Inventory Management Platform for a German Retail Group

A mid-market German retail group ran its multi-location inventory on spreadsheets, point-of-sale exports, and supplier email threads. LNOKS designed and built a custom inventory management platform that consolidates shops and orders, customers and suppliers, asset tracking, bulk multi-asset export, and a real-time multi-functional dashboard into a single system of record - giving every location live stock visibility and head office one place to run the business.

1. 01

   Stock data was fragmented across locations

   Each shop and warehouse tracked stock in its own spreadsheet and POS export. Head office had no single, current view of what was in stock where, so transfers, purchasing, and reporting all ran on numbers that were hours or days out of date.

2. 02

   No real-time visibility led to stockouts and overselling

   Because counts were reconciled overnight at best, popular SKUs sold out in one location while sitting idle in another, and online and in-store channels oversold the same units. There was no live low-stock signal to trigger replenishment before shelves emptied.

3. 03

   Customers, suppliers, and assets lived in disconnected tools

   Customer records, supplier catalogs and lead times, and physical and digital assets were spread across email, shared drives, and separate apps. Pulling a report or exporting a batch of records for an audit or a supplier order meant hours of manual copy-paste.

• Shops & orders management

  A centralized order pipeline across every retail location and sales channel, with stock reserved, fulfilled, and reconciled against a single live inventory so the same unit can never be sold twice.

• Customers & suppliers management

  A unified directory that links every customer and supplier to their orders, pricing, and lead times — turning scattered contacts and email threads into structured, searchable records.

• Asset management

  Tracking for physical and digital assets — equipment, fixtures, product media, and documents — each tied to a location, owner, and status so nothing is lost or duplicated.

• Multi-asset bulk download & export

  One-click selection and export of thousands of records, images, and documents at once, replacing manual file-by-file downloads for audits, supplier orders, and reporting.

• Multi-functional dashboard

  A real-time command center surfacing stock levels, orders, low-stock alerts, and supplier and customer activity in one view, configurable per role from shop-floor staff to head office.

• Real-time multi-location stock sync

  Live inventory synchronization across all shops and warehouses, so a sale, return, or transfer in one location updates the system of record everywhere within seconds.

• Role-based access & audit trail

  Granular permissions and a full audit log so each location sees what it needs, head office sees everything, and every stock movement is traceable to a user and timestamp.

• 99.5%

  Inventory accuracy across all shops and warehouses once real-time sync replaced overnight manual reconciliation.

• 40%

  Reduction in inventory administration time as bulk export and automation removed manual reporting and reconciliation work.

• 30%

  Fewer stockouts and oversells after live low-stock alerts and cross-location visibility enabled proactive replenishment.

• 3x

  Faster order processing with a single pipeline replacing per-location spreadsheets and POS exports.

• 20+

  Retail locations and warehouses consolidated onto one inventory system of record within the first rollout.

1. 01
   Step 1 / 5

   Discovery and inventory audit: mapped every location, SKU, supplier, and existing tool to define one shared data model and the real workflows the platform had to replace.

2. 02
   Step 2 / 5

   Architecture and data model: designed a multi-location stock model on PostgreSQL with real-time sync, role-based access, and an audit trail at the core.

3. 03
   Step 3 / 5

   Core modules: built shops and orders, customers and suppliers, asset management, and the multi-functional dashboard against live test data.

4. 04
   Step 4 / 5

   Bulk operations and integrations: added multi-asset export, low-stock alerts, and connections to the existing point-of-sale and supplier data.

5. 05
   Step 5 / 5

   Rollout and iteration: migrated data, trained staff location by location, and refined the dashboard and alerts from real shop-floor feedback.