An efficient supply chain is one of the most important things to get right in an eCommerce business. It helps you receive products for customers and get them in their hands without delay. When reports show that 79% of companies with efficient supply chains see higher revenue growth than their competitors, you must do whatever possible to do it right.
And one of the most essential parts of that process is warehouse management.
You need good warehouse management practices to successfully get products to your eCommerce customers. Read the eCommerce warehouse management best practices below to optimize your eCommerce warehouse management system.
1. Set Smart Reorder Points
One of the hardest decisions to make as an eCommerce business is when to order new products. You don’t want to tie up your cash flow in inventory by buying more than you need at a given time. You want to minimize your stock to free cash for other business activities.
But at the same time, you need enough stock to fulfill your current demand. Use intelligent forecasting to predict how much stock you’ll sell in the future to get an accurate picture of your ideal inventory levels.
2. Integrate With Your Store
One problem many warehouse managers have is manually updating inventory. Their warehouse systems and eCommerce stores aren’t linked, so they must manually update inventory counts when product comes in and shoppers make purchases.
Doing this manually takes too much time. Instead of managing your warehouse, your job becomes data entry.
There are automation systems that link your warehouse inventory and your store. Look at your warehouse requirements to learn which products integrate with your environment and use them to automate many common tasks.
3. Manage Your Warehouse Layout
Your warehouse layout plays a big role in how quickly you can get products to customers. The longer your workers spend finding products and getting them to shipping stations, the fewer products you can ship each day.
Take time to optimize your warehouse layout. For instance, if you have a popular product that workers need to pick a lot, you don’t want them constantly traveling to the other side of the warehouse to retrieve it. Putting it closer to shipping stations will save transit time.
Look for little things like this to minimize the work required.
4. Outsource to 3PL Companies
You may be able to create an effective warehouse system when you’re still small. But as you grow, you’ll find that managing everything becomes even more complex.
In many cases, it makes sense to outsource your warehousing operation to a 3PL company. A 3PL company will handle all the heavy lifting, from warehouse management to order fulfillment.
Make sure you learn more about a 3PL warehouse management system to determine if it’s the right choice for your business.
Optimize Your eCommerce Warehouse Management
Getting a lot of customers for your business won’t matter much if you can’t get customer orders out the door. If you take too long to handle eCommerce fulfillment, you’ll end up with unhappy customers and canceled orders.
But you can optimize your warehouse management system for eCommerce by following standard eCommerce warehouse management practices. Put the systems mentioned above into place today to run a more effective warehouse.
Once your warehouse is in working order, you can focus on increasing your order volume. Check out the business growth tactics on the blog to continue growing your eCommerce business.
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