We're a three year old small fishing tackle store - 800 sq ft, four employees. The store has done well and the outlook is good. I'd like to improve our method of re-ordering and of accounting for inventory using a barcode scanner.

My problem is I don't know what's available and reasonable for a very small business. Internet searches produce an overwhelming amount of detail, with no big picture (or little picture, in the case of our business). I have experience with systems and business processes and want to take baby steps and not get tangled up with technology or formal process.

My notion is to use a scanner to capture data and feed it to MS Access Database. A manual step to accomplish the data transfer would be OK. We'll also need a database that relates UPC codes to products. A combined scanner / register / software offering would be OK too, but probably would cost more than we're willing to spend.

I would be very grateful if someone who has done a similar thing could share their experiences and offer advice and counsel, the be-sure-to-do's, the look-out-for's and gotchas, and their conclusion about whether or not they realized the benefits they were after. We'd also appreciate any information and advice about products, suppliers, software, and so forth.

Thanks,