4 Effective Inventory Management Tips

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Inventory Warehouse management is a crucial point that often disrupts many of your customers and retailers. Without an effective strategy, the company can make a very fatal and critical mistake which is to bind the capital and assets of the company in the form of excess goods inventory, making mistakes in the warehouse, and even lost the sales opportunity because of Out-of-Stock products.

Another disadvantage is the loss of corporate credibility in the eyes of customers because they feel disappointed their orders cannot be fulfilled.

Here are four tips to assist you in developing an effective and efficient inventory plan, among others:

1. Make a plan and then execute it

The management of inventory is continuous, concentrated, and a process that should not be handled solely at the operational level. A successful inventory plan should also involve marketing, catalogs, eCommerce, and merchandising departments.

By managing your inventory items against the master calendar of promotions, make sure that all the involved parties know, such as your purchasing team understands when and how many products are needed to buy, your warehouse department knows when to set up additional warehouse space, and your service contact center staff can anticipate increasing the volume of incoming calls.

Increase the number of needs of the previous year for you to be better prepared for seasonal demand spikes that usually occur.

2. Using multiple Vendors

Inventory management also means vendor management. If you have high-selling goods that are difficult to store in stock or are planning a promotion that will significantly increase the demand, it often makes sense to look for a second vendor for product provisioning as a backup plan.

This will help prevent a long time and the occurrence of Out-of-Stock when it suddenly pops up a problem with the main vendor or inventory not arriving at the warehouse altogether because something is beyond your control.

3. Consistent, constant communication

Good relationships with your vendors are crucial to your company's success – especially if you outsource any part of your retail operations. Your fulfillment provider becomes your brand in the eyes of customers, so they need to understand your plan for your inventory as well as yours.

This means constant communication of your promotional plan, product information, and upcoming releases. Every retailer wants flexible, trusted fulfillment providers – but retailers also need to be flexible and trust to make the relationship work seamlessly.

4. Create a Compliance Policy

Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) is very important to set the operation of your warehouse into a uniform process. Develop policies that vendors, Merchanby, and staff to comply with.

That way, your products will be shipped, accepted, stocked, and selected efficiently and accurately without interrupting your inventory counts. These procedures can include shipping guidelines, product specification sheets, packing and stock instructions, billing guidelines, and so on.

With a clear procedure, everyone will do what he is responsible for because in the procedure is usually also describes what is the task, authority, and responsibility of each individual or division involved in the activity.