For independent shops & general retail # Stock control for a shop, without buying a whole point of sale. Most retail inventory software is a till with stock control bolted on, priced for a chain and sold with a card reader you did not ask for. If what you actually need is to know what is on the shelf, where it is, and what to reorder, this is that and nothing else. Built by Blue Crane Works in Hamilton, Ontario. One product, as this trade describes it Example TYPEPower tool BRANDDEWALT SIZE / COLOUR20V · bare tool CONDITIONOpen box BARCODE885911544962 STOCK NUMBERS-0042 Three fields and a barcode. Brand, because a DEWALT and a no-name are different money. Size or colour, because that is what a customer asks for. Condition, because an open-box unit is not a new one and should never be priced as though it were. [Try the demo](https://inventory.bluecraneworks.ca/?new=1) [Ask a question](mailto:hello@bluecraneworks.ca?subject=Blue%20Crane%20Inventory) The real app, free for 10 days. No card. Nothing to install. Your categories, already there ## Sixty-five categories, from apparel to pet supplies Twelve groups covering what an independent shop actually carries, with room to add whatever yours does that nobody else does. Apparel & Accessories Footwear Electronics Home & Kitchen Tools & Hardware Grocery & Consumables Health & Beauty Toys & Games Sporting Goods Office & Stationery Pet Supplies General Built around this trade ## What it does that a generic tool will not. 01 ### Scan the barcode, the product comes up Use the phone camera or a handheld scanner gun, or just type the number. If you already stock it, the app takes you straight to the record so you can add to the count or take one off. If you do not, it opens a new product with the barcode already filled in. 02 ### New, open box, used and damaged are priced apart Four condition grades, and the price memory keeps them separate. What you charged for an open-box unit never drags down what the app suggests for a new one, because they were never the same thing. 03 ### Prices come from what you actually charged Never an internet average. Every price you set is remembered against that kind of product at that condition, and the next one like it is suggested from your own history at your own margins. No history means it reads unpriced, not zero. A wrong price you quote a customer is worse than a blank one. 04 ### A public page for the stock you want seen Optional, and off until you turn it on. It publishes only what is in stock, priced and complete, on a link you can put in an ad or a bio. No carts, no buyer accounts, no payments — somebody sees what you have and messages you about it. 05 ### It works in the stockroom with no signal Search answers from a copy held on the phone, and anything you record in the back uploads the moment you have bars again. If a request drops at the wrong moment, the app knows the difference between one that never arrived and an answer that got lost, so tapping again never takes a second unit off the shelf. 06 ### Count a shelf without closing the shop Walk an area, type what is actually there, and the app works out every difference and files the whole walk as one record. An empty box means you did not count that line, never zero — the difference between a shelf you checked and one you skipped is the entire integrity of a count. Straight about the edges ## What this is not, said plainly The fastest way to waste your afternoon is to trial the wrong category of product. So, before you sign up: ### It is not a point of sale It does not take payment, open a till, or print a receipt. If you need to ring a customer through, you need a POS, and this sits beside one rather than replacing it. ### It is not accounting It tracks cost and margin against a product if you enter them. It does not file anything or talk to your bookkeeper. ### No purchase orders or receiving workflow yet You get an editable reorder list you can send to a supplier. Receiving is a plus-quantity entry. An honest not-yet. ### No staff roles yet The bench tablet locks the crew out of your prices, which covers most of it. Per-person permissions are not built. The shape of a record ## What this trade's setup actually looks like. Business type · retail-general Live CATEGORIES65 product types in 12 groups EACH PRODUCT CARRIESbrand · size / colour · sold by CONDITIONNew · Open box · Used · Damaged IDENTIFIERSbarcode · SKU · supplier code STOCK NUMBERSS-0001 stock · N-0001 new / boxed FINISHwhite, for a counter in daylight Common questions ## Asked by owners, answered straight. ### Is this a point of sale? No, and deliberately so. It does not take payment or print receipts. It answers what you have, where it is, what it is worth and what to reorder. If you need to ring customers through, keep your till and run this beside it. ### Will it scan the barcodes already on my products? Yes. Manufacturer barcodes (UPC and EAN) work with the phone camera, a handheld scanner gun, or typed in. You can also carry your own SKU and your supplier's code on the same product. ### Can I sell from it? Not directly. You can publish an optional public page of in-stock, priced products on a link you share, and somebody messages you about what they see. There are no carts, buyer accounts or payments, and there never will be. ### What happens when the ten days are up? It goes read-only, not dark. You keep every record and can keep looking things up; you just cannot add or change until you subscribe. Nothing is deleted and nothing is held hostage. After that it is $24.99 a month. ### Does it handle more than one location? Yes. Shops, stockrooms, containers and vehicles are all just places stock lives, and the whole-business total is the default view. One tap narrows it to any one of them. ### Where does my data live? Photos are stored in Microsoft Azure's Canada Central region in Toronto. Catalogue records and AI processing use Azure services in the United States. Your data is never used to train AI models. Not your trade? ## The same instrument, other vocabularies. [Blue Crane InventoryThe whole product, for any kind of stock business](https://bluecraneworks.ca/inventory) [Garage door inventory softwareSprings, track, openers, and the truck counted as stock](https://bluecraneworks.ca/garage-door-inventory-software) [Salvage yards & auto recyclersPhoto-first cataloguing for a yard, set up with you rather than self-serve](https://bluecraneworks.ca/solutions/inventory-systems.html) ## Know what is on the shelf. Count it once, keep it honest by working, and find out what to reorder before a customer finds out for you. [Try the demo](https://inventory.bluecraneworks.ca/?new=1) --- Source: https://bluecraneworks.ca/retail-inventory-software