Talked to a warehouse manager in Nashville who switched from FIFO to LIFO on cleaning supplies

He said it cut their wasted inventory by 40% in just one quarter because the stuff that sat longest was never the cleaning chemicals anyway. Has anyone else found a big gap between what the textbook says and what actually works on the floor?

2 comments

2 Comments

perry.lee2d ago

That "what the textbook says vs what actually works on the floor" line hit home. I remember a buddy managing a small auto parts shop who swore by LIFO for oil filters even though the training manual said FIFO was the only way. He figured out that nobody was buying the old filters anyway so he just let them sit and it saved him a ton on restocking fees lol.

elliot_miller221d ago

That "textbook vs what actually works" idea your buddy had makes a lot of sense. @perry.lee, I knew a guy who ran a paint store and did the exact same thing with white latex paint - he kept the oldest cans in the back because nobody ever wanted the off-brand anyway. His warehouse manager told me it cut their returns down to almost nothing once they stopped pretending every item needed the same handling.