How to Manage Your Multichannel Inventory More Efficiently

Managing a multichannel inventory can be extremely challenging. Many retail businesses operate across multiple touchpoints. Combining retail and e-commerce stores can add up to a real inventory management headache. Issues with overstocking or understocking products can prove costly, too. Growing your business and expanding operations complicates things further. 

So what can be done? This blog post will give you some tips for managing your inventory more efficiently and recommend the ideal inventory management software product to solve your problems. 

Inventory management challenges

What are the challenges caused by your current inventory management system? Here are some typical issues: 

A lack of consistent organisation can make work processes very difficult. Missing and mislaid stock can put a lot of pressure on employees. You may have a system for organising your stock, but is everyone using it as planned? Complicated systems or protocols that are not followed can cause chaos. This has a ripple effect that ultimately affects customer relations and profitability. 

Not having the correct technology or not being able to integrate other retail software can also be an issue. When you are managing inventory at scale, manual inventory management is not practical. You need the right inventory management technology to cope with the task, save time and maximise efficiency. It needs to integrate with other software, too, so that systems can update each other. 

Human error is also a significant challenge. Counting and reporting mistakes are easily made.

An inventory management system must work well. Otherwise, you risk order cancellations and delays, frustrated customers, disgruntled employees, and reduced profit margins. 

So, what are the solutions?

Smart inventory management technology

Thankfully, excellent inventory management technology that solves the problems above is out there. This technology automates tracking, managing and organising your stock. 

It cuts costs by reducing the staff hours spent on inventory management. It cuts out human error. It means that stock levels are well-maintained, with neither overstocking and understocking occurring. It provides an easy-to-use system that means staff can always identify where a product is. 

Cloud-based technology can sync data across all your operations, meaning you can optimise stock levels. With the right product, you can also benefit from data analyses and valuable insights.  

Vend as an inventory management solution

Vend is an all-in-one tablet-based POS system. Through its dashboard, you can manage point of sale as well as your inventory, customer data, and loyalty programs for both your in-store and e-commerce operations. Through this nifty software, you can improve your customer and employee experience and operate seamlessly both online and offline. 

According to Vend’s own research, 38% of companies don’t have any kind of inventory management, point of sale, order management or 3PL software. If you are one of these businesses, Vend POS software represents an excellent opportunity to overhaul and completely automate your systems. 

Advantages of using Vend to manage your inventory

Vend works both online and offline through Mac and PC and connects to the most popular point of sale hardware, meaning you can get started straight away. It can also be accessed through iPads for on-the-go sales and inventory management. It’s easy to scale up as your business grows, too.

It’s quick to set up your inventory on Vend. You can do so through scanning barcodes or by manually typing in keywords.

The Vend POS system is also cloud-based, which means you can view your inventory from wherever you are, whenever you want. It offers valuable reporting insights, enabling you to make the most informed decisions when it comes to your inventory. Real-time visibility is crucial to operating with optimal efficiency. 

You can also look forward to the following features:

• Automatic updates to your master inventory from both retail and e-commerce sales, eliminating stock errors 
• Data analyses on purchasing, pricing, sales, and staffing in addition to inventory insights
• POS software that works offline should your internet connection be lost 
• Reduced human error and reduced staff workload. Refocus the efforts of staff for serving your customers and growing your business. 
• Regular updates from the cloud and automatic backups
• Round-the-clock technical support 

How to make sure your inventory management technology works optimally

Getting the right software for the job is important but there are still some extra steps to take to make sure it always works optimally for you. These are to:

• Use consistent naming conventions to keep everything clear.
• Make sure staff are well-trained and on the same page.
• Ensure firm protocols are in place and written down for incoming staff.
• Still operate periodic manual checks of stock levels, both partial counts and occasionally full counts. 

For more information on how to improve your inventory management system, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us at iPadPOS. We look forward to showing you how Vend can work for your business.