Picture this: You allow a customer to complete a transaction for a product from your organization and, low and behold, you find out that you don’t even have one in stock currently! This can happen if you don’t keep updated with your business stock levels.
It’s imperative for your professionalism and customer satisfaction to have a high-quality system that allows you to stay informed about what you have an abundance of, and just what is in serious need of a re-stock. Before you use comparison websites such as https://www.parceldelivery.com/ to ship out your products, you need to ultimately make sure you even have them in stock to ship! Here are our top tips for managing your stock.
Use Software Such As Magento
If you’re an e-commerce organization, Magento and similar software will help you massively when it comes to managing business stock. This software not only allows you to upload photos of your products as well as product descriptions for them, but it also keeps track of how much of that particular stock you have. For example, if you’re predominately selling clothing, the system will update the stock levels for each size as soon as a customer has purchased from your website. Using software like this can make managing your business stock so much easier, especially if your products are primarily found online.
Adopt a FIFO Approach
Let’s face it; nobody likes to receive out-of-date, perished items. Therefore, by using a first in, first out approach (FIFO), you can make sure that all products are sent out to customers when they should be, particularly for perishable items such as cosmetics or food. However, this is just as vital for non-perishable items, as if they sit in the warehouse for too long they’ll have a greater chance of becoming damaged. So, when ordering in business stock, always ensure that new items are being placed right at the back, as that way older products will be chosen first.
Audit Your Stock Manually
Whilst technology helps us immensely with manual jobs such as monitoring our inventory ourselves, it can’t always be completely relied on. For extra peace of mind, we recommend that you always count your inventory yourselves every once in a while, even if only on an annual or bi-annual basis, as this will ensure that the stock levels on your software match up to how much you actually have in store. For smaller companies without the budget for high-quality software, this is even more crucial to keep your business professional and reliable for consumers. This is particularly effective for popular products that are moving fast from your inventory, as a single purchase can be easily missed when your stock is moving at a fast pace.
Always Have A Back-Up Plan
Again, technology isn’t always the most reliable, and there may be instances where a file corrupts or the software shuts down entirely. Take Magento 1 for example – this will be completely terminated once Magento 2 is released next year, meaning e-commerce businesses will need to find a new software for their stock management. So, in the event of a failing server or complete software corruption, always ensure you have all crucial information and data stored elsewhere, such as on a USB stick or even Dropbox, ensuring all information is still accessible.
