What is the biggest problem faced in growing eCommerce businesses? It is not the effective online presence of your business or an engaging social media presence. All the problems occur in inventory management, and not every online business can manage it effectively.
As you spread your business into different channels, the order volume also increases and slowly becomes complex. And the time comes when manual inventory administration starts to fail, and you will need a sophisticated solution for order fulfillment.
In this article, we have discussed the benefits of inventory administration, the advantages of cloud-based inventory software, and how you can choose the right software for your business. So, let’s start with the definition of inventory handling for a better understanding.
What Is Inventory Management?
Managing inventory, in simple words, is keeping track of all the operation that happens between the order placement and product dispatch to the customers. It is a very crucial part of the supply chain that goals to deliver the right product in the right place and at the right time to the consumers. And to fulfill this demand, inventory administration includes three basic steps, i.e., purchase inventory, storage and warehouse management, and profiting from inventory.
Inventories can be spread to many channels, and e-commerce businesses need to access the whole information in one place. Then you need to have an accurate inventory management system to manage the whole supply chain. Read our previous blog to learn more about supply chain management software.
Below we have some advantages of the inventory management system in detail.
5 Effective Benefits Of Inventory Management
Though there can be several benefits of inventory control, we have mentioned the most effective advantages that are seen in inventory control.
1. Increase Accuracy And Efficiency
The implementation of proper inventory management helps to identify the figure of inventory need to keep in the stacks. Ultimately it helps to manage the space in the warehouses and provide enough storage for the new inventory. This helps to increase the accuracy and efficiency of the supply chain, which results in the growth of the business.
2. Reduce The Cost Of Doing Business
The efficient management of inventory minimizes errors, which means fewer errors require fewer resources to fix it. The organized inventory system also helps to manage over stacking and reduces the amount of money spent on holding them. This helps to notify the warehouse manager to replenish the stocks and avoid stacks-out. In short, accurate inventory management can save lots of time and money for the company and maintain the flow of the supply chain.
3. Improves Business Planning
The next benefit of the inventory management strategy is it helps you to do better business planning. The in-house inventory implementation provides you the accurate insights into the warehouses, and that can improve your operations and scale your business. The use of barcode scanning and integration of a central data warehouse enables you to transfer the data and monitor the whole operation in the supply chain. With all these benefits, you can easily maintain the flow of inventory and understand customers’ needs. You can make changes in your logistics system and provide a better experience for your customers.
4. Efficient Stock Management
Good warehouse management requires the efficient management of stacks available in the space. And the inventory management system can help to identify the highest-selling products, and the enterprises can eliminate the least-performing items. It helps to manage the spaces in the warehouses or distribution centers and speed up the supply-chain process.
Read more about Inventory Management Software: Why use warehouse management software for your business
5. Increases Customer Loyalty
The way of doing business has totally changed with the introduction of eCommerce business. Now, customers are more concentrated on the services provided by the companies regardless of the product they are providing. Customer care service has now become a vital part of the online business, from placing orders to the item sent to the doorsteps. And now, the company needs to understand the behavior and need of the consumers.
Smart inventory management can help to deliver the right product, in the right place, within the right time. And when the customers are satisfied with the delivery, they give honest reviews about their experience, and this increases loyalty among the people. These insights help to understand the demand, and companies can improvise their strategy to gain repeat customers on their platform.
What Are The Best Inventory Management Techniques?
But understanding the benefits of inventory administration will never help if you don’t know how to implement it in the right way. We have mentioned some of the techniques for the best inventory management.
1. ABC Analysis
ABC analysis, by its name, helps to categorize the inventory into three categories, i.e., Category A is for the most valued products that are providing the highest profits. Category B comprises the decent-performing items. And the last is Category C for the small transaction that plays a vital role in overall profit but least performing items individual terms. With this technique, the retailer can identify and decide which item to keep and which to eliminate.
2. Economic Order Quantity
Economic Order Quantity (EOQ) is the formula that is used to calculate the cost of production, demand rate, and other factors that helps the company to purchase the inventory. This formula identifies the greatest units to minimize buying and holding costs.
3. Minimum Order Quantity
Minimum Order Quantity (MOQ) is the process of purchasing the least quantity of inventory by the retailer to keep the cost low. This type of inventory management technique helps to avoid wasting resources on orders that deliver little profits.
4. Safety Stacks Inventory
Safety Stacks Inventory is a technique that involves the management of extra inventory items to avoid the out-of-stock situation. The technique basically ensures fluctuations in demand and order fulfillment in critical conditions.
5. Dropshipping
Last but not least is dropshipping, which is a method where a supplier, instead of picking the item from their own inventory, rather they purchase it from a third party and ship it to the customer. This method helps to maintain the supply chain even if the product is out-of-stock.
So these are the five techniques that you must use for the inventory management process. And as online businesses are increasing, you must need an effective solution that can manage all your inventories in one platform. At this point, a cloud-based inventory management system can be one option for the seamless supply chain process and warehouse management.
So, let’s start with an understanding of online inventory management software and how it can be beneficial for eCommerce businesses.
Importance Of Cloud-Based Inventory Management System
Cloud-based Inventory management is the process of monitoring and maintaining the company’s inventory through online software. These types of software are hosted by the service company or the vendor and allow the users to access the data on a subscription-based fee.
As eCommerce businesses grow, supply-chain management also becomes complicated and inventory management difficult. Companies need real-time insights into all the operations happening in the supply chain. And the problem occurs with small and medium businesses and even with startups that don’t have enough budget to invest in expensive infrastructure.
Cloud-based software allows tracking the inventory, warehouse management, logistics system, and supply chain through online platforms. And as it is hosted in the cloud, it makes it cost-effective and can be accessed with single devices and internet connectivity. Additionally, no matter how many warehouses or distribution centers you have, you can maintain the inventory of different channels using a single cloud-based software.
If you are looking for warehouse management software for operating your business, benefit from the range of SKUBIQ pricing options along with a 14-day trial.
Final Verdict
Managing the inventory in the eCommerce business can be difficult in this competitive world. But with, the right strategy and leveraging the right inventory management system can provide easy management of warehouse management. The companies like SKUBIQ offer the solution of complete management of inventories in different channels under one platform. And this software is hosted in the cloud, so it makes it cost-effective, and its subscription-based feature allows the user to use it whenever and wherever they want.
