If you ask UK retailers how they plan to grow sales in 2021, multichannel eCommerce is the common response. The question that inevitably follows, is how do you effectively manage your inventory across multiple eCommerce channels, from receiving goods in, to the point of sale and through to fulfilment of the sales order? Finding the right inventory management software can be challenging, so a great first question to ask is, “does your inventory management software offer real time inventory control across every channel?” If the answer is a “No”, you will struggle to scale your business with this software. If the answer is “Yes!”, there are many more questions to ask.
With inventory accurate only 63% of the time in retail businesses in the UK, finding an answer to this question is now recognised as a critical success factor for a modern retailer.
This article will walk you through the benefits of real time inventory management software and the hidden costs to a business of not implementing real time inventory management.
The basics of real time inventory management
Real time inventory management for multichannel eCommerce means that, every channel your product is listed on, will show the same inventory level.
To illustrate this, imagine I sell a red coat and my channels include, three physical stores, a website, eBay and Amazon.
The inventory for this item in my warehouse is 27. Real time inventory management software will show 27 red coats available in each store, on your website, eBay and Amazon. If you make a sale on Amazon, then inventory, in real time, will adjust to show 26 red coats on each channel.
A sophisticated inventory management system will empower your team to receive Goods In by scanning in stock, which in turn, will automatically update your inventory on each channel.
So if we receive a delivery of 10 red coats, in real time, the inventory on each channel will adjust to show 36 red coats.
The benefits of real time stock control across the multichannel.
The first clear benefit real time inventory management offers is the removal of manual processes from your business.
Manually updating inventory values across multiple eCommerce platforms such as Amazon, eBay and your website is time consuming. Time costs money when you are paying wages.
Time lags in updating inventory levels across multiple channels can result in lost selling opportunities and worse, selling items you don’t have in stock.
Real time stock control removes the manual tasks from multichannel ecommerce management and frees up your team’s time to market your products and fulfil sales orders.
Real time inventory control software removes human error from the process, which is always a risk when manual processes are employed requiring data entry.
Real time inventory updates and listing
There is no value in stock that has arrived in your warehouse and isn’t listed to eCommerce channels or had its inventory updated.
Real time inventory management software should enable your teams to scan in stock as it arrives in your warehouse and in real time, automatically update inventory levels across each channel.
Now your stock has arrived, you will need to list new products across your eCommerce channels.
If the listing process is not automated, it is going to take time and cost you money. You may struggle to scale an eCommerce business by manually listing across multiple channels.
What will benefit your business are bulk listing tools that enable you to create product pages across Amazon, eBay, Google Shopping and your website at the click of your mouse.
Such listing tools create economies of scale, meaning you can achieve more with less resource and cost, reducing the cost of sales and increasing your profit margin.
The hidden costs of limited inventory management software are higher cost of sales and lower profit margins.
Scaling your multichannel eCommerce business
If you are serious about scaling your business online across the multichannel, you need to automate processes.
Gaining efficiencies across receiving goods in, listing items to eCommerce channels, automating sales order processing and across pick, pack and despatch, will enable you to cut costs, fulfil more sales orders and develop a loyal customer base who trust you to deliver the products they ordered, on time.
eCommerce marketplaces are placing greater demands on merchants to meet strict delivery and customer service deadlines.
Automation is the obvious answer to meeting these requirements and growing your sales across the multichannel.
The hidden costs of running out of stock on eCommerce marketplaces.
You are selling on Amazon and eBay and you have found a winning range of products. You can’t get deliveries in fast enough to cope with demand. The products are profitable and you are making money.
The more you sell, the higher your Amazon and eBay search rankings go and as a result, sales continue to grow.
Without the appropriate real time inventory management software, trouble is on the way.
Unexpectedly, you sell 20 units of the product range overnight on your website.
The next morning, you get a call from one of your team who are working through the overnight Amazon and ebay orders.
Because inventory was not updated across all your channels in real time as each sale was made, you have sold out of a few items and cannot fulfil the orders placed.
The first thing that happens on Amazon when you sell out of an item, is your search ranking for that product drops to the bottom of the list. Amazon do not promote sellers who cannot fulfil orders.
Now several orders for the products come in from eBay.
Things are getting worse.
Sellers who cannot fulfil sales orders on eBay have their seller rankings demoted and this effects the products visibility on eBay.
You also have 20-30 customers to call and disappoint, because you cannot fulfil their orders.
That is going to take time and cost you bad reviews on each platform and thus effect future sale.
A few days later a delivery arrives to replenish stock of these products.
Your search rankings on Amazon and eBay are poor as a result of you running out of stock, bad customer reviews and missing delivery deadlines.
This stock is no longer visible to customers because of poor search rankings and as a result, your winning product range is now a losing range and costing you money as it sits in your warehouse.
Real time inventory control software should provide minimum quantity inventory warnings, enable you to automatically create purchase orders and avoid running out of stock.
With real time inventory across every channel, the inventory warnings would be accurate and you would have happy customers, high rankings and continued sales growth.
The cost of holding too much stock
The obvious antidote to running out of stock if you don’t have real time stock control, is to hold too much stock.
Stock costs money and cash invested in the wrong stock has a negative effect on your cash flow. Cash is king in a business.
Using real time stock control with effective demand forecasting and sales reporting, will enable you to run a leaner inventory, releasing cash to invest in marketing to win new sales and people to fulfil your sales orders.
Free up your cash, fulfil more sales orders with fewer people and cut head count that was dedicated to completing manual processes.
Finding the right real time inventory management software
I am sure you will agree, the benefits of adopting the right real time inventory control software are broad. The costs of manual process and limited inventory software will not only effect your ability to sell products across the multichannel, but limit your ability to scale.
Stok.ly real time inventory management software will provide you with the framework to sell across the multichannel and manage your inventory from point of receiving stock, through to listing, selling and then fulfilling your sales orders.
Realtime Inventory Management Checklist
Benefits
Show accurate inventory across all your channels in real time
Use barcode scanning to receive stock into your warehouse
Bulk listing tools to eCommerce channels
Remove manual process from your business
Remove human error
Remove time lags
Never miss a selling opportunity
Scale your business
Hidden Costs
Holding too much stock
Poor cash flow
Running out of stock
Selling items out of stock
Losing marketplace search rankings
Not fulfilling sales orders in time
Bad customer reviews
Unhappy customers – loss of lifetime revenue
Find out more about Real Time Inventory Management
Find out more about Multichannel eCommerce