Good inventory management is essential for the functioning of the business, whether it is a physical store or e-commerce and check stock (เช็คสต๊อก which is the term in Thai). It is challenging to have managerial control of a company’s stock. But remember that up-to-date control of the inflow and outflow of goods brings security and predictability to replenishment. Check out, in this article, foolproof tips for managing your e-commerce stock.
1. Need For Inventory Control
There is a technique known as Drop Shipping; it consists of a virtual store that does not work with its stock; that is, the store offers and sells products allocated in the supplier’s stock. The Cross Docking method also works through the crossing of docks: the supplier forwards the goods to the shopkeeper to carry out the conference and verify that everything is correct according to the order. After that, the product is packed and sent to the customer.
But if this is not your case, you can use your stock and define categories to make it easier to find products and make an inventory. In addition, you can opt for a hybrid model using these techniques together, evaluating each supplier and the demands of your online store.
2. Work With Metrics (Constantly)
To succeed in managing the business or marketplace, it is necessary to have metrics that allow accurate diagnosis and take appropriate measures so that your store has the best possible performance. With stock, it would be no different.
You need to have excellent knowledge of your collection area. You need to understand the available capacity to receive and allocate each product. By current market practices, you should have about 85% total inventory occupancy.
Another relevant point in inventory metrics is cycle time, which refers to the time related to the process of purchasing and receiving goods. This is possible by calculating the time that the goods take from the request made to the supplier to the receipt of the order in your stock. In addition, two more fronts are extremely important for the success of this management: inventory coverage and average consumption.
Inventory coverage lets you know how long your current inventory will meet the flow of demand without the need for immediate replenishment. To calculate this indicator, you need to cross-reference the number of products you have in stock with the sales forecast, and there may be some market variants.
3. Automate Your Inventory Management
Automating inventory management control facilitates the flow of business and avoids errors. It is common to occur oversights in essential points for online store stock. So, invest in management tools and platforms to improve your business. Many companies offer a trial period. If you don’t have the budget to invest in automation, try to have a flow of control in a spreadsheet, for example.