From a customer’s perspective, which is worse? Seeing that an item is sold out before you order it, or ordering (and paying for) an item that’s listed as in stock, only to find out later that the item was not actually in stock?
Most customers would prefer the bad news upfront. Inventory inaccuracies create a host of customer frustrations that your business would surely prefer to avoid.
The math here is simple, even if the france phone number list execution is complex: The more accurate your inventory, the more success you’ll have in delivering the right products on time.
Whether you’re using an in-house order fulfillment model or you’re relying on a 3PL partner’s distribution centers, using a warehouse management system is generally better than relying on manual data entry. This is certainly true as you grow or scale your ecommerce venture.
You also want to be sure to watch the right set of inventory management metrics, which can show you how well you’re doing at keeping an accurate inventory. These metrics will vary depending on your goals, but could include:
Backorder rate (rate of unfulfilled orders due to items on backorder)
Accuracy of forecast demand (compares on-hand quantity to the forecasted demand)
Lost sales ratio (number of days a product is out of stock compared to projected sales over that time)
Inventory shrinkage (inventory that you cannot find or cannot sell due to damage)
Fill rate (measures how many items were shipped compared to ordered)
Customer satisfaction score (number of positive responses against all responses).