Okuzeka
Sales & Retail vocabulary · Merchandising & Stock

Inventory

Meaning in sales & retail, with examples

/ˈɪnvəntɔːri/nounCore term

In sales & retail, inventory means: All the goods a business has in stock and available to sell, or a detailed list of them.

In Turkish: stok, envanter, mal mevcudu

How it is used

More common in US English; UK retail often says stock. You manage, track, count or reduce inventory. Inventory levels, inventory turnover and inventory management are key retail ideas. Too much inventory ties up cash; too little leads to stockouts.

Example sentences

  1. We need to reduce inventory before the new collection arrives.

  2. The system updates inventory every time an item is scanned at the till.

Common collocations

  • manage inventory
  • inventory levels
  • inventory count
  • excess inventory
  • inventory management
  • stocktakeA full count of all the goods a shop or warehouse has, done to check that the real stock matches the records.
  • restockTo fill shelves or a shop again with new supplies of goods that have been sold, or to order more of a product.
  • out of stockNot available to buy at the moment because the shop or warehouse has none left.
  • SKUStock keeping unit: a unique code a retailer gives to each version of a product, so that each size, colour or pack type can be tracked separately.
  • shrinkageThe difference between the stock a shop should have according to its records and what it actually has, caused by theft, damage, mistakes or fraud.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Merchandising & Stock

Practise with graded reading

Reading at the right level is the fastest way to make new words stick. Pick free English books by level: