day rule and consumables still excluded, counted 581 products. The capital in them was 8% lower than on 23 September.
23 September7921 October581
To go deeper, the full method is in the excess stock playbook.
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