INTRODUCTION

About InvenTree

InvenTree is an inventory management system dedicated for small-medium sized businesses. It takes inventory and sales data from users, providing its analysis and recommendations for effective inventory management.

INSPIRATION

How shaved ice discovered a problem

Years ago, my friends and I joined a fundraising event where we sold different kinds of food and beverages. An item we had was shaved ice, also known as "es campur" in Indonesia. Topped with syrup, fresh fruits, and condensed milk, paired with the hot Indonesian weather, it really quickly became a best-selling item and we sold out really quickly. We restocked for the second day, but we ran out not even thirty minutes in. For the last day, we got even more ingredients to sell more of our shaved ice but were still unable to keep up with the demands. We were just a bunch of students with zero idea on how to run a business and no knowledge of inventory management.

Fast forward a few years later, I was having some shaved ice with my friends while talking about small businesses and how easy it is for them to end up losing money in a society where competition is everywhere. This conversation led me to remember the shaved ice story from my early college years, which got me thinking, what if there was a solution that helps business owners, even those with zero experience of running a business, manage their inventories easily and effectively?

UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM

Digging the root of the problem

As per the wise say, to effectively solve a problem, we cannot just cut off the branches, but we have to go straight to the root. In order to do this, we used the Five Whys Method.

OUR VISION

What we want for our product

Now that the root of the problem has been located, we began the brainstorming step of our project. During the brainstorming process, we narrowed down the three key criteria that our solution needs to meet:

1 It needs to cover the main inventory related needs: Managing, Forecasting, and Planning.

There are a number of factors required to effectively manage inventories and ensure a business' success. We want to give business owners a platform not only to manage inventory, but also to aid in their decision making processes.

2 It has to offer flexibility and is adaptable for the different scenarios in a business.

Although out target users are small-medium sized businesses, we want out platform to be usable by everyone, no matter the field, condition, or size, can use. Our solution offers a degree of flexibility in which business owners can manage and sort their inventories according to their personal preferences.

3 It needs be easy-to-use and intuitive, even for users with zero business background.

The owners of small-medium sized businesses can come from different backgrounds. We want out application to be usable for everyone and for the users to be able to get the most benefit as they can from the product.

OUR PERSONA

Our main persona

Our main persona for this project is HERA Beauty, a beauty brand that focuses on creating sustainable and inclusive makeup. HERA Beauty has been around for almost two years now, but three months ago, one of their products went viral on social media and they experienced a sudden increase in orders. They have never had this many sales before and they are unsure of how they should go on with the business. They want to meet the customers' demand as much as possible, but they also do not want to overestimate the demand and end up with too many excess products.

THE USER JOURNEY

Using our product

We created our user flow to understand the user's journey and better visualize the key pages for our product. This process helped us eliminate unnecessary pages and plan the product's architecture.

OUR DESIGN DECISIONS

Promoting inspiration and productivity

During the process of deciding on the color palette and the typography for InvenTree, we had a goal of creating a platform that makes the users motivated to work. We utilized color psychology in the choosing of our color scheme. We used colors that are easy for users to understand what message we are trying to convey with the colors.

Headings — Inter, Semi Bold

Paragraph texts — Inter, Medium

OUR SOLUTION

The key features we've made

HOMEPAGE

Users will be able to see their monthly account summary and account notifications in this page. We display the four main information that the user needs as a starting point for their next task which are: Revenue Goal, Quarterly Sales Performance, Stock vs Sales Comparison, and Account Alerts.

INVENTORY LIST

The Inventory page shows the stock list of all the products the business sells. It displays the stock on a monthly basis. Users are able to edit the items' details, number of items, and also add or delete items.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Answering your questions

To address important questions regarding the product, future steps, and reflections, we have compiled the questions below:

InvenTree

An inventory management app designed for small-medium sized businesses that can manage, plan, and predict.

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TIMEFRAME

CONTEXT

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