Stock control defines the process of reducing the cost of holding stock whilst ensuring you have enough to keep up with demand. It sounds easy right? Understanding why stock control is important in eCommerce fulfilment can help you when looking at how to manage your stock and inventory. This can help ensure your business scales. Let’s take a further look at this in more detail.
The impact of poor stock control
There are a few things caused by poor stock control that can negatively affect your business and impact the effectiveness of your eCommerce fulfilment:
Poor customer service and experience
Poor money and resource allocation
Excess stock that isn’t selling, meaning extra space is taken up your warehouse or outsourced fulfilment centre, and hits you in the pocket.
You’re then left with a few choices. Either sell off your slow-moving/excess stock cheaply which subsequently devalues your brand, give it away or hope it eventually picks up. None of these options are particularly favourable for you, but don’t worry, there are some ways to tackle this:
Reduce storage cost by eliminating low-sale products
Are the products you’re selling suitable for the needs of the market you are in? It’s easy to become carried away and start offering loads of new products when you see the orders rolling in. A good question to ask yourself when looking at your stock and inventory is, are they making you money or costing you money?
It can be hard to get rid of products, but through stock control, you can effectively gauge which ones aren’t doing so well. However, by eliminating products, this will help with reducing your storage costs by reducing the space needed. Whether you’re using your own warehouse or a 3PL, you will be able to reduce the storage space needed and will therefore reduce your overall costs and financial losses.
You can also help reduce the number of delayed orders you have since you can then allocate more time for picking and packing instead of spending time finding space for storing away new products.