In the e-commerce business, the location of inventory matters a lot and puts a great impact on business. In fact, a good location for inventory management is the key focus point for every medium to large-scale business. For e-commerce, the importance of inventory location becomes doubled.
Especially, in the scenario of the current pandemic, we see many businesses are now reconsidering the strategy of inventory management. Approximately 56% of the retailers believing that managing inventory was more difficult because of COVID-19.
In this article, we will be discussing the ways e-commerce inventory location impacts businesses.
1. Consider the full omnichannel spectrum
There was a time when people have to walk a long distance to purchase a product, but now e-commerce has changed the dynamics of purchasing. Now, there are multiple platforms such as coupon sites like Wadav or Retailmenot where people visit the internet on daily basis and make their purchases. But, there is one thing where still sometimes people face a problem which is the availability of the product on time.
Many businesses fail due to their wrong inventory location, due to which they are not able to send the product on the time which customers demand. The location of the warehouse where a company stores all the products or the other centers, there is a major connection between them and the logistics chain.
The explosion of e-commerce has mandated the acceleration of online order fulfillment and due to e-commerce, the significance of the location for inventory management has increased a lot. To deliver the order quickly and effectively, what you need to do is, reduce the distance between the product and customers. This is the main reason why the retailers are shifting their low-performing stores and malls into warehouses.
2. Close the gap
It is one of the core factors that you need to understand when it comes to storing, picking, packaging, and shipping online orders. Here one thing is very obvious, the farther an order travels the more your shipping cost increases. For example, you have a business in Texas (USA) and you have to send a package to somewhere in the middle east.
If you send it directly from Texas to the middle east, you will be paying a big amount for shipping costs. But, suppose you have a warehouse in the region of the middle east where you need to send the package, the cost of shipping incurred here will be definitely low.
Moreover, your customer will be getting the package in a short time. So if you want a cost-effective solution for storing, picking, packaging, and shipping online orders, locate a warehouse that is densely populated with customers. This is the most strategic approach that will impact your business a lot.
3. Don’t put the cart before the horse
There are several brands that are operated out of only one achievement market and the reason behind this is the expense of managing inventory in multiple locations. Unfortunately, this often sets out to be a trade-off involving items located in many warehouses, such as other inconvenient business expenses, such as spending extra for shipping on a particular order.
In order to effectively store inventory in multiple locations, brands must have a better predictive model of what they are selling, and where. This requires sophisticated inventory systems, which is why many growing brands are looking for third-party completion partners. Regardless of who stores, selects, packs, and sends your online orders unless you are able to set up sales patterns, distribution lists between multiple locations are common. Is not sensible.
4. To keep customers happy, make it snappy
Shipping is a significant cost of doing business in the retail spectrum, and factoring in the high prices of e-commerce, especially when delivering the last mail. As regular and hourly delivery criteria become usual, organizations are focusing on expanding inventory in cities also known as verticals – to quicken delivery to active customers in densely populated regions.
Today the competition is so high and in the speedy-paced e-commerce market order, the marketers have the ability to maintain and manage whole inventory. This information has to be used to ensure that all items are always stored in the right places.
Also as consumers’ delivery expectations rise, study consumer data to determine the preferred time frames and keep this data on hand when you look at the delivery zone. You two days, one day or one-hour delivery. Check more on
5. Less shipping = more profit
This is a tough but important fact to keep in mind: Each online order involves at least two shipments – an external shipment of the product to your warehouse or completion center and an outbound shipment to your customer. With all of the different delivery formats withinside the picture, do not permit any sub-crossing location to sabotage your backside line.
The completion of e-commerce and the location of shipping operations have a major impact on operating costs, and when combined with data-assisted strategies, improve margins compared to any other work-focused decision. Can work as much as possible.
Why Inventory Management Is Key for eCommerce Businesses
A professional and fertile inventory management strategy is an integral part of any successful e-commerce platform. A lot of retail businesses face disturbance in managing inventory because they do not have a clear system for managing inventory effectively and efficiently.
Inventory management plays a key role in everything from product configuration to stock-keeping it ready 24 hours a day. Well-organized inventory management can not only help you outperform your opponents but can also support you to stay established in stock management.
A statement by the Bureau of Statistics has confirmed that the number of working and functional warehouses has expanded significantly by 10.4% during 2013-2017. Companies that have completed inventory management report that 95.4% of their orders were delivered to customers. The record also showed a 7.5% decrease in out-of-stock cases.
E-commerce businesses that do not have a decent inventory management system are losing purchasers, capital, and reliability due to customer order reversing and poor experiences. If you’re considering what proportion of time and a focus you ought to provide to inventory management of your eCommerce store then you are at the proper station.
This article highlights the major causes why you should concentrate on inventory management as much as you concentrate on other fields of your e-commerce business.
Final Thoughts
For e-commerce, the location of inventory matters a lot. What we discussed, are the opinion of the experts that could help you in your business journey. Good strategic planning for the inventory location, for the e-commerce business, can lead you to great development in the future. Moreover, nowadays, inventory management software also plays a vital role to manage inventory, for the better growth of your business, you can also consider such useful software.