In recent years, wholesalers have faced various challenges, and the trend might continue. Every sector, from manufacturing to retail, is increasingly adopting new inventory management strategies due to supply chain and transportation issues and online record sales.
Retailers are increasing their investments in wholesale inventory management platforms. Retailers are increasingly attempting to “reinvent” their supply chain management systems by tightening their integration with supplier inventory management systems and guaranteeing that their consumers may access both current and future stock availability.
Exploring wholesale inventory management platform
Wholesalers use a B2B wholesale inventory management platform for acquiring, storing, selling, and delivering products to customers. However, with the development of technologies, this software is used to predict the customer demand for different products and to ensure whether the available inventory level will match the demand.
Why Is Wholesale Inventory Management Different?
Every company that sells products needs to manage its B2B inventory, but wholesalers confront specific difficulties that other businesses need to address. Customers, such as retailers, who typically need to connect their inventory operations to those of the wholesalers, are a top concern. Since purchases are typically made in large quantities, the system must be secure, simple to use, and readily available. The system must be promptly updated because a single customer purchase might cause stock levels to drop by hundreds or even thousands of units.
7 Benefits of Inventory Management Software
The reliability of the inventory management system will determine how accurate the projections are. As a result, both your company and your warehouse will need more in-demand products. The advantages of the B2B order management order processing software for wholesalers are mentioned below:
- Accurate Inventory Counts: When stock levels are miscalculated, it’s annoying and expensive. Knowing exactly how many quantities you have on hand prevents customers from receiving short shipments and warehouse personnel from wasting time looking for merchandise they mistakenly believe is lost when it is not there.
- Price effective: Overstocking items wastes expensive warehousing space. It holds up capital, costs you money to store, and loses value as it sits in the warehouse, gathering dust.
- Improved Order Management: Orders can be closed immediately after they are opened when goods are received & shipped out in a timely and precise manner. Reviewing delayed shipments and unfulfilled orders, tracking hurried accelerated delivery to clients, and following up with dissatisfied customers constantly not only uses up resources but also lowers the morale of your business.
- Increased Revenue and Sales: Insufficient inventory leads to lost revenue and customers who switch to your competitors’ items. Effective inventory management can cut lead times in half and increase revenue by 10%.
- Business Insights: You can accurately forecast future needs when you have confidence in the accuracy of your inventory counts and have access to information on seasonal sales trends. This enables you to make plans in advance and avoid peak times. Your team may concentrate on completing customer orders while competitors rush to place orders with manufacturers.
- Better Warehouse Organization: Your warehouse employees are better able to manage space and human resources when there is an acceptable amount of inventory without a surplus and when they understand what inventory is arriving and departing weeks, if not months, in advance. Items that move quickly can be positioned close to the shipping/fulfillment location without obstruction from pallets and bins of extra items.
- Happy & Satisfied customers: A wholesaler delivering goods on time and without cutting corners will add value to their consumers, who will buy more from them. As a result, your clients, the merchants, sell more goods to their clients, creating a chain reaction. As you assist your clients in increasing their profits, they will return with additional business for you.
Software Features Wholesalers Must Look For
The primary factors in any wholesale inventory management platform should be automatically tracking orders and updating inventory. But in the modern world, this is only the beginning. Orders should be simple for customers to place, whether online or through a mobile app. With the best inventory system, you can use customer groups or one-on-one individualized online experiences for each client. Additionally, you should be able to limit the number of items or orders a customer can place. An order management order processing software should provide users with a private and secure login area, unlike an eCommerce website intended for the general public.
- Placement of orders
- Request sales quotes
- Real-time tracking of shipments
- Update account information
However, your software must support the customers when they have any queries regarding their orders. The software must provide them assistance 24×7 so that if the customer cannot connect with the real person, your software must provide them assistance or inform your team regarding the same.
Conclusion
The wholesale business is far more different from the B2C business. One significant challenge in B2B wholesale is maintaining a heavy inventory with large quantity products. Any understocking or overstocking can hurt your business. An ideal order management order processing software assists you in smooth operations and easy transactions, attracting more loyal customers and patrons.