I never really thought twice about why retail furniture stores had names for their furniture collections until I got into the staging business and began purchasing my own inventory. It quickly became clear that it can be difficult to describe yet another rectangular cherry coffee table with a glass top and lower shelf. I probably own 12 different coffee tables that could match that description.

Then I had that light bulb moment — that’s why stores have the Travis collection or the Luke collection! When was the last time you browsed a furniture catalog and ran across “Cherry Coffee Table with Glass Top just $999!” Can you imagine, going into a store and saying, “Yes, I am looking for your round mahogany kitchen table.”

If it works for retail, it can work for your staging business too. I think it makes a lot of sense to name your furniture collections. With Darby Inventory, you can have a name and a description so you might have the Holly Dining Table in the Name field and round black distressed plank table in the description field. The good news is you can search on any of those key words to find just what you are looking for too.

Don’t think you you will remember the names you assign to your furniture? You just might be surprised. Try associating your names with your clients. For example, if you purchased a particular piece of furniture for a client named Jessica, that might be what you name that sofa. If you like a certain coffee table, end table, and dining table with that set, the entire collection becomes the Jessica. If the client name does not make sense, maybe you LOVED the way some of your furniture looked in the house you staged on Sherman. That entire house of furniture can become the Sherman collection.

Give it some thought — the process can actually be fun too!

We received a GREAT testimony from Staging Denver on how using Darby Inventory for Home Stagers has helped their business! Feel free to contact Sarah Dukes at Staging Denver for questions or feedback after reading this.

What a snowy day…….. We can’t afford a snow day today. We have three jobs lined up before Friday, and it is already Wednesday. Will Staging Denver be able to come through for their clients, or will the weather conquer our success for the week? If we didn’t have Darby Inventory for Home Stagers, the weather would have won!

As Geri and I were snowed in at separate places with no way to get to our inventory to see what was in stock, we turned to our computers and logged on to Darby Inventory. We were able to see exactly what was available and where it was. We were also able to pull up sales orders to see what was coming out and what may be available for the next three jobs.

Sipping hot chocolate and watching the flakes accumulate, our team pulled together all we needed without moving a muscle (except our delicate finger muscles, of course).  So what does Darby Inventory have to offer that this experience may not have covered? Need to figure out if you have gotten your money’s worth on those adorable zebra pillows? Darby’s got you covered. Just go to Reports: click on pillows and see where they are, where they’ve been, where they’re going, how much you paid; and is it really worth selling - or should you continue to send them out to make more money for you?

Where is that camel sofa? Okay, so you have 3 camel sofas. Do a search and pull up all the camel sofas to see what’s on hand, what’s going out and which ones are already out. Darby also offers a customer database, photos of your entire inventory, sales order print outs, barcode print outs and so much more.

Tammie from Darby Inventory and Pineapple Interiors is the ‘mastermind’ behind all of this, and it is incredibly easy to work with her. She will listen to your needs, adapt what is adaptable, and maybe even offer a little IT support. What baffles me is how she can be a ‘left brain meets right brain amazing creative stager computer geek’-all bundled into one person.

No matter the size of your inventory I can find a good reason why all home stagers could and should be using Darby Inventory for Home Stagers.
Sarah Dukes