Real-Time Inventory Management: Key to Ecommerce Growth

Utilizing real-time inventory management lets the sellers never go out of stock, improves warehouse management and help deliver orders on time. This improves the overall eCommerce operations and customer satisfaction. In this blog, let us see everything about real-time inventory management system and what operational and business benefits it offers. We will also look what factors make the best inventory management software and what is the best option for eCommerce businesses.

What is Real-Time Inventory Management?  

Inventory is the most basic element in the eCommerce process and hence managing it is extremely crucial. Real-time inventory management is a system that helps the sellers supervise inventory effectively, especially when the seller has multiple sales channel. It is impossible for them to update the inventory on each platform manually. This is why real-time inventory management system lets the sellers keep a centralized view of the inventory and update it accordingly on various sales channels to keep the customers informed.

How Real-Time Inventory Sync Enhances eCommerce Operations?  

Syncing inventory in real-time helps the eCommerce sellers make their operations more productive. Here is how eCommerce operations get a positive boost with real-time inventory sync.

1. Better Stock Management  

This is the main benefit of synchronizing inventory as it helps the sellers manage the items efficiently. Suppose a seller has many sales channels and gets multiple orders from there. It will change the inventory at every instant as many products will be shipped to complete the order fulfillment. This requires to look after the orders from all the channels and updating the inventory accordingly, which is an extremely difficult task. Real-time synchronization of inventory, therefore, manages the stocks better and making multichannel easy for them.

2. Predict Inventory to Never Go Out of Stock  

Real-time inventory helps the sellers gain data that provides the information of the products that are ordered by the customers more often. This way the sellers get to know what items are to be out in the stock so that no item should ever go out of stock. This is important to keep the brand trustworthy and always available for the consumers.

3. Improved Warehouse Management   

Warehouse management is an important eCommerce operation that can be optimized efficiently with real-time inventory sync. When the sellers get an idea of how their products are performing, they can make the best use of the warehouse space and even save a big amount. They no longer have to put all the items together, rather they can store only the ones that have a higher probability of getting sold.

4. Deliver Orders on Time     

Imagine a customer orders an item which is currently out of stock! Sounds terrifying? Well, it certainly can be a situation and the seller might end up canceling the order or delivering it so late that the customers almost dies of patience. Both these scenarios can ruin the brand's trust and name. However, if the seller syncs the inventory in real-time, it can always make an efficient inventory control which helps them deliver orders on-time.

Analyzing the Benefits of Real-Time Inventory Sync  

Apart from providing many operational benefits, real-time inventory sync brings a series of advantages for the sellers. Let us see how it helps the sellers improve various eCommerce aspects that help building more trust and make more business:

1. Make Your Products Always Available  

To make more sales, it is important to make the product visible and most importantly, always available on the sales channels. This can only happen if the sellers utilize real-time inventory management system which can track inventory effectively and alert the sellers if the inventory level goes down for any item.

2. No Missed Sales Opportunity  

A customer reaches an eCommerce with lots of hopes to get the best deal. If any seller is not able to make it available, it results in a missed sales opportunity. This creates a bad impression on the customers which might not even come back. Not just once, but may be for lifetime! Hence, real-time inventory sync empowers the sellers never to miss any sales opportunity, rather, it helps the sellers make more sales.   

3. Let No Customer Go Empty Hand    

Real-time inventory management helps the sellers keep an efficient inventory tracking that keep the products always in-stock to avoid stock-outs. This results in efficient order fulfillment for the customers, hence, no consumer goes empty handed ever.

4. Multichannel Selling Made Easier  

The biggest challenge that comes with Multichannel selling is managing huge inventory at multiple warehouses. In this case, they need a multichannel inventory management system that can overcome this operational issue. Real-time inventory sync is one such feature that eases inventory management for multichannel selling.

Exploring Best Ways to Choose Effective Inventory Management Software  

Let us look at some factors that must be considered while opting an inventory management software, if any eCommerce seller is looking forward for effective inventory management:

1. The Power of  Automation  

It is the automation era and real-time management can only be done if the software leverages automation. Hence, it should be the prime criteria for any seller while choosing inventory management software.   

2. Cost-Effective  Solution to Save More

eCommerce sellers should keep the cost of the software in mind before choosing one. This helps them look for options that are economical and save more on the overall operational costs.

3. Inventory Visibility and Efficient Tracking

Inventory management is not just about updating numbers. Real-time inventory syncing also helps the sellers track inventory from picking to shipping and while it is stored in the warehouse. Hence, eCommerce sellers should look for this functionality as it is important for efficient order fulfillment.

4. Data Analytics  for Better Decisions

Real-time syncing creates lots of data that can be useful to make better business decisions. Sellers can get to know which is the best selling product and which item is performing at what locations. These insights can impact business decisions and hence, this functionality is a must in inventory management software.

Optimize Inventory Management with MapMyChannel

So, by now, you must have understood how real-time inventory sync provides an edge to eCommerce sellers. But the question arises is there any solution that offers real-time inventory management coupled with automation and cost-effeciency? Here comes Centralized Inventory Management by MapMyChannel that comes with all our integrations. Now you can track inventory and scale limitless by multichannel inventory management and all of this at an affordable price.

Still Waiting? Contact us here and get connected with our team to learn more about eCommerce integrations and real-time inventory management.