Inventory is the king in all businesses be it in the realm of ecommerce or otherwise. In fact, it will not be wrong to say that the future of businesses especially ecommerce ventures can depend upon the quality of inventory management carried out by the owning entities. In top performing marketplaces like eBay, Amazon, Jet.com, Rakuten etc, approach to inventory control can impact seller performance in terms of visibility, traffic, growth and overall revenues.
Considering its importance, here are 4 integral facts of inventory control that all sellers, especially the newer ones should bear in mind at all times…
Inventory management starts from the source of supply chain
If you wish to gain an infallible and all inclusive control on your inventory, manage the same right from the source of the supply chain. This means, keeping in touch with the wholesalers from whom you get your stock. This should be followed by calculated prediction of demands which should eventually guide you in re-stocking your warehouses as and when required without over loading the same or otherwise.
Poor inventory control can lead to unforgivable errors like overselling
Being out of touch with your inventory or guess working through the course of selling can lead to rather unforgivable errors like overselling / underselling, each of which is intolerable to ecommerce marketplaces especially eBay, Amazon, jet.com and Walmart.com. Sellers who invite such troubles are usually warned or shown the door.
Mismanaged inventory can affect profits
Being out of touch with your inventory can often lead to problems like over stocking of warehouses, losing track of shelved products in warehouses etc. each of which can take significant bites out of any profits so made.
Automation is the key to faultless inventory management
Whether you sell on Walmart, eBay, Amazon or any other marketplace for that matter, you will never be able to establish faultless control on your inventory these days without proper automation solutions. This applies even more in case of multichannel sellers that may be present in two or more marketplaces at the same time.
keeping a tab on how much stock is lying in which warehouse of which marketplace followed by the units that have been shipped, units that are shelved, units that have been returned topped with alerts on low stock etc is easier when controlled through one single user interface and that too without any manual involvement at all.
You also need to understand that ‘Real time’ is more than just two words. If your software solution supports real time inventory management, you can be rest assured that you will continue to maintain your lead through thick and thin.