As an ecommerce business owner, you probably sell your products across multiple channels. These will likely include your own website, as well as retail platforms like ebay and Amazon. Multichannel selling requires proper ecommerce inventory management to ensure you stay on top of what you are selling and where. In this article we’ll look at the challenges posed by multichannel selling and how to overcome them.
What is ecommerce inventory management?
Your inventory is the number of products you offer to your customers, for example scented candles or laptops. Knowing how much of every item you have in stock and have sold is vital. Poorly managed inventory can ruin your customer’s experience, impact negatively on your reputation and even get you banned from top online marketplaces. However, whilst running out of stock is bad for the customer, having too much can be bad for you. You may have to spend extra cash on warehousing, which can ruin your profits. Well-managed inventory helps to both of these negative consequences from happening.
How do I synchronise stock across multiple platforms?
Keeping track of your inventory allows you to be informed about which products are selling and which aren’t popular with your customers. By synchronising stock across multiple platforms you can know exactly how much you have of each product. The easiest way to do this is to use ecommerce inventory management software. There are various tools available; these are the functions you should look for when making your choice:
- Support of cross-channel synchronisation. The best inventory management tools will allow you manage inventory on a single sales channel as well as synchronising your inventory across all them. For example, if you have ten laptops to sell, both your own website and eBay will show ten in stock. If you sell five on eBay, this will automatically change the amount remaining in your website shop to five as well. This means you won’t accidentally oversell and end up unable to deliver.
- Synchronisation of shipment and refund data between marketplaces and stores.
- Short syncing intervals. This means synchronisation happens quickly, which is difficult to do if you’re trying to track everything manually.
- Easily add and remove products. Good stock sync software will enable you to quickly add and remove products, including bulk adding.
What are the benefits of an inventory management system?
An inventory management system allows you to take firm control of your business. It reduces the risk of overselling, which in turn removes the risk of making your customers unhappy. Overselling can also lead you to be banned from large marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay, which could ruin your business. A well managed inventory also saves you money, for example by reducing the need to store excess stock. By automating your inventory management, you remove the risk of human error and also don’t need to pay extra staff. At Free Range we can recommend the right inventory management system for your business and train you to use it, resulting in a profitable, growing business.
