Salon Inventory App: Track Backbar and Retail Stock for Free
Published · 2 min read
A salon inventory app should tell you, in seconds, how many tubes of 7.1 are left, whether the purple shampoo on the retail wall needs a top-up, and where the last color delivery went. Hoardo does this for free. Every shelf, drawer and delivery box becomes a numbered box, every product goes in as an item with a count, and search finds any shade across all of them.
Map the salon in five boxes
Start with the places products actually live, not with a product list:
- Backbar. The shelf behind the basins and stations, with what you use on clients.
- Color drawer. Tubes, developers and lighteners, sorted however your colorists like.
- Retail wall. What clients can buy, kept apart from what you use.
- Deliveries. A box for each order until it's unpacked, so nothing sits forgotten in the back.
- Linen. Towels, capes and gowns, if you want them counted too.
Give each box a number and a place note, such as "Under basin 2". Set its fullness so a nearly empty shelf stands out.
Count color and developer before you order
Color is where money disappears: a shade bought twice, or a client booked for a shade you ran out of. Before you order, open the color drawer and correct the counts. It takes a minute because you only touch what changed.
To add products, type them, say them ("six tubes of 7.1 and four litres of 6 percent developer"), or take a photo of the open drawer and let Hoardo list what it sees.
Keep retail stock apart from backbar products
The same shampoo can sit on the backbar and on the retail wall. Keeping them in separate boxes shows what you use against what you sell, and stops staff pulling retail stock into the basins. Search for the product and you see both, each with its own count.
Label shelves so anyone can check
Print a QR label for each shelf and drawer. Anyone on the team can point a phone camera at it and see what should be there, which helps when the person who usually orders is off.
What Hoardo isn't
Hoardo doesn't connect to your booking or till system, and it doesn't reorder for you. It's a clear, shared record of what's on each shelf. For a small salon, that's often the part that's missing.
Running a bar or restaurant too?
The same setup works for bottles and kitchen stock. See the bar inventory app guide for counting bottles shelf by shelf, and the restaurant inventory app guide for the walk-in and dry store.
Free for the whole salon
Hoardo is free for all your boxes and items. There's no billing and no paid tier, so adding a second color drawer or a new retail line costs nothing. For a wider comparison, see our roundup of free inventory apps.
