Are you constantly losing sight of your stock?
Do you need real-time stock visibility across all locations and channels?
If so, it’s time to switch into sports mode!
Stop coasting and start actively managing your inventory to save time and costs!
The efficiency of your warehouse management depends on how well it handles sales order processing and optimises inventory management, from goods-in to dispatch…without any hiccups!
Numerous constraints can lead to inefficient inventory management directly impacting your profits.
Common Issues Businesses Face Include:
Inaccurate Inventory Data
Solution:Â Â Implement real-time tracking across all sales channels and locations to ensure accurate, up-to-date inventory levels. This reduces stock errors, improving order fulfilment and replenishment.
Inventory visibility problems rarely show up as “we don’t know our stock number” — they show up as allocations that don’t adjust when a delivery arrives short, so the business oversells before anyone notices. Real-time allocation reconciliation closes that gap the moment stock changes, not at the next stock count.
63% of retailers have inventory visibility issues, with 34% admitting to an increase in out-of-stock incidents due to inaccurate inventory data – Retail Week, 2023
Inefficient Processes
Solution:Â Â Automate manual inventory processes, replacing paper-based systems and spreadsheets. Use barcode scanning to reduce errors, improve efficiency, ensure accountability and save money.
Two of the most common causes of packing errors are pickers walking the warehouse separately for every single order, and staff only discovering a mispick once the customer complains. Batch picking and guided pick-and-pack workflows are built to remove both failure points at once.
Moving to a paperless picking solution has been shown to reduce picking errors to below 1%.
Businesses that automate their inventory management processes can reduce labor costs by 30% and decrease inventory holding costs by 25% – Aberdeen Group, 2022
Poor Inventory Planning
Solution:Â Â Use accurate, real-time inventory management data to make informed strategic decisions about your stock, order processing and overall warehouse performance.
Reporting and spreadsheet dependency is one of the most common patterns we see across growing retail and wholesale businesses — it’s rarely a fringe issue, and it’s usually a sign that reporting needs have outgrown what the core system produces natively. The fix isn’t another spreadsheet — it’s dashboards built around the KPIs your team actually needs, without waiting on IT or an SQL consultant every time a new report comes up.
A 2022 study by McKinsey found that companies using data-driven inventory management with real-time reporting and custom dashboards saw a 20-50% reduction in inventory carrying costs and a 10-30% improvement in order fulfillment rates (“Inventory Analytics,” McKinsey & Company, 2022).
Storage Issues
Solution:Â Â Optimise storage with BIN location management to maximise space and minimise retrieval time, speeding up the pick & pack process and reducing the likelihood of lost or misplaced items.
Not knowing exactly where stock sits inside the warehouse — which bin, which zone, which state it’s in — is one of the most common causes of lost time and lost stock. Granular bin-level tracking removes the guesswork from picking and stock takes by showing the exact location and state of every unit.
Implementing bin location management can increase warehouse space utilisation by 30% and reduce retrieval times by 40% – Logistics Management, 2023
Product Complexity
Solution:Â Â Use product information management to include detailed descriptions, high-quality images, and accurate sizing and fit information. Efficiently manage composite items by automatically updating inventory levels as components are purchased, sold or returned.
Bundles and kits are a common blind spot: the finished item shows a stock level, but the real availability sits in the components underneath it, which leads to overselling or unnecessarily holding stock back. The same complexity shows up with variants — a product in 15 sizes and 4 colours is easy to sell and hard to manage without a system built to handle attributes at that scale.
Companies that manage composite items efficiently can reduce stockouts by 15% and improve customer satisfaction by 20% – Warehousing Education and Research Council (WERC), 2022
Lack of Integration
Solution: Connect your warehouse to courier, freight and accounting systems so carrier booking, label printing and financial reconciliation all happen from one screen instead of switching between systems. Connecting DPD, Royal Mail and pallet networks alongside Xero, QuickBooks or Sage shouldn’t mean manually coding every nominal line after goods-in.
Returns and Exchanges
Solution:Â Â Minimise returns friction by moving off paper and spreadsheets and onto barcode-driven, structured workflows.
Returns processed off paper or spreadsheets tend to become chaotic fast, with no consistent view of why products are coming back. A structured returns authorisation workflow, paired with return reason tracking, turns returns from a cost centre into a source of insight about what’s actually going wrong upstream.
Efficient returns management can reduce return processing costs by 20% and improve customer retention rates by 10% – Reverse Logistics Association, 2022
In light of all these issues, what is the answer?
An Order Management and Warehouse Management System can address all these issues– that’s where Stok.ly comes in. Stok.ly transforms inventory management by tackling common operational challenges with real-time tracking, automated workflows and seamless integration.
Stok.ly optimises stock control, reduces errors and enhances order fulfillment. Its paperless pick & pack processes and barcode scanning technology streamline operations and cut costs. Features like BIN location management optimise storage, and product information management ensures accurate, consistent and comprehensive product data.
By using Stok.ly, your business can anticipate demand, optimise stock levels and make informed purchasing decisions. This shift from reactive to proactive inventory management reduces costs and boosts profitability, giving your business a competitive edge.
Click here for more information about Stok.ly Inventory Management
Call us on 01432 804333
Author: Iain Coplans CEO Stok.ly