Why Manage Your Inventory?
The process of controlling and keeping track of your inventory’s movement from your supplier through your warehouse and finally into the hands of your customers is known as B2B inventory management.
With the help of this procedure, you may be certain that your inventory is balanced in terms of quantity, location, timing, and price.
Inventory management, when done correctly, especially if you run a multichannel eCommerce business, will inform you when to refill, which products bring in the most revenue, and when your products are in great demand.
Either manually or with the use of B2B eCommerce inventory management tools that integrate Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).
APIs are interfaces that make it easier for various software programs to connect and communicate. It enables easy integration of your company’s data with platforms from other companies.
For your online store, the majority of businesses that provide digital strategy services advise using inventory management connections.
Why Inventory Management Integrations Are Necessary
1. It Saves time
Manually entering stock levels and keeping track of products as they move from storage to customers is time-consuming and inefficient because you could be working on other aspects of your company.
Your job will become much simpler thanks to inventory management software, which automates tedious activities.
2. Reduces the Potential for Error
Everyone makes errors. However, incorrect inventory stock management can have expensive repercussions in terms of inventory management. Longer than necessary wait periods may result, consumers may get the wrong order, etc.
In that instance, you’ll probably make shopping for your customers worse and eventually harm your reputation.
Again, the entire process will be automated via an inventory management integration. By doing this, you’ll get rid of any potential hassles that come from human error.
3. Enhanced Profitability
Utilizing inventory management software will help you determine what kinds of goods are most popular at any given time. Having said that, you’ll be able to handle busy times more effectively.
4. ages less of the stock
Aged stock, especially perishable goods, can be a financial waste if not properly cared for. After all, items that have passed their sell-by dates cannot be sold.
Additionally, it is nearly impossible to manually keep track of each product’s expiration date. Therefore, the occurrence of products being out of date is probably near.
You can easily keep track of when your products are about to go out of stock by using inventory management software.
As a result, you’ll be aware of the goods that must be sold soon to minimize financial loss.
5. Stock Product Transparency
For some buyers, not knowing what products are in stock or when they will return to the shelves might be a deal-breaker.
However, the software allows you to see current stock information and deliver correct information to potential consumers, giving you real-time management of your inventory.
By doing this, you’ll get rid of any doubts your customers could have about how many items they can purchase.
When the item they’re looking for is once again in stock, they’ll be more likely to buy it or visit your website.
6. Stock-Out Avoidance
When a certain product’s demand spikes suddenly and the supply runs out, this is known as a stock-out. As a result, businesses find it difficult to keep up with the demand for their products while their stock is low.
Your inventory and orders are coordinated using inventory control software. You will receive low-stock notifications and automated quantity updates from them. This enables you to be alerted anytime a stock-out may occur and avoid the problem.
7. Improved Business Bargaining
You’ll have a better understanding of the most profitable and least profitable product kinds thanks to the tracking features that inventory management software offers.
Having said that, you’ll keep an eye on your suppliers’ performance and work out which ones are best for your company.
By negotiating more advantageous trading terms, for instance, you can take advantage of this information to your benefit.
8. Improve Customer Service
You can supply clients with the item they require at the precise moment they require it since you have all the information from the inventory management software at your fingertips.
Customers will know they can always find what they’re looking for at your store if you consistently have popular items in stock.
As a result, you’ll raise consumer satisfaction and build a base of devoted clients.
9. Accurate Expense Monitoring
Making informed business decisions requires keeping track of financial information including sales, expenses, taxes, and other related items.
It will take a long time to manually collect and calculate all of this data, though.
Software for inventory management can compile all relevant data in one location. With it, you can easily decide what to do next and provide reliable reports.
10. Recognize faulty goods
Receiving and selling defective goods could occur at some point, which would necessitate a product recall.
Finding the affected products, however, can be very time-consuming and difficult.
Finding problematic product batches, however, will be a simpler procedure with the batch tracking functionality inventory management software offers you.
As a result, you’ll be able to issue the product recall much more quickly and maintain a relatively good reputation.
Features that Inventory Management Software Must Have
1. Inventory tracking in real-time
The products you have on hand, as well as their locations, must be visible in your inventory management software system.
Any stock moves must additionally be reflected in real time.
For instance, when inbound products are scanned at the warehouse, they must appear in the software. Your stock position also has to account for sale orders. By doing this, you’ll prevent selling the same item more than once.
2. Accounting
You need to be aware of the value of your stock in addition to knowing what you have and where it is.
Your accounting software and inventory management system must be integrated for the worth of your inventory to be displayed in real-time.
Having said that, a decent inventory management system must offer accurate inventory values, allow for variations in your purchases’ volume or price, support several currencies, give you the option of tracking changeable industry expenses, etc.
3. Support for Multi-Channel
Your inventory management system must be integrated with a variety of channels as well, including Amazon, social media, and others, since the majority of eCommerce enterprises sell their goods through various channels.
This will guarantee that your stock information is accurate across all of the selling channels.
4. Barcoding of inventory
With this feature, all potential data entry errors are removed, and functions that interact with other components of the inventory management system are automated.
Inventory barcoding, for instance, can be integrated with other electronic reporting and documentation tools, such as paperless billing and touchscreen signatures.
This will make gathering, storing, and organizing inventory data much quicker.
5. Inventory Alerts
By using inventory alerts, you may stop any problems from happening via SMS or emails.
A smart inventory management system will alert you in advance so you can take action as soon as possible, whether you’re running low on supply or some of your products are close to expiring.
6. Reporting on Inventory
Your inventory management software system must automatically deliver reports. It serves no purpose if you have to manually collect the data and come to your conclusions.
Consequently, seek out a management system that offers information on stock age, unit sales, margins, the average time it takes to sell each stock-keeping unit, the backorder rate, etc.
7. Supplier and Purchase Management
Manually transferring inventory data during the purchasing process puts you at risk for errors and consumes a lot of time.
To simplify the purchasing process, an inventory management system must centrally store supplier information, allow you to view the history of your transactions with suppliers, generate and automatically fill purchase orders, and automatically generate any quantity discounts that your suppliers may offer.
8. Backups and security
The software you will choose for inventory management must, last but not least, have excellent security. Since you’ll be storing a lot of important data, you don’t want it to be exposed to threats like hacking or loss of a backup, for instance.
Therefore, enquire about the authentication procedures and encryption standards used by your provider.
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Last Words
Inventory control is essential for B2B eCommerce. Without it, you couldn’t tell what inventories you were running out on, what goods were the most popular, what goods were about to expire, etc.
However, manually compiling all of this data can cause you some trouble.
Inventory management software can automate the entire process while also assisting you in enhancing client satisfaction, identifying and averting possible problems, and expanding your B2B eCommerce business in general.