Inventory is the most important part of any manufacturers or brick-and-mortar business. Management of the inventory in the complex eCommerce space is even more challenging. Even more, to be competitive and successful, any B2B company has to be dependable on their accurate and reliable inventory to ensure that they deliver whenever asked by the customers.
Here, the inventory management software solution matters the most. With an effective inventory management solution, a B2B company can cater to small to big-ticket customers. Before we look into the definition, use, and importance of inventory management, let’s understand the key challenges any eCommerce would face without having proper control or tracking, or monitoring the stock.
Common Challenges In An ECommerce Industry May Face
Forgetting Stock – Checking stock manually back into your warehouse every day is quite difficult. Companies that still rely on manual stock management lead to either a lot of old stock accumulation or a lack of stock at the time of need. Forgetting stock, about their quantity, location, sold or not lead to waste of money buying unnecessary stock.
Stock In the Wrong Place – Due to multiple warehouses, it becomes complex to search for a particular product. And when you are unable to track the location of your product, you tend to keep the important items in the wrong section of the warehouse which can result in the loss of a valuable customer.
Insufficient Stock – Among another big challenges for the eCommerce stockholders is the sudden demand for the products and you lack the sufficient stock to meet the demands. If you do not have the appropriate amount of safety stock then you can certainly stock out during a sudden demand wave.
Lack of Proper Communication – Customer satisfaction is every business’s prime motive. An unsatisfied customer may abandon the brand which makes it extremely challenging for that brand to retain them. However, a few customers wait when there is a delay or problem from the company’s end because the brand has been open, honest, and communicative since the beginning. Hence, effective and continuous communication is essential for not just customer retention but also to have good control over the inventory.
Excessive Stock – We suggested that you must have an appropriate amount of safety stock for the sudden surge in demand. But that does not mean overstocking. Just like the sudden surges, the company may face sudden troughs resulting in slow inventory turnover and higher carrying costs. You simply cannot afford wastage on perishable and highly expensive seasonal items.
These common challenges can be overcome with an effective inventory management solution. However, people have been trying to integrate an accurate and robust inventory system for ages.
Stages of Inventory Management Models
During the early 90s, client-server applications for inventory management became the solution to the long manual stock management problem. The client-server apps needed to replicate between the server, especially when the client owns multiple storefronts or warehouses.
However, the drawback with these applications was the irrelevant inventory data during the replications. Because the replication was carried out at night, each salesperson was called to find the availability or the lack of stock of their nearby warehouse or storefronts.
Looking at this problem, come with a modern and real-time inventory system in 2010 integrated with a virtual desktop (VDI). The improved inventory management was also integrated with DaaS technology (desktop-as-a-service) which rendered the salesperson the copy inventory management screen that runs on a remote server.
Regardless of improvement, the architecture had its drawbacks when working for eCommerce. The problem was the access rights for the third-party users. The server also risked vulnerabilities and data theft from the possible sales revenue.
Finding an effective management system has always been a big fight to keep the customers happy, making it crucial for all businesses. Since competition is fierce in the B2B sphere and dissatisfied customers can quickly click away to look for their product elsewhere, reliable and robust inventory management and control can prevent such odds. When customers get what they are looking for from you, they are more likely to become loyal users.
Importance of Inventory Management in B2B ECommerce
B2B customers expect accuracy in the inventory levels of the product page. With a lack of expected stock, your customers feel that they aren’t important to the brand. Integrating Inventory management into your eCommerce software solution can cater to lucrative benefits for the business.
Product Stock Transparency
Not knowing about the exact status of the products can be dangerous for your business. However, a deal-breaking inventory management system can give you real-time control over the inventory, visibility of the current stock information, and accuracy in data to the potential customers.
This is how brands can seamlessly eliminate the uncertainties, and customers are more likely to purchase or revisit the eCommerce website when your out-of-stock product comes back in stock.
Identify Faulty Products
Tracking every single product when you have huge and multiple warehouses becomes a nightmare. But with efficient inventory management eCommerce, brands can locate faulty product batches. The batch tracking functionality can seamlessly issue the product recall, thereby unharming your reputation.
Better Business Negotiations
Along with faulty products, with inventory management software, brands can judge which products are most profitable and which aren’t. The solution also lets brands monitor suppliers’ performance and the benefits of collaborating with them.
Reduces Aged Stock
Manually keeping track of each product’s expiration is an important task to ensure that you only provide the right & quality products to the customers. Avoiding your perishable or expired products can be a waste of money, which can be easily eliminated with an inventory management system.
Inventory management software helps in monitoring the dead stock of the products so that the brands would know which product they have to sell quickly and avoid losses.
Stock-Out Prevention
Stock-outs are a big problem for the merchants when there is a sudden rise in the demand for a particular product, and they aren’t prepared for such a surge. Inventory management software can synchronize the inventory and orders, preventing them from keeping dry. The software provides automatic quantity updates and low-stock alerts, which notifies you to refill the stock in order to prevent any sudden issues.
Precise Expense Tracking
An effective inventory management software can help brands gather all the necessary information to keep track of their financial information. The inventory management system offers all data in one place, allowing you to create accurate reports for your next move. The software lets brands calculate data, such as sales, expenses, taxes, & more risk-free, crucial for making wise business decisions time-effectively.
Less Error & More Profits
Every business takes steps with precautions to avoid making mistakes. Adoption of automatic and effective management software so that the brands make minimal to no mistakes while ensuring more profit.
The inventory management system is designed to automate the entire process while eliminating the human errors that can reduce profits.
The software also provides deep insights into the type of products, most selling products, and specific time of the maximum selling. This can help improve the customer shopping experience, avoiding unnecessary long waits, and incorrect orders and enhance brand reputation even during peak seasons.
Time Saver
With all fundamental to advanced capabilities in hand, a brand becomes much more confident in delivering accurate and timely products. Unlike the manual process of stock gathering or leveling to storage and delivering to customers, with an inventory management system, brands can perform all activities with agility saving a lot of their crucial time. This time they can further utilize areas where human intervention is necessary, such as huge decision making and more.
Benefits of Inventory Management Solution
Real-Time Inventory – A modern and agile inventory management solution can help B2B businesses to know where they stand with the real-time inventory. Businesses will know less popular items, products to keep in stock, product availability & ready for shipment, and much more.
Effective Sales Management – With a robust inventory management system, B2B companies can have a firm grip on the items that are moving quickly and giving them revenue. The items that are moving too slowly can be marked down and provide customers with a valuable deal for buying such items in bulk.
Accurate Reorder Points – A high-quality inventory management software can create effective and accurate reorder points. With an algorithm, companies can buy substantial time to stock in new items before they get depleted completely.
Off-Site Inventory – Most needful place where inventory management software fits right is for the siloed or off-site located warehouses. Most large B2B organizations have their warehouses located off-site, which makes it even more important for them to have accurate, real-time inventory control. The right inventory control system can solve all problems seamlessly, making B2B commerce easy to operate.
In a Nutshell –
Inventory Management System is one of the most crucial and essential software to integrate with a B2B eCommerce. Since B2B is all about receiving and selling products hence, their monitoring is equally important. Without a proper management system, brands won’t be able to tell what stock they are running out on, which among their products is most popular and which is less, which will expire soon, and much more.
Gathering all these data can help in better decision-making and spot and prevent any potential loss while enhancing customer experience and growing B2B commerce business seamlessly. So connect with a reliable and trustworthy Ecommerce web development company for building and implementing a perfect inventory management system.
Author’s Bio: Scarlett works with the editorial team of A3logics, a leading Ecommerce Consulting Company. Exploring the latest technologies, reading about them, and writing her views have always been her passion. She seeks new opportunities to express her opinions, explore technological advancements, and document the details. You can always find her enjoying books or articles about varied topics or jotting down her ideas in a notebook.
