The best inventory companies & tactics in eCommerce

Effective inventory management is a key component of a successful eCommerce business, but it’s not easy to get exactly right. Having the right amount of stock to keep customers happy without overloading your warehouse and storage base is a tough balance to strike at the best of times. Add in peak shipping seasons like Christmas and other holidays and keeping up with demand gets even trickier.

We’re here to help you learn the best inventory management practices based on the size of your eCommerce business and show you how integrating with a shipping partner can help you seamlessly get products to your customers.

In this article...

• eCommerce inventory management best practice
• Inventory management companies
• How to get started
• Find your inventory app
• Integrate your inventory management with your shipping

• Monitor stock with slow turnover – Not everything you stock will fly off the shelves, some big-ticket items might sell less often but still be an important product for your business. However, you need to be aware of the items that fall into this category to maximise your storage space.
• Promote stock you need to move – Base sales and promotions around stock you need to move, and ensure you have warehouse space for big shipments or new arrivals.
• Plan ahead using data – Sales reports and other analytics from your business can help forecast future stock requirements. Which products are purchased at specific times? Which ones are often bought together? Ensure you’re also in tune with greater trends for your specific industry.
• Have reliable supply chains – The way you source your essential ingredients, parts and products will have a significant effect on your inventory management. Build relationships with reputable suppliers and have fair contracts with them.

Top inventory management tip...

Which products are purchased at specific times? Which ones are often bought together? Ensure you’re also in tune with greater trends for your specific industry.

What if you’re just getting started? Square put together an inventory management best practice guide specifically for smaller businesses.

Along with recommending small business owners to investigate inventory management software, the company encourages you to “remember your ABCs” when managing inventory by grouping products into three groups. According to Square these are:

• A – Big-ticket items that don’t sell frequently, but are still responsible for significant revenue when they’re purchased.
• B – Products with a moderate value that sell relatively frequently.
• C – Cheaper items that are your best sellers. These take up a lot of space but equate for a high percentage of product movement.

These core elements of best practice inventory management are a good start, but how can you start to put them into practice? That’s where engaging with an inventory management company makes a real difference.

So how can you tell which inventory management companies are the best fit for your business?

An effective inventory management company will help you tackle some of the key stock challenges we talked about earlier. To do this, you’ll need specific software features to make the most of your investment.

According to Shopify, there are four key features a good inventory management software should include. These are:

• Updating in real-time – You should be able to see the changes in your stock as soon as an order is shipped. This means you can make decisions about your stock levels at any time, and aren’t waiting for a system to update or refresh.
• Supports multichannel sales – When you’re selling products both online and in a physical store, you need to be able to track stock levels in all locations. If a customer places an order online and chooses in-store pickup, your inventory tracking has to be up-to-date to provide them with accurate instructions to retrieve their order. With so many businesses using omnichannel retail strategies, this feature is a must.
• Forecasting product demand – The better you can plan for the future, the easier it will be to manage stock levels to balance customer satisfaction and your available warehouse space. The type of forecasting an inventory management software offers may change depending on the provider, so it’s good to ask questions about this feature upfront.
• Point-of-sale synchronisation – Software that connects with your POS can help track product levels across all sales channels and store locations. This can hopefully reduce the need for manual stock takes as well and allow for greater accuracy in your stock takes.

GoDaddy found that the major inventory management challenges facing eCommerce business are:

• Overbuying and overselling – Companies often have too much or too few of their popular products.
• Manual stock management – Online sellers aren’t using helpful software to track their stock.
• No visibility between locations – Retailers don’t always have a synchronised system that can track stock between multiple physical stores and their online shop.
• Lack of usable data – Companies aren’t measuring data that well help them forecast future demand and manage their inventory accordingly.

For all of these challenges, and inventory management app is going to make a significant difference and help you track stock effectively and easily. To get started, you want to look into some options and see what they can do for your business.

Find your inventory app - 3 options

For the best experience, you want to find an inventory management app that integrates with multiple systems across your business. It’s all well and good having a range of tools, but if they can’t all talk to each other then you risk creating more confusion, instead of streamlining your processes.

The following companies integrate with Starshipit’s shipping fulfilment platform, allowing you to track your inventory as you’re fulfilling orders. Take a look and see how they can align with your business and help you overcome inventory management challenges.

You can check out our full list of inventory and warehouse management partners on our Integrations page.

Check out our full list of integrations

Starshipit has integrations with dozens of warehouse management solutions, carriers, inventory management solutions and more. Head over to our integrations page to see our complete list.

And of course, if you have a platform which isn't featured, you can always use our API to build your own integration.

Integrate your inventory plugin with your shipping

Starshipit integrates with the above inventory management systems, seamlessly allowing you to manage inventory and shipping together. Here’s why you should pair Starshipit with an inventory management system:

• Streamline your order processing – By integrating inventory management systems with Starshipit, you can streamline your order processing workflows. When an order comes in, the inventory management system automatically updates stock levels and sends the order details to Starshipit for shipping and fulfillment, eliminating the need for manual data entry and reducing the risk of errors.
• Generate shipping labels and documentation – Starshipit can generate shipping labels, packing slips, and other shipping documentation automatically based on the order details from the inventory management system. You'll save time and reduce the chances of mistakes.
• Integrate with multiple carriers – Starshipit integrates with multiple carriers right out of the box, giving you access to a wide range of shipping options.
• Order tracking and customer notifications – Starshipit makes it easy to generate order tracking emails and send these to your customers. Starshipit retrieves tracking information from your carriers and automatically sends notifications to customers, keeping them informed about the status and progress of their orders. You'll see improved customer satisfaction and reduced support inquiries related to order tracking.

Conclusion

Inventory management is a challenge for businesses of all sizes, but with the inventory management software you can keep track of stock and fulfil customer orders effectively. ECommerce businesses can integrate the best inventory management apps on the market into their existing systems to greatly simplify the process of managing stock.

By reading up on inventory management best practice, seeing which company is the best partner for you, and integrating an inventory management app with your shipping provider, you’re giving your business the best chance at shipping success.