Growing up around my family’s retail business gave me an early look at the problems customers rarely see.
From the outside, running a retail business may look straightforward. Products arrive, they are placed on shelves, customers buy them, and the business orders more when needed.
Behind the counter, however, things are not always that simple.
Every product has to be tracked. New stock comes in, products are sold, items may be damaged, and some products may be returned or moved to another location. Each change affects the quantity that should be available.
My family mainly relied on spreadsheets and manual records to keep track of inventory. At the beginning, this method seemed manageable. The products were listed clearly, quantities could be updated, and everyone understood how the basic process worked.
When new stock arrived, someone entered the quantity into the spreadsheet. When products were sold, the stock numbers were adjusted again.
At least, that was how it was supposed to work.
As the business grew, more products were added, more stock movements happened every day, and more people became involved in recording them. Over time, stock shortages started happening more frequently.
Sometimes, the spreadsheet showed that an item was still available, but the shelf was already empty.
This experience taught me that inventory shortages are not always caused by poor planning. Sometimes, the business has simply grown beyond the inventory tracking method it started with.
Stock shortages rarely start with one big mistake
A stock shortage does not usually begin with one major error.
It often starts with several small mistakes that do not seem serious at the time.
Someone may receive a delivery but postpone updating the spreadsheet because the store is busy. Another person may sell an item without recording the change immediately. A damaged product may be removed from the shelf, but the quantity may never be adjusted.
One missed update may only cause the recorded quantity to be different by one or two units.
At first, that may not seem like a major problem.
However, the next employee may rely on that incorrect quantity. More sales happen, another update is delayed, and the difference between the spreadsheet and the actual shelf quantity becomes larger.
Once these mistakes begin to pile up, it can become difficult to understand where the problem started.
Was a delivery recorded incorrectly?
Did someone forget to enter a sale?
Was a damaged product removed without updating the quantity?
Did someone accidentally edit the wrong spreadsheet?
Was there another version of the file that contained different information?
The business owner may spend a lot of time comparing records, speaking to employees, and physically counting the products again.
Even after doing all of that, there may still be no clear answer.
A spreadsheet is only accurate when everyone updates it
Spreadsheets are useful tools.
For a small business with a limited number of products and only one person managing inventory, a spreadsheet may work perfectly well.
The problem is not necessarily Excel itself.
The problem is that a spreadsheet depends heavily on people remembering to update it correctly every time something changes.
In a real retail environment, employees are not sitting in front of a spreadsheet for the entire day.
They are serving customers, receiving deliveries, arranging products, answering questions, packing orders, and handling other unexpected tasks.
During a busy period, updating the inventory record may not feel urgent.
Someone may tell themselves that they will update it later.
Later may mean the end of the day. It may mean the following morning. Sometimes, the update may be forgotten completely.
The spreadsheet can still look clean and organized, even when the information inside it is already outdated.
Another problem appears when more than one person starts managing inventory.
One employee may update the spreadsheet stored on a laptop. Another person may download the same file and save a separate copy. Someone else may send an updated version through email or WhatsApp.
After some time, several versions of the same spreadsheet may exist.
One file may show 20 units available. Another may show 18. A third version may include the latest delivery but may not include the most recent sales.
The team then has to spend time deciding which file is correct before they can even begin checking the stock.
A spreadsheet can store numbers, but it does not always provide a clear history of why those numbers changed.
If a product quantity changes from 30 units to 20 units, the business owner may see the new number but not understand what happened.
Were 10 units sold?
Were they damaged?
Were they transferred somewhere else?
Or did someone simply enter the wrong quantity?
Without a clear stock movement history, the team may be left guessing.
Stock shortages affect more than one sale
When a product is unavailable, the most obvious result is a lost sale.
A customer asks for an item. The spreadsheet shows that several units are still available, but when the employee checks the shelf, there is nothing left.
The employee may then check the storeroom or ask another staff member for help.
In the end, the item cannot be found.
The business loses the sale, but the effect may not stop there. The customer may decide to purchase from another store, especially if they need the product urgently.
If this happens repeatedly, the customer may start to feel that the business is unreliable.
Inventory shortages can also affect purchasing decisions.
When the recorded quantities are inaccurate, the business may order replacement stock too late. By the time the shortage is discovered, the supplier may need several days to deliver the new products.
During that period, more potential sales may be lost.
The opposite problem can also happen.
The spreadsheet may show that a product is running low, so the business orders more. Later, employees may discover that several boxes were already available in storage but were not recorded correctly.
The business has now spent money on inventory that was not urgently needed.
That money could have been used for operating expenses, faster-selling products, marketing, or other parts of the business.
This is one of the main lessons I learned from watching inventory problems happen repeatedly: inaccurate stock information does not only affect the shelf.
It can also affect cash flow, purchasing decisions, customer trust, and the amount of time employees spend correcting mistakes.
The real problem is often a lack of visibility
One of the most frustrating parts of managing inventory is not knowing what is actually happening.
A business owner should be able to answer simple questions:
- How many units are currently available?
- Which products are running low?
- What stock arrived today?
- Why did a product quantity change?
- Which items need to be reordered?
- Who recorded the latest stock movement?
These questions should not be difficult to answer.
However, when inventory is tracked manually, finding the correct information may require checking several spreadsheet files, asking different employees, reviewing handwritten notes, or counting the products physically.
The information may exist somewhere, but it is not always easy to find or trust.
That lack of visibility creates stress.
The business owner cannot make purchasing decisions confidently. Employees may not be able to give customers accurate information. Stock problems are often discovered only after an item has already run out.
A good inventory process should help a business notice that stock is running low before it becomes a shortage.
It should not wait until a customer is already standing at the counter asking for an unavailable product.
Simple systems are usually used more consistently
Another lesson I learned is that an inventory system does not need to be complicated to be useful.
In fact, when a system is too difficult, employees may avoid using it.
A small business does not necessarily need hundreds of advanced features. It needs a reliable and clear way to record stock coming in and going out.
The system should make it easy to view current quantities, review previous stock movements, and identify products that are running low.
It should also fit into the normal working day.
If recording a stock movement takes too many steps, employees may postpone it. Once updates are delayed, the information may become unreliable again.
The best inventory system is not always the one with the longest feature list.
It is the one that people can understand and use consistently.
This was important to me because I had already seen what happened when inventory tracking depended too heavily on memory.
People are busy, especially in a retail environment. Mistakes will happen. A useful system should reduce the chance of small mistakes becoming larger problems.
Why I started building Storly
My experience with my family’s retail business was one of the main reasons I started building Storly.
I had seen firsthand how inventory shortages could become more frequent when a business relied heavily on spreadsheets and manual updates.
I also saw the stress that came from not knowing whether the recorded quantities were correct.
The spreadsheet might show that stock was available, but the shelf could tell a different story.
Over time, this created more work for everyone. Employees had to recount products, compare records, and try to understand where the differences came from.
I did not want to build a large and complicated enterprise system that small business owners would struggle to understand or use.
My goal was to create something simpler.
Storly was created to give small business owners a clearer way to manage products, record stock movements, monitor low-stock items, and understand what is happening with their inventory.
I know that software cannot remove every inventory problem.
Employees still need to record stock movements correctly, and business owners still need to make purchasing decisions.
However, the right system can make the process clearer. It can reduce the dependence on scattered spreadsheet files, handwritten notes, and people trying to remember what happened several days earlier.
Most importantly, it can give business owners more confidence in their inventory information.
Excel can still be a good starting point
I do not believe that every small business needs to stop using Excel immediately.
For a new business with a small number of products, a spreadsheet may be enough. It is affordable, familiar, and quick to set up.
It can continue working well while the business remains small and the inventory process is simple.
The problem begins when the business grows but the tracking method stays the same.
More products are added. More employees become involved. Stock moves more frequently. The business begins to depend on information that is becoming harder to maintain.
There is no exact number of products or employees that determines when a business has outgrown Excel.
The clearest sign is usually trust.
When employees check the shelf before believing the spreadsheet, the business may need a better system.
When shortages are only discovered after customers ask for an item, the current process may be reacting too late.
When the owner spends more time correcting inventory records than using them to make decisions, the spreadsheet may be creating more work than it saves.
What I took away from the experience
Growing up around a retail business taught me that inventory management is not only about counting products.
It is about having enough visibility to make better decisions.
A business owner needs to know what is available, what is running low, and why quantities have changed.
Without that information, even a growing and successful business can lose sales because of problems that seemed small at the beginning.
The experience also taught me that many inventory problems are not caused by people being careless.
Sometimes, the process itself has become difficult to follow.
When a business depends on manual updates, several spreadsheet versions, and people remembering every stock movement, mistakes become difficult to avoid.
That is why I built Storly.
It came from a problem I had seen personally, not from an idea that only looked good on paper.
I wanted to create something that could make inventory tracking clearer and reduce some of the stress small business owners experience when their stock records stop matching reality.
A shortage may begin with one missed update, but over time it can affect customers, cash flow, purchasing decisions, and the confidence of the entire team.
For me, that was the biggest lesson.
As a business grows, its inventory process needs to grow with it.
Lee Leslee is the founder of Storly, an inventory management platform for small businesses. Coming from a family involved in the retail business, he experienced firsthand how manual inventory tracking and spreadsheets could lead to inaccurate records and recurring stock shortages. That experience inspired him to build Storly to help business owners manage their inventory more clearly and reduce the stress caused by unexpected stock shortages.
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