If you’ve ever opened a warehouse report and wondered why you’re still tripping over pallets of the same dusty widgets, you’re not alone. Slow moving inventory is a silent profit killer—tying up cash, taking up space, and making you look bad when your boss asks why you reordered something that hasn’t sold in months. This guide is for anyone who wants real, practical steps to spot slow movers using Avercast analytics—no fluff, no hype.
Why Slow Movers Matter (and Why Most People Ignore Them)
Let’s be real: Nobody wants to admit they’re sitting on piles of dead stock. But if you don’t deal with it, you’re wasting money on storage, risking obsolescence, and missing out on chances to buy faster-selling stuff. The good news? Analytics tools like Avercast make it much easier to call out the laggards, as long as you know how to set them up right.
Step 1: Pull Clean, Recent Data Into Avercast
Before you dive into fancy reports, start with the basics:
- Inventory On-hand: Make sure your count is accurate. If your data’s off, everything else will be too.
- Sales History: Avercast works best with at least 12–24 months of sales data. More is better, but don’t sweat it if you only have a year.
- Receipts & Adjustments: Double-check for weird one-off corrections or bulk receipts that could skew the numbers.
Pro tip: If you’ve just switched systems, run a quick sanity check—do your on-hand numbers pass the “does this feel right?” test? If not, fix it now.
Step 2: Get to Know Avercast’s Analytics Dashboards
Avercast offers a lot of shiny dashboards. Don’t get distracted. For slow moving inventory, you want:
- Inventory Turnover Reports: Shows how often each item moves out and gets replaced. Low turns = slow mover.
- Aged Inventory Reports: Tells you how long items have been sitting unsold.
- ABC Analysis: Not just for high-flyers—your “C” items are usually the slow movers.
- Sales Velocity Reports: How many units are selling per week or month.
Skip the noise. “Forecast Accuracy” or sales prediction charts are useful for other things, but not for identifying what’s already stuck.
Step 3: Define What “Slow Moving” Actually Means For You
Here’s where a lot of companies mess up. “Slow moving” isn’t the same for everyone. You need a definition that fits your business.
Ask yourself: - How long can something sit before it’s a problem? (30, 60, 90, 180 days?) - What’s normal for your industry? A bakery and a hardware store will have different standards. - Do you care about value ($) or units (qty)? Sometimes, a few expensive items are a bigger deal than piles of cheap stuff.
Example rules: - Items with no sales in the last 90 days - Inventory aged over 120 days - Inventory turns less than 2 per year
Set these as filters or custom views in Avercast. Don’t just use the default settings—they’re a generic starting point, not gospel.
Step 4: Build a Slow Moving Inventory View
Now it’s time to put Avercast to work.
- Open the Aged Inventory or Inventory Turnover report.
- Apply your slow-moving filters. For example, filter for “on hand > 0” and “last sold > 90 days ago.”
- Sort by age, value, or quantity. Decide what hits your bottom line hardest.
- Export or bookmark the view. You’ll want to check this regularly.
Pro tip: Don’t just look at the numbers—scan for weird outliers (e.g., seasonal items, items on hold for a customer, stuff you’ve discontinued but still have a few left).
Step 5: Dig Deeper—Don’t Trust the First List
This is where most people stop. Don’t. That first “slow mover” list is a starting point, not a final answer.
- Check for active purchase orders: Is more stock coming in for these items? Cancel or adjust if you can.
- Look at trends: Did these items used to sell, but just slowed down recently? Or have they always been duds?
- Ask sales or ops: Sometimes there’s a reason something’s sitting (backorders, display stock, etc.).
What to ignore: Don’t fret over one or two units of a high-value item that sells once a year, if that’s normal. Focus on patterns, not exceptions.
Step 6: Take Action—What To Actually Do With Slow Movers
Finding slow movers is the easy part. The hard part: doing something about it.
Options include:
- Discount or promote: Move them with an incentive or bundle.
- Return to vendor: If your supplier allows it, send back what you can.
- Repurpose or donate: Sometimes it’s smarter to get rid of old stock for a write-off than keep paying to store it.
- Block future orders: Set up alerts or reorder rules in Avercast to avoid buying more of the same.
Pro tip: Don’t just nuke everything at once. Start with the worst offenders—biggest dollar value, longest aged, or most at risk of going obsolete.
Step 7: Set a Regular Review Schedule (and Automate What You Can)
Spotting slow movers isn’t a once-a-year task. Build it into your routine:
- Monthly is realistic for most businesses. Weekly if you’re in fast-moving sectors like food or fashion.
- Automate reports: Set up scheduled emails or dashboard alerts in Avercast so you don’t have to remember.
- Adjust filters as seasons or trends change. What’s slow in January might be hot in June.
Honest Thoughts: What Avercast Does Well (and What It Doesn’t)
What works: - Avercast’s filtering and custom view options are solid. You can slice data by date, location, SKU, or almost any field. - Exporting slow mover lists is easy—no wrestling with clunky exports.
What doesn’t: - It won’t magically tell you why things are slow. You’ll need to use your own judgment (or talk to your team). - If your data isn’t clean, you’ll get garbage results. No fancy dashboard can fix bad input. - Some “out of the box” reports are too generic—customization is key.
What to ignore: - Don’t waste time on “AI-powered demand forecasts” for items that clearly aren’t selling. Focus on the obvious first.
Keep It Simple, Review Often, and Don’t Overthink It
You don’t need a PhD in supply chain or a six-week consulting project to spot slow movers. With a clear definition, clean data, and a few well-set filters in Avercast, you can find and fix dead stock problems before they become warehouse fossils. Stay curious, tweak your process as you go, and remember: sometimes, the best move is just to stop buying more of what isn’t selling.