The growth of online commerce has been widely evident, providing enough room for businesses in various niches to enter. The ones that are making the most of the eCommerce market have one thing in common, which is effective inventory management. Proper inventory management is vital for an eCommerce business to rise and shine by effectively fulfilling stock-related issues. This can assist with informed decision-making that can improve sales.
However, the traditional method of covering this process was paper-heavy and required extensive hours, which is highly inefficient considering the present time needs. Ones using it are significantly way behind others in the race, and the longer they tend to be rigid in their approach, the more they fall behind.
Moreover, it is also true that no business wants to stay behind in the race because of the lucrative opportunities and intensive competition. Here, developing warehouse management software can help. The coded system will help provide the required insights on time and alert a business before it’s too late. A business that focuses on growth will take a step and invest in the development of software and perform all the steps, from planning to inventory management.
Essential Features of Inventory Management Systems
Inventory management is crucial. Wrong management can undid all the efforts you have placed into establishing a credible online presence. An inventory management system is like a lifeblood if you aim for smooth operations, better customer experience, and sales. While developing software to handle all the tasks flawlessly, it is crucial to include must-have features that can assist in maintaining correct stock orders. Here are some of the features that you can include in your WMS:
- Real-time Tracking of Inventory
Earlier, all the inventory-related data were managed on spreadsheets. A business can obtain the information from it which was recorded whether a month, week, or day before. Real-time tracking was major missing, which has caused several errors like delayed order fulfillment, poor customer service, inefficient warehouse operations, and more. The advent of an inventory management system (a subset of a warehouse management system) makes management a lot easier. Real-time tracking makes inventory level tracking easier across all levels of sales channels. This will eliminate the issues a warehouse business faces.
For example, a customer lands at your online store and orders a popular item. After fetching all the processes, the requested order arrives at your warehouse to be packed and delivered. If your system is not integrated with the real-time feature and due to the popularity of that particular item, it is not available in your store. This results in a major mismatch between user expectations and reality, negatively impacting your online presence. Conversely, if your system is integrated with this feature, everything will be smoothly completed and will have a positive impact on your business among users.
- Order Management
Your software must have this feature, as it can help you manage orders more effectively. Effective order management is pivotal for a business to gain a good reputation among users. This feature can assist you in managing all the orders from different sales channel locations in one place, saving you valuable time. This effectiveness will streamline workflows and improve the productivity of your business. As an eCommerce business, you can efficiently process orders with this feature. It also serves as a helping hand in quick shipping and automatic order status updation.
- Product Categorization
Proper inventory management is one of the hidden subsets behind the growth of an eCommerce business. With growth, product pages can often expand. Here, product categorization plays a crucial role in assigning a particular product under a specific category. This feature assists a business in organizing its inventory into meaningful groups, which makes it easier to manage, track, and analyze.
Now, these categories can be created based on different products, types, brands, seasons, or any other basis. This way, you will effectively manage the back-end process by classifying a product for a specific category, which further improves the shopping experience of customers.
- Forecasting Feature
Don’t you think having a feature that can inform you about customer needs on time is a plus point? Indeed, future predictions can be a boon for an eCommerce business, especially when it comes to its warehouse. While building a tailored software solution for effective inventory management, integration of this feature can be highly helpful in attaining this. After integrating this feature, you can gain important insights by analyzing historical data, sales, and user interaction with a particular product. This will assist a business in anticipating the needs of stocks, allowing on-time order placement with suppliers.
- Alert Notifications
Never get off guard by running low on the most sold products by including an alert notifications feature in your inventory management system. This feature is of major use as it will inform you about a particular stock through notifications when inventory levels reach the threshold limit (popularly known as recorder point). The duration of notifications ensures that you have enough time to fulfill the stock level before you face any stock-out issues.
- Barcode Scanning
The manual stock updation process requires heavy paper and pen work. Plus, the process was time and work-intensive, exhausting assigned employees while completing it. New things, including the barcode, are introduced to the market as time passes. Including a barcode scanning feature is the biggest help for an online retailer, as it automatically updates the stock level with a single scan through a particular software. It helps save time and reduce errors related to the manual entry of eCommerce products.
How Beneficial Is An Inventory Management System?
Effective inventory management through software is the outcome of features integrated into this. Integrating the right features will play a vital role in improving the ROI of your eCommerce business. It provides various benefits to an online retailer. Here are some of them:
- When integrated with the right features, retailers can get all the required information about a particular item in real-time. This minimizes the stock deficit. You can also get rid of mistakes related to manual entry. This improves the accuracy of inventory.
- The inventory management system helps save time by automating various manual inventory-related tasks, including order processing and data entry.
- You do not need to search various books or spreadsheets to ascertain information about a particular stock. The benefit of having software for inventory management is that it provides centralized access for every type of stock. This helps streamline business operations.
- Accurate information about a particular stock is of the utmost importance. This will ensure that a business always has the products its customers want in stock. It reduces issues related to backorders and stockouts, resulting in building a better customer experience.
Conclusion
The highly competitive eCommerce market ensures that a successful business efficiently manages its inventory. It is not an option but a necessity today and plays a crucial role in the success of an eCommerce business. You can optimally manage it by including essential features like real-time tracking, order management, alert notifications, and more, depending on the requirements. Including the right features in an IMS is vital in providing the right information at the right time. However, consider your requirements and budget while building or purchasing an IMS to fulfill your eCommerce operations. If you lack technical understanding, then it is preferred that you hire web developers to serve your purpose. They will help you overcome the technical barriers by using the best of their knowledge.
Author Bio
Emily White is a project manager at CSSChopper, a top-rated web development company with a wide range of technical expertise. She is not just a manager but also loves writing. In her spare time, she listens to music and composes knowledgeable articles.
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