Posted by Unfortunately, inventory and stock management are often overlooked by most of the businesses. But, the truth is that the success of many businesses lies in proper stock management. Poor inventory management is one of the most common reasons for the failure of small businesses. It not only affects the long-term profits but also leads to more inefficiency.
Stock management is a balancing act between having too little or too much. Finding the exact spot in how much stock to have on hand is the key to success for any business. This is possible, only when you have everything well sorted and organised for easy access. Thus, it should be considered as the foremost goal of any viable and successful inventory management plan.
No companies want to oversell any item across their webstore or have unsold items sitting in the warehouse for years. This can affect the business drastically. eCommerce retailers often list their product in different marketplaces. The cross-listing can make stock management highly complicated and error-prone. That’s why you need to have a centralized place with proper storage racks to manage inventory and prevent dislocations.
Fortunately, retailers can easily avoid these time-consuming and expensive mistakes through proper organization, preparation and inventory management plan. Let’s ponder deeper to gain a better understanding of the real consequences of poor inventory and stock management.
1. Poor Customer Experience:
Taking an order online only to later find out that the item is not in stock can affect the custom
relationship drastically. In today’s highly competitive world, you can’t afford to lose a customer. But unfortunately, that’s what happens! The present omnichannel environment offers options
to shoppers at every other step. They are more likely to find a company who can fulfil their
order on-time. Letting down customers can make a severe negative impact on your business.
2. Overstocking
This is one of the most common mistakes made by business owners. Overstocking doesn’t only lead to higher costs in terms of buying the product but it also exhibits a significant increase in expenditure on storage and warehousing, losses due to product deterioration, shrinkage and obsolescence.
3. Incompetence To Forecast and Track Trends
Lack of proper stock management to forecast demand, managers are not able to take the proper and relevant decision and often end up taking a random guess in how many units they’ll move for a particular item. To accurately forecast demand, the manager needs prior sales to compare to and check past sales record. Proper stock management system help determine the sales of the product and decide accordingly.
4. Lose The Race
The improper stock management can lead the potential clients to leave for other organized businesses. Studies have shown that a customer would preferably go to a competitor rather than waiting for that out-of-stock item to come in. To retain customer and don’t lose them to competitors, you need to ensure that you have stock on hand which is possible only by proper and organised stock management.
As seen above, stock management is a critical aspect of any successful inventory management and is also a key to a successful business. In this increasingly competitive environment, it is essential that you control cost, streamline operations and have accurate real-time data for providing exceptionally satisfying customer experience. The first step to do is by investing in proper storage racks! So, what are you waiting for? Invest in your success today!
