Opening: what is in the cabinets

What does this tour show?

It shows the nine o'clock look round a phone and tablet shop before the door opens. Priya, the owner in the sample business, wants three answers: how many handsets are in, what they are worth, and which brand is getting thin. The electronics Home answers all three on one page, then offers a short route to everything else she will do during the day.

A phone shop carries a small number of expensive items rather than a large number of cheap ones. Ninety devices can easily be worth more than a corner shop's entire stock. That makes each handset matter, and it is why the Home starts with value and individual devices rather than a long product list.

Why does the opening check matter in a phone shop?

Because a single missing or mis-recorded handset can wipe out the margin on a week of accessory sales. Knowing the count and value at opening, every day, means a gap is noticed within hours rather than at the quarterly count. It also tells you what to put in the window: if one brand is down to a handful, you do not want it as the display model.

The sample shop's stock by brand looks like this on the morning of the tour:

Brand C has the fewest phones and the most faulty units, which makes it the one to look at first.

Step by step

1. Open Home from the electronics menu. The page heading shows the shop's key numbers on one line, so you do not need to open a report to get the morning picture.
2. Read the top line. Devices in stock and what they are worth, what sold this month, how many warranties are ending soon and the average margin. These four figures are the shop's health in one glance.
3. Look at the value, not just the count. Ninety devices could be mostly budget handsets or mostly flagships. The value tells you how much cash is sitting in the cabinets, which matters when you decide whether to take a new delivery this week.
4. Read Newest devices. Each handset is listed by model with its own IMEI, and refurbished units are labelled as such. Two identical silver 256 GB phones show as two lines with two IMEIs, never as "2 × phone".
5. Check that yesterday's arrivals are there. If a box came in late and was added in a hurry, this is where you confirm every handset made it in.
6. Read Stock by brand. It counts devices per brand and how many are faulty. A low count tells you what to reorder; a high faulty count tells you what to send back or repair.
7. Decide what goes in the window. Display the brands you have plenty of. Customers who see a model in the window expect it to be in stock.
8. Use the Go to cards. Devices, Sell a device, Trade-ins, Warranties, Analytics and Import devices are one tap away, so staff do not have to hunt through menus during a rush.

What should you look for first?

Start with anything that is out of line with yesterday. A change in device count you cannot explain by sales or deliveries is the most important thing on the page. After that, look at faulty units: a phone marked faulty is cash you cannot sell, and the longer it sits the less a supplier will do about it. Warranties ending soon come third; they rarely need action today, but they do hint at which customers might come back.

How does the Home help when staff open the shop?

Not every morning is opened by the owner. A sales assistant who opens on a Saturday needs a short, safe routine, and the Home gives them one without access to anything sensitive they do not need. Ask them to check three things and message you if any looks odd: the device count compared with last night, any new faulty units, and whether the window models are still in stock. Because each handset is listed by IMEI, they can also match a phone in the cabinet to its record in seconds if a customer asks about one before the shop is properly set up. Over a few weeks that routine catches more problems than an occasional full count.

Tips for the morning look

• Do it before staff arrive, while the shop is quiet and the numbers have your full attention.
• Agree a rule for faulty units: tagged in the system, separated physically, returned within a set number of days.
• If a brand drops below the number you like to keep, raise the reorder that morning. Phone deliveries can take days.
• Keep display models recorded as devices too. They have IMEIs and they are part of your stock value.
• Use the average margin as a weekly trend. A falling average often means too many discounted sales or too many low-margin models.

Common mistakes

• Counting boxes instead of handsets. An empty box in the cabinet looks like stock until someone opens it.
• Leaving faulty units mixed in with good ones. They get sold, returned and argued over.
• Ignoring refurbished labels. A refurbished handset sold as new is a complaint waiting to happen.
• Adding devices without IMEIs "to save time". It saves a minute at goods-in and costs an hour when a customer brings one back.
• Reading the count and skipping the value. Ninety budget phones and ninety flagships are very different businesses.

What should you do next?

If a delivery has arrived, the next tour, new handsets each with its IMEI, shows how to add them one by one or from a sheet, with each IMEI checked as it goes in. If you want to understand how stock value is worked out, and why value at cost is different from value at selling price, read the stock valuation guide. The stock control guide covers the wider habits of counting and recording, and markup vs margin explains the average margin figure.

How EasyTaskr helps

EasyTaskr's electronics Home shows devices in stock and their value, what sold this month, warranties ending soon and the average margin. Every handset is its own record with its own IMEI, stock is broken down by brand with faulty units counted, and the main jobs of the day are one tap away.