As a retailer, it’s key to know how much stock you need to meet customer demand and when to reorder specific items. You can easily import products from suppliers directly into your online store with just a click of a button. You can also automate product updates, including price inventory changes so that all your listings are online store inventory up to date, helping you stay organized. Some platforms include direct integrations for products and their images, as well as descriptions directly from the supplier so you can automate the process.
Choosing the best system for your business
- With it, you can avoid mistakes like mis-shipments, shortages, out-of-stocks, spoilage (when dealing with perishable stock items), overstocks, mis-picks, etc.
- To calculate the weighted average cost, divide the total cost of goods purchased by the number of units available for sale.
- For example, you may know that it takes an average of one month to sell 100 units of a product – and that it takes your supplier, on average, a month to deliver new stock.
- If you have inventory you can’t sell, you might see if your supplier is willing to take it back.
- Perhaps the most obvious option is setting up your own website, complete with a payment gateway that customers can use to check out products.
- This valuable data allows you to plan better and invest more wisely in your stock.
Broken machinery can halt to the whole process, so take care to monitor your equipment and catch breakdowns immediately. Reorder quantity is the total number of product units you request from a manufacturer or supplier on an inventory replenishment purchase order. A high inventory turnover rate may indicate that you’re selling a product in a timely manner while low inventory turnover rate may indicate that certain products are not selling. Whether your inventory turnover is too high or too low, by learning how to best measure, you’ll be able to better regulate the issues as they arise. Understanding all types of inventory data will help you make better business decisions as you scale. To continue your knowledge on how to best prepare, manage, and report ecommerce inventory, below you’ll find inventory metrics and important terms you’ll want to be aware of.
Outsource inventory management
Hiring staff can help you focus on strategic growth, improve your customer’s overall experience, and ensure tasks are completed effectively. Focus on a winning product with steady sales and satisfied customers, then start searching for similar or complementary products your customers will love. Your inventory data is the best indicator of how to manage future inventory effectively. This means that when looking at past purchase orders and unearned revenue sales data, you can work out which products to reorder when to reorder them, and how frequently to keep them in your warehouse rotation. You can use historical sales data to forecast future sales and inventory levels.
Deciding How to Manage Your Inventory Storage
Your historical sales data and seasonal trends tell you that you tend to sell around 15 medium-sized sweaters every month from September through March. That average increases to 30 sweaters per month before the holidays in November and December, and decreases to only five per month in April through August. Keeping an orderly storage space will help to preserve the quality of your products and their packaging. Tidiness will also help you to keep an eye on low stock levels and see where there’s available space when new product shipments arrive.
Order management
They can handle our “special projects” fulfillment, which was key to our decision in bringing them onboard. By leveraging technology, implementing efficient processes, and regularly monitoring and updating your inventory, you can reap these benefits and position your e-commerce business for success. Lean manufacturing is a broad set of management practices an owner can apply to any business. Its goal is to improve efficiency by eliminating waste and any non-value-adding activities from daily business.
Integration with accounting software
A perpetual inventory system is an inventory management method that records when stock is sold or received in real-time through the use of an inventory management system that automates the process. A perpetual inventory system will record Grocery Store Accounting changes in inventory at the time of the transaction. This system works by updating inventory counts continuously as goods are bought and sold.