Improving Stocktaking Efficiency and Data Accuracy through a Mobile-Based Inventory Recording System for Traditional Market Retailers

Abstract

Many traditional retail MSMEs (Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises) in traditional markets need rapid customer service in bustle condition. However, current digital sales recording systems necessitate the creation of invoices, which could slow down customer service. Previous solutions have addressed this issue by developing desktop-based applications to record sales based on stock changes; however, these systems have limitations in terms of mobility, double-entry process, and accessibility during operational activities. This study aims to develop a web and mobile digital system to solve the issues. The mobile application was developed using Flutter, while the web application was built using ReactJS and integrated with a RESTful API server that was centralized in a cloud database provided by Supabase. The system was evaluated using black-box functional testing, first conducted by the developer and subsequently by end users, over three months using operational data. The testing results indicate that all system features operate as expected, including product management, stock input, stock verification, and automatic sales estimation. Furthermore, the operational impact analysis demonstrates time savings of 55% in the proposed method's stocktaking time compared with the previous method. Also, the proposed method reduced the error probability of input errors to 0.48%. Thus, the proposed system could efficiently support inventory and sales recording for traditional retail MSMEs.