In recent times, it has been sensed by e-commerce industry experts that inventory management can be a challenging task unless you are handling everything properly. If you own several warehouses, it becomes more challenging for you to maintain each of them. It usually covers a stock-take day, counts every item in your warehouse, and records all the results. It is sometimes dull and equally crucial for any business to stay on track with inventory levels. Nowadays, useful inventory management software will help you control stock, making the whole process smoother and simpler than ever. Holding any stock can disrupt your cash flow, which is a bad sign for your business. Not having enough stock to meet customer demand is damaging. This is the reason for which efficient inventory management is imperative for growing your business.
Let’s learn more about store inventory control and how it is impacting your business.
What is store inventory control
Store inventory control is a type of process in which you can track stock levels over your retail stores. It is related to both physical as well as an online e-commerce businesses. This includes everything, i.e., from purchasing to reaching the retail store. Inventory control helps get full information about your company’s inventory covering what and where the products are stored in your warehouse. You can get all this information by monitoring your incoming and outgoing stock. The primary goal is to cut down the costs that are acquired by holding onto the stock. You will also understand when the stock is replenishing, when to sell the old stock, and buy new products. Proper inventory control tricks will help you free up your warehouse’s extra space and your cash flow. By doing this, you will get to know that there is no old or unsellable stock left in your warehouse.
Why store inventory control is important
• Quality control
Inventory control lets you track your products which means every time and again you will need to conduct inventory count and then you will be able to quality control at the same time. If you find a stock that ranges below your company standards then there is the opportunity act. Especially when the event of a product recall.
• Accurate counts track
Inventory control offers an absolute reflection of all units on the hand. The best way to manage this is by utilizing a digital inventory system that electronically scans in barcodes of new inventory and retrieves every unit that is picked in order. In this way, real-time inventory stock levels are reported at any time.
• Assists in inventory accounting
Inventory accounting is the most important part of inventory control. It will help you in measuring the actual value of your physical inventory and the costs of your goods that are sold over time. You can control dead stock that has no value that reduces waste and makes it simpler for calculating your inventory value. It means you can help the bottom line by holding the products that you want.
• Make sure you never oversell
When you will get to know how many products you are having in your store, then you will be aware not to oversell any item to your customers or sell your famous products. Also, you can list different stock levels in real-time on your website and keep your POS system updated with full stock in-store availability.
Types of inventory control
• Raw materials
The raw material is a kind of material that is used for manufacturing product components or even for finished products. For some of the cases, this material is kept by the supplier and then it gets shipped directly to your place. Sometimes this material is produced specially for you to have easy and fast access. This is the reason for which they are part of your warehouse inventory.
• In-transit inventory
In-transit inventory refers to the inventory that is shipped directly from the supplier that has not been reached to the warehouse. Also, it is referred to as pipeline inventory. The whole transaction is included in the inventory management even if it is not reached by the retailer. It is also just like where the transfer of ownership takes place. When goods arrive with the buyer, they own those goods.
• Cycle inventory
Cycle inventory is just like that when you sell a small portion of its stock. This stock is swiftly replenished. Safety stock is utilized for covering surges and dips in demand and cycle stock is used for covering the majority of purchases. It means that small businesses use cycle stock because they don’t have enough capacity for the safety stock.
• Unfinished products
Unfinished products inventory is a type of inventory that covers products that are going to be for sale but are unfinished or are not ready to hit the shelves. This includes products that are made or waiting to get packages for completing the item. It will get stored in a separate section of the warehouse for ensuring that everything is categorized and an unfinished product can never make it in-store.
How to manage store inventory control
Inventory control is important for running your business smoothly. If there are any kind of issues in your warehouse inventory levels then they can cause delays, which is probably bad news from your customer point of view. Investing in the right software company, you will be able to optimize your workforce and manage inventory from buying to selling. It covers automated multi-location inventory tracking so that you will understand when to expect your next shipment. If you are going to implement a new inventory control system in your business then make sure you are using the best software for supporting you and your valuable employees.
Conclusion
Inventory control is not an easy task. If you are having too much inventory and fewer funds to invest in different areas of your business then you are at a dead end. Also, if you have less inventory then also you can lose potential sales, major delays and customer satisfaction. Inventory control needs input and output from operations that are lined up with demand, finances and promotions. Also, you can bring tons of sales, but without inventory control, it is a little tough to get this all. For becoming more efficient, you will need to invest in the processes and tools that will enhance inventory control.
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