5 Essential Tips to Do E-commerce Inventory Control Management Right.
For e-commerce and retail companies, inventory management is a critical contributor to your business operations.
If you can bring down friction along your supply chain, you can not only cut costs but also keep your customers and employees happy. All in all, it makes the whole organisation move forward in a streamlined way, as it does for your bottom line.
However, doing inventory control management right is no walk in the park.
Ensuring inventory is where it’s supposed to be and that it gets there efficiently is a constant source of challenge for businesses, even the established ones.
For small businesses, it can be the difference between staying in the business or closing the shop.
If you’re in inventory-related trouble, here are five tips that will help you optimise your ecommerce management posture and streamline your inventory.
5 Tips That Will Help You Optimise Your e-Commerce Management
1.Think Beyond Inventory, Think Capacity
When you’re planning your inventory tracking, do you keep it limited to the inventory? – how much comes in and how much goes out?
If yes, then you’re tracking enough. Inventory control management is not just about inventory, it also encompasses capacity.
Tracking capacity means you’re also keeping tabs on assets like storage, equipment, and human resources.
Can you transport your product? Do you have enough space for it? If yes, how long do you have it for? Do you have enough people to do the job? These are some pressing questions that need answering.
If you have a complex supply chain, asset tracking tools like Ordazzle’s inventory management system can help. You can make better staffing decisions and better purchasing schedules using the insights from these tools to improve your inventory flow.
2. Automate Your Data Processes
Be it an SKU code or your location details, entering data by hand is time-consuming, resource-intensive, and prone to error.
Also, these repetitive tasks are bad for employee morale, as very few people like doing that kind of work. By investing in barcode scanners and similar logging technology, you can reduce the efforts required to do data entry and reduce errors enormously.
It saves the company time and money and also makes your employees channel their efforts into something meaningful.
3. Use a Centralized, Real-Time Database
Many companies today still use Excel and Spreadsheets to track their stockrooms. In some cases, this works—but barely.
However, if you wish to prepare your business for today’s fast-paced market environment, you need a centralised database that multiple users across multiple teams and locations can access and update in real-time.
This is the only way to get an accurate, end-to-end picture of your inventory needs and supply chain. Ordazzle’s inventory control management unifies inventory data across multiple warehouses and nodes and maintains real-time stock-in, stock-out, and allocated inventory data for all products and channels. It’s got everything you can ask for in an inventory control system.
4. Don’t Let Your Stock Go to Waste
Here’s the hard truth: inventory loses value over time. Yes, if you can’t sell something, it will take up valuable resources that could be used to sell popular items.
The best thing to do is move the products because placement is also an issue sometimes. Lowering the price using discounts and promotions is another way to get customers interested in a poor-performing product and save the stock from rotting.
If nothing works, dispassionately discard it. Sometimes, it’s better to let go. You can trash the item, mark it as a loss, or give it up as a donation.
But before you do all this, you need to have the right insights that suggest a particular course of action. Ordazzle makes it possible to adopt data-driven e-commerce management and make informed decisions that benefit profitability and reduce waste.
5. Forecast Effectively – Seasonal Rush? High sellers? Promotion? Marketing event?
Forecasting is an essential part of inventory control management. From your company’s capacity and your supplier’s supply to your customer’s demand, it is all about understanding when stock will be available and when it’ll be sold.
- What products sell the most, and how quickly?
- What might impact supply?
- What annual events might affect demand?
All these questions need to be answered if you want an inventory management system that runs smoothly.
Although tracking all products from one end of the value chain to the next is challenging, it can also be immensely rewarding. Companies that master inventory management quickly have additional resources for expansion and growth. Also, they tend to have happier employees and customers.
That’s what using the latest technology brings to the table – growth, adaptability, and efficiency.
Ordazzle – The One True Way to Do Inventory Control Management Right
Inventory control management systems are essential to running a successful business today. They provide insight into customer demand, allow companies to monitor their stock levels, and uncover trends that they can capitalise on in the future.
Ordazzle offers inventory control systems to manage the stock in your warehouse and easily meet your needs. Our dedicated order and warehouse features allow you to centralise your entire inventory and fulfilment process.
If you’d like to know more about Ordazzle, please explore our platform by visiting our website. For a more in-depth look, get in touch with us to learn more.