How do you organise your stock?

**agent_44** · 17-09-2009, 06:09 PM

I've tried neumerous ways to organise my finished pieces, and am getting frustrated with not finding a way that keeps me happy!

Ideally I woud like to keep mine in it's presentation box, but this takes up more space and I can't easily see the piece inside. This might possibly change as I get more organised and have code numbers for everything that I can put on the outside of the box sleeve.

At the moment I have each piece in a grip seal bag and each of these placed in one big box, far too disorganised for me to cope with.

I'd be interested how you guys organise stock if you are willing to share? Amy ideas you can give me woudl be gratefully received, as I have definitely hit a brick wall with this one!

**Boo** · 17-09-2009, 06:21 PM

I've battled with this for a very long time and am finally happy.

It's a little haphazard in that I just know where certain pieces are - I don't have an indexing system as such. But when I do fairs and have personal callers occasionally, I need to balance safe storage and ease of viewing and speed for putting out on display. So I use a combination of things.

My husband just yelled that dinner is out and I have black fingers from sanding, so I'll come back to this later, sorry.

**mizgeorge** · 17-09-2009, 06:25 PM

hmmm.

I've got a big bag. Inside that are lots of other ziploc bags. Inside those are more ziploc bags (are you detecting a theme yet?)

I reckon I can find any given piece in a matter of seconds though!

I think a box sounds quite an advanced system.

**Petal** · 17-09-2009, 07:20 PM

My finished pieces are on necks on my display. I seem to have had a spate of customers calling by to look at the display and buy, so I suppose its ok. But really they should be in ziplock bags to stop tarnishing!

Jules x

**bustagasket** · 17-09-2009, 07:39 PM

i dont exactly have much in the way of stock lol so my are in the griplock bags recycled from cookson goodies lol

**Boo** · 17-09-2009, 08:14 PM

Right, I'm back, sorry about that.

I have various systems that combine storage (i.e. preventing tarnishing and keeping things safe) and ease of getting them set up for display at fairs etc. - so the two considerations go very much hand in hand. I abandoned ziploc bags some time ago as being incredibly tedious and impractical when setting up stalls. Some bags can seemingly discolour items where they touch too.

I decided some time ago that small items like earrings sell better when individually displayed, so I abandoned my large boards in favour of individual methods. People like to pick them up and look at them, or gather short listed items together to make a selection. So many of my earrings are already in gift boxes on an angled card and these I just pop the lid on and these all live in one air tight box. I also use little freestanding card busts that each house a pair and these are stacked in another airtight box. With another box of larger busts with collections of similars on.

The remainder of my stock, all necklaces and bracelets etc. are in some stacking flat tray style tool boxes made by Stanley. They each have 24 compartments and some of the dividers had little notches in which were ideal for hanging matching earrings on, so recently I set to more of the dividers with my rotary tool to cut more notches. I can upend them and nothing comes out of its cell. Sometimes I stack more than one item in a cell with some cleaning cloth between them, I cut some squares the right size.

Each item gets a dumbbell sticker on with the price and item no. - which in most cases is the frame number of the main photo I use, so anyone can look through my boxes and see what something will cost - they're not in any particular order, but I have boxes on general themes.

When I display at fairs I usually tack a little pre-printed card with the price onto the display with a tiny blob of blutak, so these cards, just get stuck on the inside of the lid near the item, ready to re-use. I put anti-tarnish strips inside each of the boxes too.

It's a bit haphazard, but it works for me and I haven't lost or had anything damaged this way yet and they seem to keep clean enough too.