Small business owner that needs help with doing a daily inventory on thousands of products

[lmossola]

I will try my best to explain this, but I am definitely a basic user of excel. I started a small online business using drop shipping which means I have several different companies that I sell products from. At this point I have about 8 different companies but have to update my inventory daily to make sue that items are in stock or out of stock are posted correctly. I use quick shopping cart which allows me to keep my inventory in excel worksheets. Everyday I have to go to each business website that I sell things from and get their inventory and match it to mine, the problem is I am not selling everything each company offers and have to sort through thousands of products manually each day. A better description might be that I go to Drop Ship Company #1 which has an excel file for their entire inventory of 20,000 products, of those 20,000 products I am only selling 1500 products. All of my upc numbers match each companies, but I still have to go through 20,000 products, delete the ones I am not using, then match in stock and out of stock items with my 1500 products. I have to do this for each company I go through everyday to keep my inventory up to date. I know there has to be a way that I can set up excel to automatically delete upc numbers that do not match and then change my stock status if need be I just do not know where to start or even how I would do something like that. I cannot afford to pay a company or person to do this for me and must learn on my own how to make life a little but easier for me so I can get through this inventory faster and be able to add more products. Thank you for your time, i hope my post makes sense if not please feel free to ask any questions and thank you to anyone willing to help me out!

[FDibbins]

Hi and welcome to the forum

From the sounds of it, something like a vlookup or index/match will help find your products in their list, and return the stock qty. But i would suggest you upload a sample work book, (all sensitive data removed), showing what data you are working with, a few examples of what your expected outcome is, and how you arrived at that
To attach a file to your post,
click advanced (next to quick post),
scroll down until you see "manage file",
click that and select "add files" (top right corner).
click "select files" find your file, click "open" click "upload" click 'done" bottom right. click "submit reply"

Once the upload is completed the file name will appear below the input boxes in this window.
You can then close the window to return to the new post screen.

[Pepe Le Mokko]

There are also lots of free templates out there for inventories and stock management. Perhaps your solution is just waiting for you

[lmossola]

example workbook.xlsx

I will try my best to explain this, but I am definitely a basic user of excel. I started a small online business using drop shipping which means I have several different companies that I sell products from. At this point I have about 8 different companies but have to update my inventory daily to make sue that items are in stock or out of stock are posted correctly. I use quick shopping cart which allows me to keep my inventory in excel worksheets. Everyday I have to go to each business website that I sell things from and get their inventory and match it to mine, the problem is I am not selling everything each company offers and have to sort through thousands of products manually each day. A better description might be that I go to Drop Ship Company #1 which has an excel file for their entire inventory of 20,000 products, of those 20,000 products I am only selling 1500 products. All of my upc numbers match each companies, but I still have to go through 20,000 products, delete the ones I am not using, then match in stock and out of stock items with my 1500 products. I have to do this for each company I go through everyday to keep my inventory up to date. I know there has to be a way that I can set up excel to automatically delete upc numbers that do not match and then change my stock status if need be I just do not know where to start or even how I would do something like that. I cannot afford to pay a company or person to do this for me and must learn on my own how to make life a little but easier for me so I can get through this inventory faster and be able to add more products. Thank you for your time, i hope my post makes sense if not please feel free to ask any questions and thank you to anyone willing to help me out!

I have attached a workbook to try and show what I am asking.

[FDibbins]

Thanks. and it is unnecessary to "reply with quote" unless there is a specific comment you wish to high-light from a post

[FDibbins]

OK, im trying to work my way through your work-flow, and will make suggestions as I go. Correct me if i go wrong anywhere and give feed-back as appropriate...

on sheet2, add this, copied down, to G7...
=IFERROR(VLOOKUP(A7,Sheet1!B:B,1,FALSE),"Not Used")

This will highlight the products you have/dont have
then, I highlighted your entire table from row 5 down, and applied filters...all you need to do then is uncheck anything that isnt "not used", you can then delete what remains (if needed, im not sure yet that you need to delete those rows)

[lmossola]

Sorry for the late response, it took me some time to sit down and try to figure all that out, but I do thank you so much for the info. Where would copy the formula =IFERROR(VLOOKUP(A7,Sheet1!B:B,1,FALSE),"Not Used", or where would I put that, would it be in the box next to fx? Im sorry but this is extremely confusing and like I said before I am a basic user of excel, so im no sure if I will be able to understand what you are trying to tell me, but I really appreciate the feedback and help!

LeeAnn Glidden