Whether you’re just starting or have an established eCommerce business, it’s essential to use all available resources to avoid negative feedback. According to a recent report, 94% of consumers have stated that a negative review has convinced them to avoid using the services of a business.
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Although there are a lot of tools to help online businesses grow, it takes a lot of ideation, planning, deep work, and courage to start an online eCommerce business. Once you have started your business, you will meet adversaries and challenges like negative reviews that you will have to overcome on regular basis. It is pivotal to have inventory management software or a system to handle adverse reviews.
So, how can you use inventory management software to avoid negative feedback? Here, I’ve compiled a complete guide to inventory management software and its benefits to assist you in optimizing your approach. This guide will cover everything you need to know to evaluate whether inventory management software is worth the investment for your business.
What is inventory management software?
To be successful as an eCommerce seller, you will need to utilize tools that facilitate automation to reduce your workload and focus on your business’s growth.
Inventory management is software with multiple benefits, one being the automation of alerts to notify your business needs to ordering more stock. The software also picks up on trends, forecasts and ensures you order enough stock to keep up with the ebb and flow of your sales due to seasonal demands.
Inventory and manufacturing software is vital to avoid stock mishaps that typically result in unhappy customers or losses for your business. Without inventory management software, your business would rely on lengthy manual processes to keep track of stock, therefore running the risk of a stock mishap.
As an eCommerce seller, you need to understand the benefits of any software you consider implementing to help with business operations. Evaluating the benefits of inventory management software will help you determine whether it would provide a good return on investment (ROI) in your eCommerce business as well as optimize your business operations.
Reduced risk of overselling
There could be hefty consequences if you oversell your products and don’t have the stock to fulfill your orders. Your seller rating could plummet as customers become frustrated with the waiting time for their order. You would likely end up with some scathing reviews.
With creative automation inventory management software, you can avoid the risk of overselling and ensure your business does not receive an influx of negative ratings and reviews. As well as negatively affecting the reputation of your business, such reviews could also cause you to rank lower on product searches.
By synchronizing your inventory across all of the selling platforms you use, you can adjust your stock levels each time you make a sale, rather than calculating how many orders you have received manually. You will be able to order more stock with plenty of time to fulfill orders and ensure you don’t run out.
Avoiding underselling and excess stock
Excess stock can cause unnecessary spending that impacts the profit margin of your eCommerce business. eCommerce sellers store their inventory in fulfillment centers, ready to be sent out to customers.
The cost of storing your products in a fulfillment center is based on your products’ space in the warehouse. The excess stock will take up more space than necessary, increasing your monthly overheads and reducing your profit margins.
To avoid underselling and storing excess stock in fulfillment centers, inventory management software keeps track of your sales — including the peaks and troughs in your sales to create a sales forecast that indicates how much stock you will need to keep up with orders.
Doing this will help you avoid underselling and paying additional costs to store your products at a fulfillment center.
Easier product recall processes
Product recalls are inevitable, albeit frustrating, part of being an eCommerce seller. Without inventory management, the recall process can be tricky, as you will have a more challenging time identifying batches and pulling them from your stock.
Inventory management has batch-tracking functionalities that can make it easier to identify and pull products in the event of a recall. When running your own eCommerce business, the last thing you need is a lengthy recall process that takes up unnecessary amounts of your valuable time.
Automating time-consuming manual tasks
Barcode scanning and agile inventory processes can help to reduce the manual labor required to keep track of your inventory. Without barcodes, workers will have to manually enter product numbers, which may take longer to process your products, resulting in a slower shipping time.
With inventory management software in place, your employees and hired help will be able to focus on more essential tasks and will log your products with greater efficiency and accuracy. Inventory management software also eliminates the risks of human error, which can otherwise slow things down and cause confusion.
Better customer service
Building good relationships with customers and earning their trust is essential in running a successful eCommerce business. If your customers can rely on you to provide their products on time and in good condition, they will be more likely to shop with you again, leave a positive review, and recommend your business to a friend.
Automating your inventory management will ensure your shipping process is faster and your product tracking is more accurate, equipping you to meet your customers’ expectations and ship your product to them efficiently.
Shipping, product quality, and affordability are the main areas where an eCommerce platform can fail. By investing in inventory management software, you can optimize your business operations in one of these critical areas and gear your business towards success.
Summing up
Inventory management software is a powerful tool for an eCommerce seller. Poor shipping practices, the wrong courier service, and stock mishaps can result in your business receiving negative feedback and poor ratings; all of which will directly affect your placement in product searches, your rate of repeat business, and the reputation of your business in general.
With the success of your business riding on how well you can keep up with your order fulfillment, it seems wise to invest in inventory management software and remove the avoidable risks of maintaining outdated manual processes.
