When Bad Inventory Systems Create Even More Work! @beckyparkco

Added: 2026-05-20

[00:00:00]Part of being an entrepreneur, you're always thinking about how to optimize your business because the goal is to build a better business and be a better business owner. Today we're going to feature a couple of people who are not very good at what they do because they don't even realize that they have adopted the worst, most inefficient systems in a system that's already inefficient.

[00:00:26]Hey, what's going on lounges? Welcome back to the channel. If you're new here, my name is Mason America and I am a 20-plus year importer and product developer. So, today we're going to be diving into the world of inventory systems, okay? And I'm going to be proving to you guys without a shadow of the doubt that the same people who are the posers in this area are just trying to fake it till they make it. They've never had a very good idea their whole lives. All they ever do is regurgitate other people's stuff and then pretend to be gurus in the space preying on the newcomers in e-commerce. It's a pretty rotten thing to do and I'm going to show you beyond a shadow of a doubt how it's always the worst of them who actually have the worst ideas. So, let's talk about this one. You probably seen these videos around about like, you know, inventory of my eBay store. This is the recent David Pelayo one. This is one from Resell Lotions Senor dame espacios para mis mierdas, right? And then this one is from Carry Home to you to stop doing this and then do this instead. So, we're going to be watching a couple of these clips together and I think you guys already know what I'm talking about. Some of you may have even adopted this system yourself, which is a running numeric system. Either you're buying like these yellow 8 by 8s by 30s, 8 by 8s by 20s, depending on the size of your shelf. And then what you have is things labeled after you poly bag them 0001, 0002 all the way to 2000 and so forth, right? But the problem with this thing is that yeah, it seems very simple. It seems very uniform, and then there's so many arguments to be made of how good it actually is, right? But actually, it's not that good. See, the issue with this is that if you are doing this running system, you can only add new product to the end of the system, otherwise, it won't be in the numerical uh graduation from lowest to highest anymore. So, what is the issue here? It's about consolidation. Every now and then, as you're selling stuff, your inventory starts to erode, it starts to swiss cheese. So, you have to compress, compress, compress. This particular video is going to talk about that right now, but the thing is that like it's more shown as a feature rather than an issue, so listen to this.

[00:02:45]>> one box, it starts getting really empty, what you're going to want to do is then move things in numerical order together, start smushing them back into a box.

[00:02:55]Sometimes it takes a little while to consolidate. Um I know we we've currently got 2,000 items on our store, and it can take like a whole hour of going through every single box and consolidating it, cuz some boxes may only have two items out of it, some boxes may have 15 items out of it, so you kind of have to kind of Tetris it to get everything scooted up, moved over, that way you have more space for new items, and you get boxes back and more shelf space. So, it's it's a necessity, it's like an evil necessity that you got to deal but An evil necessity, and yet the thumbnail of this thing is stop doing this, do this. Do the evil necessity. Okay, so what is my criticism about this? The problem with reselling as a whole is that often times the juice is not worth the squeeze. Why? Because there's too much minutia into this.

[00:03:50]You're doing stuff all the time that doesn't necessarily pay you. So, is it necessary that you have to compress, compile your inventory so that you can make space for more? Yes. Are you making money doing this? No, but you have to do this. And that is exactly what the argument is. Now, these are gurus who have been claiming what? That they've been doing this for years and therefore you should be listening to them. You should absolutely not be listening to them because they've been doing it for years and they've never come up with a better system. So, we're going to listen to Damian go through the same nonsense over here and I just want you to take a look at his setup.

[00:04:31]around there.

[00:04:32]Okay, so these I bought at Lowe's for about 48 bucks and they're they're they're fine. I can tell you though if you start putting really heavy stuff in the center, sometimes they start bowing, so just be careful with what you use. But let me explain how the system works.

[00:04:47]Let's start right here at the very bottom. This is where everything starts.

[00:04:51]So, how it starts is that it starts with the lowest number here and then it goes backwards and then it starts here again, backwards here again, backwards. Once you get to that backwards, then it goes up to this one. And then it goes backwards like that. So, it keeps going in a snake formation.

[00:05:08]Like this. So, over here to here, all the way to the left, top right, left, top right and then it keeps going like that.

[00:05:17]So, now the most important part about this is that everything is in numerical order. So, when you want to pick something out, you're like, "Okay, well which one is it?" It's number 1295. So, you're like, "Okay, 1294, 1295. Great.

[00:05:29]Awesome."

[00:05:30]So simple, right? Okay, so what I want to do now is show David's setup of, you know, over 12,000 items and then his explanation of what you have to do now and then just think about how often this needs to be done. somewhere in here.

[00:05:47]So, that SKU would be in here. That's how we find it. So, for example, we would start from this box right here.

[00:05:53]We'd scoot this one all the way back and then get some of these to continue the numbers.

[00:06:00]So, right here the next number would be a four-digit gap. So, we would fill [snorts] up this whole entire box until it's completely crammed. Push it back in. Scoot this back.

[00:06:14]And then continue the process and keep filling up, keep filling up, keep filling up, and just continue to do that until we have all the gaps completely Sound like fun?

[00:06:25]Does that sound like fun?

[00:06:27]Because when you get new inventory, they can only be added to the end of the inventory. So, this means that you constantly are trying to make more room and scooting stuff over.

[00:06:39]Okay. So, this kind of stuff, I just want to see you guys to see the reactions over here, okay?

[00:06:47]I don't know who this guy is, but if you read what this thing says right here, this guy is a 100% an eBay genius. Are you kidding me? This is what I mean.

[00:06:58]This is how you prey on the newbies in the area because they don't know what they don't know. So, they think this is so good because it's so simple on paper.

[00:07:08]It's so easy to wrap your head around.

[00:07:10]And this has affected all sorts of people because when you look at thumbnails like these, the best inventory system, there is a nasty echo chamber of this going on throughout all of the reselling community where everybody is buying this stuff. Because this is exactly how people get gaslit. You would be asking yourself, there's got to be a better way, right? But then all these people are yapping, "Oh, this is so good.

[00:07:38]That's genius. This is the best inventory system."

[00:07:42]And a reasonable person would what?

[00:07:45]Start to say, "Okay, maybe there's something that I don't see. Maybe there's something that I because everybody seems to be saying this. Is it just me? Is it is I'm the one that No."

[00:07:55]You are 100% correct. This is a garbage system. [laughter] That's what it actually is, okay? And the question is, where does this even come from? So, this was a podcast between my friend Joe and David Pelayo. And I want you to hear what David Pelayo has to say here. And then he showed me a Daily Refinement video. It was just clothing when he was doing it at at the time and I was like And then he was talking about um 100 a day or something like that that he was listing a day. We were doing We weren't even counting the amount of items we were doing. We were just doing it every day just going coming back with items, listing them.

[00:08:32]And then once we saw a structure a process that you can build the the inventory system, we had no idea what that even was. We were just had no idea what that even was, the inventory system. So, this is exactly where it came from. I think people really need to take a step back and then think about like the influence that this man has had on this whole, you know, community and the stuff that he's been putting out that was just just nonsense and just complete nonsense for years, right? So, uh I have a clip over here somewhere around 3:50 that I want you guys to see.

[00:09:11]>> the system with up to 20,000 items. I never really lost anything because it's so clear by what numbers are on here, what's missing and what's available. You sort your custom SKU and your pick list and you walk through your inventory system one time and pick number one, number seven, number 12 all the way up to your highest number instead of having to walk back and You see what I'm saying? So, nobody's catching on to this even though he has mentioned it before, but it comes off more as a feature than a problem.

[00:09:42]>> So, the way that you consolidate, because this is one of the biggest questions is these boxes will eventually empty out.

[00:09:49]And so, what you'll do is I work from left to right. So, back here is number 10. Since 11 has enough room, I would slide everything forward, put 11 in here, and I would slide everything in this box to the front, creating all this additional space. Sometimes the entire box is empty like this, and I'll put this all in here.

[00:10:10]Okay. So, the thing is, is there a better inventory system? Other people do have better inventory systems. So, uh I'm going to show you this one. This one is the uh Justin Resells version. Now, here's the thing. The all the people that I showed you guys was doing clothing. So, they had the tighter boxes. But, regardless if it was clothing or not, and Justin is more of an everything seller, this is the bin method, and I want you to listen to what the bin method is. And how I organize these banker boxes is I've got um So, basically, I think I've got like 10 shelves now, if I'm if I'm right. And on each shelf, uh or each like level of What do you call it? Like the layer of the shelf, um uh holds two or three banker boxes. And so, you you know, I end up getting about 10 to 15 banker boxes per shelf. And at 10 shelves, so fit probably 50 banker boxes. And So, I'm using all of that to store those thousand, uh roughly thousand items.

[00:11:09]Um and you If you look here, each banker box has a little code on it. And so, this one, like A3A. I want to say this.

[00:11:15]Uh I probably would have went number and then alpha numerical and then and then the the the number again, right? So, I would have been like number letter number instead. The reason is because uh A B C D E within a short range clicks in the brain very very easily. But, once you get to Q R S T U V, then you kind of like, you know, have to recite it to yourself just a little bit, be like, "Hey, what comes after what?" Because this is not the way that the brain normally thinks about stuff. Because most things are not, you know, alphabetized this way, right? Unless you're specifically looking for a last name. Now, the thing is that it had you went like, you know, the first one with the number so that it's with the shelves, so shelf 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 down to 30 depending on the size of your warehouse, that's a lot easier to work with knowing very well that shelf number 29 and 30, which direction to go. And then, as far as the middle digit should be a letter because usually shelves don't have more than four or five six tiers. So, it would be A B C D E F at most, and then we'll just stop there. Then, from left to right, you would have no more than, you know, three to four five at best the banker boxes. So, the third digit could never be more than one two three four five at most. And therefore, you know, having something like 15 B 3 makes a lot more sense rather than to have your uh letters on the outside. But, sure. I mean, you know, you you just got to think about it a a little bit more. But, the idea is this. You are now doing a bin system where every single item in here, A 3 A, is the SKU. And therefore, when you label this into your eBay, and then when you have to go find it later on, all you have to do is rummage through one box. And if there's only, you know, anywhere between like 10 12 15 items there, and you know what you're looking for, it's really not that difficult. So, you would do a lot less need for the other running system where you poly bagged everything, and then you have like, you know, running stickers.

[00:13:28]Like you have to buy the running stickers. You don't have to buy running stickers here. Whatever it is just gets tossed into this bin and then that's it.

[00:13:36]And the best part about this is that there's no consolidation here. Anywhere you go, once you have a bin that's a little bit low, then you could just use that bin and then bring it over to your counter and then whatever pictures that you take, everything goes into that bin and that bin that you're working with, everything is the exact same SKU of that bin. So, what happens is that this even though it seems like a little bit more complicated, a little bit more scattered, this is actually less work because there's no consolidation involved. Now, I'm going to show you another one. This is a Becky Park's inventory system and uh she actually has a hybrid system and I want you to listen to what she has to say about the way she handles her inventory. And the reason why I use this system where I have numbers 1 through 1,100 and I have a Ziploc bag that corresponds with each SKU is because I recycle these bags and I recycle my SKU numbers. So, I'll take you through the process of like how I, you know, even go from an item being purchased and photographed and then put in here and then shipped, but essentially once this item sells, I will take the item out of the bag and I will use this Ziploc bag again to put a new item in and the SKU 536 will no longer apply to this item because this item has sold and is out of my house. It'll apply to whatever new item goes in there.

[00:15:14]So, this is a hybrid running numerical system plus bins all at the same time. And when you think about what she's doing, you don't have to consolidate the stuff.

[00:15:26]So, now, here's the thing. Yes, is there a little bit more work with like popping into the Ziploc bag and then taking it back out the Ziploc bag? Absolutely.

[00:15:36]But, the question that you have to ask yourself is this, right? Which system actually has more touch points?

[00:15:45]Actually, the running numeric system originated by uh Daily Refinement here. Because every single time you need room, you have to touch everything. Everything has to get scooted over. While this one, you're only plugging back up the holes that eroded. So, anything that sells, you could then replace exactly the same space. So, you know, coming back, right? When you think about what reselling is, there's just too much minutia. There's you're doing too many things in order to make money. eBay is not actually passive [music] income. It's actually more like a job because you get what you put into it. So, for example, if you spend 1 hour listing, photographing, [music] putting stuff in, and shipping, and then you spend 1 hour sourcing, that's like 2 hours of [music] work. You can kind of expect how much money you're going to make from those items selling. Hell no.

[00:16:41]When has reselling ever been a one-to-one input to output ratio where you went out, sourced something, processed it, took photos, listed, and it guaranteed a sale. It doesn't guarantee a sale, and that's my point of it's not necessarily you get out of it exactly what you put in. See, here's the thing. Don't get oversold on simplicity where, oh, see, this is so easy, therefore, it will be easy. If we had to take an example, let's say we had a cottage at the top of the hill, and then we could either get two buckets and then bring water up the hill every single day or we could try to have some sort of a plumbing system. Which one is the easier concept? Which one is actually easier?

[00:17:28]Modern plumbing. The problem is you have to adopt this kind of complexity so that your daily operation, your life actually becomes easier. So, what happens is that many times when you think of all of these simple easy systems, they get subsidized by what? A lot of hard work and elbow grease. And that's exactly what I'm trying to show you guys with these inventory systems. The worst part about the whole thing is that it's coming from these people who just regurgitate stuff that they heard from Daily Refinement and now pose as gurus and then show you, "Hey, look. Look at the way I'm doing stuff." When really it's got the most touchpoints. And then you got people like Justin ReSellz and Becky Park who do not promote themselves as gurus with far better inventory systems. See, ultimately to solve all of their inventory problems is to simply just source better. To put all of your front-loaded efforts into better sourcing because when you have an actual professional warehouse and you're doing traditional business, what happens? You have an allocated spot designated for certain core inventory items. No different than a grocery store that can hire a stock boy just to reload cans of soup into the same spot over and over again. If anything, that's your simplicity right there because you've upgraded the whole model. The goal is not to be a better reseller. The goal is to build a business through selling stuff online. So, you want to what? Be a better business owner, a a better business operator. These gurus, these posers are people who never evolved because they tell you that they've done this stuff for years [music] and years and yet they're still using one of the worst inventory systems and still making videos about it today.

[00:19:28]Anyways, guys, that is the video. I hope you guys enjoyed it. If you did, please give it a big like and if you learned something, please consider subscribing.

[00:19:35]As always, see you guys in the next.

[00:19:37]Take care.