If you’ve ever wondered, is inventory turnover a percentage? you’re not alone. It’s a common question that businesses ask because it’s such an important metric. Inventory turnover measures how efficiently a business is selling its products and is used to assess the health of the business.

A high inventory turnover ratio means that the business is selling its products quickly and efficiently, while a low ratio indicates that the business may be struggling to sell its products. So, is inventory turnover a percentage? And how do you calculate it? Keep reading to find out everything you need to know about this key metric.

Inventory Turnover Definition

Inventory turnover is a measure of how many times a company’s inventory is sold or used in a time period, such as a year. It is calculated by dividing the cost of goods sold by the average inventory. A high inventory turnover means that a company is selling a lot of inventory and replacing it quickly. A low inventory turnover means that a company is selling less inventory and it is taking longer to turn over.

Is Inventory Turnover A Percentage? Understanding Inventory Turnover

The inventory of a company is an account of all the goods it has, including raw materials, work in progress, and finished goods that will be sold. The inventory typically includes finished goods, such as clothing in a department store.

Inventory can also include raw materials that go into the production of finished goods. For example, a clothing manufacturer would consider taking an inventory of the fabric used to make the clothing.

The number of times that a business sells and replaces its stock over a given period of time is known as its turnover rate. This indicates how effectively the business is managing its costs related to sales and production.

Inventory turnover is a measure of how many times a company sells and replaces its stock of goods in a period. A high inventory turnover means that the company is selling goods quickly and there is considerable demand for its products.

Low inventory turnover, on the other hand, would likely indicate weaker sales and declining demand for a company’s products. Inventory turnover also shows whether a company’s sales and purchasing departments are in sync. Ideally, inventory should match sales.

Calculating Inventory Turnover

Inventory turnover is a ratio that measures how many times a company’s inventory is sold and replaced over a period.

To calculate the inventory turnover ratio, divide the cost of goods sold (COGS) by the average inventory for the same period.

Inventory turnover rate formula: Cost of goods sold / average inventory = inventory turnover rate

Average inventory is used in the ratio because companies might have higher or lower inventory levels at certain times of the year.

To calculate the turnover rate, you first take the cost of sales for the period and divide it by your average stock. The inventory formula:

Turnover Rate = Cost of Sales / (Average Stock + Beginning of Period).

The formula for calculating days’ supply is: Days’ Supply = (Ending Quantity – Beginning Quantity) / (Quantity Sold / 365) Reworded: To work out your number of days’ supply of a product, you subtract your starting quantity from your end number, then multiply that by 365.

Inventory levels are different for different companies, so the average is used to determine a ratio of how many salespeople are needed.

(BBY) would have higher inventories leading up to the holiday season, and they would lower their stock count after the holidays.

Days Sales of Inventory or Days Inventory

DSI = 365 inventory turnover For example, if a company’s inventory turnover is 10, its DSI would be 365 10, or 36.5 days. This means that on average it takes the company 36.5 days to sell all of its inventory.

DSI is a helpful metric for managing inventory levels and cash flow. By understanding how quickly inventory turns over, businesses can make better decisions about stock levels and working capital needs.

A low Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) is optimal since it translates to less time spent turning your inventory into money. But DSO can vary greatly between different industries.

Comparing DSI between companies in the same industry can help investors get a better understanding of how each company is performing. For instance, grocery chains like Kroger tend to have lower DSI than automobile manufacturers such as GM.

Example of an Inventory Turnover Calculation

For 2019, Walmart had sales of $514.4 billion dollars, a 2.4% increase from 2018. Their inventory was $44.3 billion, a 0.4% decrease from 2018. Their COGs were $385.3, a 0.3% decline from 2018.

Walmart’s inventory turnover for the year was 2.1 times.

Walmart’s inventory turnover for the year equaled 8.75. This means that, on average, Walmart was able to sell its entire inventory about 8.75 times throughout the year.

Its days of supply are:

To calculate its inventory turnover, divide: $1,000,000 ÷ $23,200 = 43.48 times Its inventory turnover equals: (1 ÷ 8.75) x 365 = 42days To calculate its inventory turnover, divide: $1,000,000 by $23,200 which equals 43.48 times.

This means that, on average, it takes 42 days for an item to be sold at Walmart.

Special Considerations

The Inventory Turnover Ratio is a measure of how efficiently a business turns its stock into sales and shows whether the company is purchasing too many or too few products.

The sales-to-inventory ratio shows how well a business is managing its stock. If the company’s revenue is down, it could be because the economy is doing poorly.

A lower employee turnover means you have more employees selling the same number of products.

A high ratio of available stock to sold goods could negatively impact a company’s bottom line, as there may not be enough product to satisfy customer demand. The inventory turnover rates should be compared to industry standards to determine if the company is effectively controlling its supply.

Inventory Turnover Optimization Techniques

There are many strategies that retail businesses can employ to increase their inventory turnover.

There are many ways to improve your stock turnover. Some of these methods involve increasing demand for your inventory through marketing, renegotiating your supplier prices, and asking customers to place orders in advance.

Other ways you can increase turnover include, double-checking your prices, grouping similar inventories, choosing products that sell well, and changing your marketing strategies.

You can also use an inventory management system to keep track of your sales and inventory. With the right software, you can be able to discover the health of your business.

Conclusion

Inventory turnover is a key metric for businesses because it measures how efficiently they are selling their products. A high inventory turnover ratio means that the business is selling its products quickly and efficiently, while a low ratio indicates that the business may be struggling to sell its products.

So, if you’re wondering, ”is inventory turnover a percentage?” the answer is yes! You can calculate your inventory turnover ratio by dividing your sales by your average inventory.