It’s all about selling what you actually have, not what you think you have

As consumer demand increases year on year, retailers have many options for getting products into the hands of customers. This might be through brick-and-mortar locations or ecommerce marketplaces such as Amazon or eBay.  All the options available mean that you can easily expand your customer base and reach people you wouldn’t connect with otherwise.

But multi-location sales can also lead to overselling. And the expectations of holiday shoppers for fast, convenient, on-time and real-time delivery communications continue to grow. In order to maintain customer trust, retailers must ensure stock levels are accurately reflected online, and they must ensure delivery performance expectations begin well before the product is sent out for delivery.

Inventory Management Systems (IMS) are a game-changer when it comes to navigating the complexities of holiday sales. Overselling, cancelled orders and overstock due to poor stock management can result in missed sales opportunities without a reliable IMS navigating hundreds to thousands of SKUs selling across multiple channels. Ultimately your customers are the ones left frustrated. To overcome these challenges, merchants should turn to a Connected CommerceOps solution that brings three core attributes to the retailer: connectivity to a diverse number of marketplaces, automation to traditionally time-consuming ecommerce processes and a centralised repository for listings, inventory, orders and shipments into one single source of truth.

Better inventory management leads to improvements in two major areas: customer experience and profitability. Customers will have better interactions with your brand, no matter where they shop. Furthermore, stock management is essential for forecasting sales and controlling costs. By equipping yourself with the right tools as your business scales, you ensure that customers receive what they want at the right time.

These tools lay the foundation for agile and dynamic home delivery options that meet consumers’ growing needs for both convenience and efficiency. There’s no denying the holiday rush can be a wild ride, but with the right inventory management system  in place, businesses can make it a successful one.