5 inventory management tips for wholesale business
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1. Incorporate technology
The world is changing, everything now is getting converted into e-business. This inventory management tip states that it is time for the B2B industry to move on from spreadsheets and practice inventory management with some technology.
There are many types of modern software tools available in the market. Wholesale inventory software tools can help you perform your operations, deal with employees, manage your inventory quickly, increase the efficiency of your warehouse.
One of the biggest advantages that these software solutions provider is the experience that your customers are provided with. Apart from wholesale inventory management capabilities, this software also provides wholesale order management and helps to serve your customers by giving them the liberty to place orders, track shipments, keep the user’s account on your website.
The only drawback that the software has that they are fairly expensive. Nevertheless, if you calculate software management in the long run, they are better than spreadsheets and manual sheets. And the only cost is almost minimal compared to the benefits that you will be getting.
2. Keep everyone in the loop
One of the main reasons why most companies fail to earn gains is that the company owners withhold a lot of information within themselves. The employees are often not told facts about the business because the owners fear their secrets might get leaked. Just to save these secrets from the competitors in the market, employees turnout with no information about the company. This is one of the major problems faced by many companies.
It is difficult to trust employees. But it is more difficult to work all by yourself without involving other employees in business matters.
This doesn’t mean you start discussing all your secrets with your employees. In order to practice inventory management, you should have a team which can help you make a decision. Having people involved in making decisions and addressing issues are more helpful.
You must remember that wholesale inventory management is a cumulative and collective effort. It will only work how you want to work when everyone understands what must be done and by when. Therefore it is highly important for you to make sure everyone is in the loop.
3. Automate operations
It is very commonly said that qualitative work matters more than quantitative work.
Your inventory management would only be smart when there is increasing operational efficiency and low levels of bottlenecks.
Your employees will get more time to work on important things such as core business operations if you automate the most frequently used administrative tasks. It will also significantly increase sales and productivity. Your firm will be in a good position and your staff will be happier.
It is said that employees spend 70 days a year doing repetitive tasks. They take up 13 hours a week for going through emails.
Well, you can imagine how productive your environment and workplace will get if you start automating these operations, thus making inventory management super efficient.
4. On Hand, inventory should be kept low
Many times people think it is better to stay overstock than understock. But we forget that overstock refers to a situation in which your stock might get wasted in the future leading to your money getting locked up in stock. This is where most people go wrong when it come to inventory management. Therefore you should not keep your inventory levels high as it might cost spending excessively. Keeping high inventory demands you to pay extra storage fees.
You should always remember that the value of goods depends on the demand which keeps changing over time. So you have a large quantity of stock in your warehouse, which later turns out to have less demand, you will end up paying extra storage and warehouse charges. In a market like that of India’s, the demand and supply chain is not static therefore you might face serious loss.
The best way to deal with this inventory management problem is to incorporate modern cloud inventory software. Inventory software with artificial intelligence can help you predict inventory requirements according to the trends. Therefore it is much smarter and easier to use wholesale inventory management software.
5. Keep a record of the expiry dates diligently
Keeping a check on the expiry date is highly important especially for those wholesalers who deal with food products or other perishable items. If the expiry date of such items are not checked and controlled, great losses can be faced.
One of the smartest ways to keep a record of the expiry date is by using inventory management software tools. These tools register and record the barcode of each product which also contains information about the expiry date.
They send notifications and inform the manager right before the product are expired. Through this inventory management method, the expiry date is checked and the managers are also kept updated about their products.
Summary
There are many different kinds of tips and checks which can be used to improve inventory management. We have jotted down five wholesale tips which will overall help in the best way to manage inventory.
Do leave a comment below and let us know which one of the above-mentioned tips were the most useful for your firm!
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