The holiday season is the grand stage where electronics retailers can’t afford to fail. One of the best ways to prepare for it is to have a good inventory management strategy. How can you get your strategy ready in time? Worry not. Here are tips you can apply now to help you improve your inventory management before the holidays.
Strategies to Improve Inventory Management
Shift to Cloud
In recent years, the usage of cloud software has grown significantly. According to the IDG Enterprise Cloud Computing Study, cloud investments have increased by 19% in large-scale enterprises, spending on average $3.3 million a year. They also found that 12% more enterprises have at least one application or a portion of their computing infrastructure in the cloud, compared to 2012. With more and more enterprises using it each year, the cloud is becoming a tool for electronic retailers to jump to the next level.
With inventory data in the cloud, you are able to access, share, and analyze information in real-time, making inventory management easier and more accurate. Cloud based inventory management allows multiple individuals in different locations to have access to the data. Take your eCommerce business sky high with cloud based inventory management.
Go Mobile
Going mobile can help you monitor your inventory levels and conditions while you’re on the go. Retailers have seen the value of working with mobile devices to increase operational efficiency. Motorola found that 67% of warehouses plan to use mobile devices to manage inventory.
Investing in a mobile inventory management app can improve efficiency and margins. Mobile can minimize most of the time-consuming processes by allowing employees to access and update information on the go. This means that your business will have fast, more efficient inventory management across the board. A mobile inventory management app allows you to view and create purchase orders and requisitions on the spot. The great part about this is with the app, everything is already recorded, so no more extra paperwork.
Leverage Data
The lack of available data to make sound business decisions is one of the biggest challenges electronic retailers face. Big data can help you overcome this hurdle. It is without question that data is becoming more necessary to make sound business decisions. According to Hortonworks CEO Rob Bearden, “The data volume from enterprise level businesses is going to grow 50x year-over-year between now and 2020.” Harvard Business Review estimates that Walmart collects more than 2.5 petabytes of data every hour from its customer transactions.
Your inventory is determined by various variables and data can help you create a seamless management plan. To prevent slow-moving inventory, finding trends with data can help you establish a strong inventory management plan. Sales information is a great place to start, but a better strategy would be able to calculate safety stock levels and prepare for, and ideally prevent, stockouts. With big data, you can conduct a Stock Keeping Unit analysis to obtain information that you would need to create a more comprehensive inventory. Big data can boost your inventory management to the next level.
A strong inventory management plan is essential for electronic retailers to succeed during the holidays. It is important that you keep track of stock across all sales channels such as your webstore, Amazon, and eBay. To ensure that you succeed this coming holiday season, improve your inventory management plan now by implementing cloud based inventory management solutions, going mobile, and leveraging data.
