Inside a Bohaus Sprint: A Farm Supply Store

The situation

The client is an owner-led hardware and farm supply store. One location in a rural market, the owner on the floor and in the office, a buyer who also manages the yard, a few counter staff and seasonal help. Sales run through a point-of-sale system such as Epicor Eagle, Spruce or similar. Orders go to a cooperative wholesaler and a handful of direct vendors.

Reordering is done from memory and by walking the aisles. The buyer knows the store well, but the seasons move fast. In spring, seed, fencing, garden supplies and chick starter can sell out before the reorder lands. In fall, heaters and de-icer run out in the first cold week. Meanwhile, slow items sit in the back room for years.

The point-of-sale system has been recording every sale the whole time.

What the sprint finds

In Discover, we walk the aisles and the yard with the buyer, sit in on an ordering session, and export the store's sales and purchase history.

The data is there, but it is messy. The same item has been set up under more than one number. Vendor item numbers are missing. Some sales are rung as a miscellaneous item with a typed description. Minimums and reorder points in the system were set long ago and ignored since.

In Diagnose, reorder suggestions from sales history rank first. But the cleanup has to come before the suggestions. AI helps match duplicate items and fill missing vendor numbers from vendor catalogs, and staff confirm each match before it is saved. The buyer flags the items that matter most in each season.

What it builds

In Build, we clean the item file, then set up reorder suggestions inside the point-of-sale system, or in a connected spreadsheet where the system's own tools are limited.

For each item, the system looks at sales over the same weeks in prior years, the recent trend, vendor lead time, and what is on hand and on order. Ahead of each vendor's order day, it produces a suggested order. Seasonal items get an earlier window, so stock lands before the rush rather than during it. Items that have not sold in a long time are flagged for markdown or return.

The buyer reviews the suggestions, edits quantities and approves. The owner approves purchase orders above a set amount. Nothing is ordered automatically.

Hand over

In Hand over, the buyer learns the system in depth, including how to adjust lead times, seasonal windows and reorder rules. A counter lead learns how to set up new items so the file stays clean. A playbook covers item setup rules, what to do when a vendor substitutes a product, and who owns the system.

The owner gets a dashboard of stockouts on key items, inventory on hand by category and slow-moving stock, plus a 30/60/90-day roadmap.

What changes

The spring rush starts with full shelves. The first cold week finds heaters in stock. Ordering takes less time, because the buyer edits a suggestion instead of starting from a blank sheet. Less cash sits in items that do not move. The item file stays clean, because new items follow one setup rule.

The buyer's experience still drives the order. It now starts from the store's own history.

What this means for your business

The data you need to decide is often already in your system. It just has to be cleaned and put to work.

For a farm supply store, that is sales history. For a pawn shop, intake records. For a small museum, one contact record.

That is a Bohaus Sprint: six weeks, fixed scope, four phases (Discover, Diagnose, Build, Hand over), and one live system inside the tools you already use, with a trained team, a playbook, a dashboard and a 30/60/90-day roadmap.