Anyone good at organising? Need an idea.

Kayalana99

Hiya guys.

I've recently added a new product to my Ebay line but I am in a complete mess with them.

They are very small objects, probably smaller then a pen cap that I can make as I go along but it is easier to do a small amount at a time so I have some in stock for the next order.

Its hard to explain without saying what they are but for example I can have 200+ listings, but each listing sells a different design.

So I basically have to find a way to organize 200 small object designs, which each could do with say having 20 ready made...so 4000 pen lids(example) separated into 200 compartments.

Any ideas?

FYI: Say their are 200 listings, each one is spilt into categorizes in ebay don't know if that would help anyone being able to break it down slightly..still have problem of what to do with them though...and I need to be able to find them easily which one I have sold.

PasturesNew

Not really sure what you're after.
Can't work out if you're after ideas to organise the physical stock, the designs, the listings/income/expenditure.

Kayalana99

Sorry its the actual stock I need to organize, I have the designs, listings and income organized to a point although it really isn't my strong point !

I used the word '200 stock designs' to try and make it clear that each one of the 200 items was slightly different, which I would need another 20 of ish so 4000 products needs to be separated into 200 batches which need to be in some sort of system that I can easily find the item I want -.-

Savvy_Sue

I'd get myself to somewhere like B&Q, and get one of their little drawered organisers for keeping screws / nails / rawl plugs in. Take about 20 of your objects with you and see what fits. Or go into your local Screwfix and see what they have: they don't have stuff on the shelves but I've always found the staff helpful if you say "I want a one of these" ...

Kayalana99

Thank you, its certainly worth a try. Saying that I don't have great funds to spend doing this

Savvy_Sue

Freecycle?

Savvy_Sue

Thinking cheap ... with Blue Peter brain engaged.

Small plastic bags, shallow cardboard boxes (or make up your own).

Make dividers in a shallow box, put your items into the bags, maybe you can have more than one bag in each section. Make your dividers by cutting half way through and interlinking them (I'm not describing this very well ...)

Then, make 'lids' maybe from individual strips of card for each row of 'cells', and stick a picture of what's in each cell.

Unless each design has a name, or a number, in which case the name / no. might be enough?

Slinky

Large piece of plywood with 200 nails or hooks on it on which you can hang a small plastic bag with a stock number on it.

I would have gone with Sue's idea of the B&Q drawers but if money is tight this is the cheapest thing I can think of.

Savvy_Sue

I guess it depends whether or not you ever need to transport these items, if you only ever sell from home and you have the wall space to lean it against, then slinky's idea is probably easier. If you ever take them out to sell, then you could start with my Blue Peter idea while you save up, but take a look at this.

Although I'm thinking at least part of your solution must be a sane way of identifying each different style, so how do you do that? I think I'd go for numbering each style, but if you do developments within a style then I'd go for a system like hotel rooms, you know how all the rooms on the second floor start with 2, and all the rooms on the 3rd floor with 3 etc.

So identify your main identification point: it might be colours or styles or ... I don't know but let's use nuts, bolts, screws and nails as examples.

Nuts would all start with a 1, bolts with a 2, screws with a slot 3, crosshead screws 4, nails 5. So your organisation system might look a bit like this:

1. NUTS
1.1 round nuts
1.1.1 pink round nuts
1.1.2 red round nuts
1.1.3 blue round nuts
1.1.4 silver round nuts
1.2 hexagonal nuts
1.2.1 pink round nuts
1.2.2 red round nuts
1.2.3 blue round nuts
1.2.4 silver round nuts
1.3 square nuts
1.3.1 pink round nuts
1.3.2 red round nuts
1.3.3 blue round nuts
1.3.4 silver round nuts

And so on.

You might be able to do it simpler and just add products to the end, but you have to find a way to link numbers to names: after a while you may just 'know' from a name what the number is, and vice versa.

I don't know if that helps at all ...

Kayalana99

Thanks Sue, I had a talk with a friend earlier and he suggested getting files and putting them all into wallets so I think I will just buy 10+ folders, split them into categorizes so it will be 'easier' for me to go straight to the one I want as I will know which folder contains which category.

Saying that your last post has been helpful, as he was on about me just numbering each item and having the artwork on my computer the same but I was thinking what I would do when I add a item to the category later on and that sounds spot on.

This is going to take alot of setting up lol -.-

FatVonD

Ice cube trays stacked on to of each other?