Why

At 200–500 inquiries/month across WhatsApp, Instagram DM, phone, and a web form, solo, you've passed the line where memory and scroll-back work — that's roughly 10–25 a day landing in four different inboxes. Your real money is in the "retouch to keep warm and reorders" loop, which is exactly what a CRM's follow-up date field exists for, and exactly what no spreadsheet will surface reliably at your volume. Inventory is a separate, physical-world problem and belongs in a tool built for it.

What you actually need

1. Zoho Bigin ($7/user/mo, free tier available) — one pipeline: New Inquiry → Booked → Serviced → Reorder Due. Every serviced client gets a "Next Touch" date 2–3 weeks out. This is the only thing that keeps reorders warm at your volume.
2. Sortly (free tier, paid from ~$24/mo) — phone-based inventory app with photos, quantities, and low-stock alerts. Built for exactly this: physical items in a kit you carry. Don't try to track gear in your CRM.
3. WhatsApp Business labels (free) — labels: "New", "Screening", "Booked", "Repeat". Tap-assign in 2 seconds per chat. Cuts your 10–25 daily WhatsApp inquiries down to a triage view instead of a wall of unread.

Do this today

Sign up for Zoho Bigin at bigin.com on the free tier, then in Pipelines → Edit Pipeline rename the stages to: Inquiry → Screened → Booked → Serviced → Reorder Due. Add a required field called "Next Touch Date" on every record. By tomorrow morning you open one filtered view — "Next Touch Date ≤ today" — and that's your entire reorder/retention workday in one screen instead of scrolling four apps.

What to ignore

Skip HubSpot Sales Hub, Salesforce Essentials, and anyone pitching "all-in-one CRM with inventory" like Zoho One — at solo, you'll spend more time configuring than servicing. Ignore Respond.io and other unified-inbox tools at $79+/mo until you have a second person; for now WhatsApp labels and IG's native inbox are enough. Don't let an Instagram automation seller tell you a chatbot will pre-qualify — at your stage, screening is the work, not the overhead.

What doing nothing costs you

Your conversion is already ~5–15% (20–30 serviced from 200–500 inquiries), so the upstream funnel is fine — the leak is downstream, in reorders you forget to chase. Every regular who quietly drifts is worth far more than a new inquiry, and without a "Next Touch" date you have no way to see them slipping until they're gone.

When to revisit this

When you bring on a second person — screener, driver, or partner — and two of you start touching the same chat.