The period when retailers are hoping to make up for the summer slump is slowly approaching. Black Friday is one of the most important retail and spending events in the world. Over 77% of the global population has heard of Black Friday and the number is increasing, making Black Friday one of the largest global economical events.
Black Friday is the day on which many retailers traditionally make enough sales to put them in the black for the year, so it’s essential to get everything right. Having strong Inventory management is crucial for any wholesale distribution business – especially when coming up to Black Friday the holiday season. Put simply, this is having the right stock at the right levels, in the right place, at the right time, and at the right cost.
So why is having enough inventory so important?
For many retailers, Black Friday and the rest of the holiday season is critical to ending the year right. Fourth-quarter sales usually can equal or surpass all of the sales from the rest of the year. This is why having good inventory management crucial for any online business and here’s why that’s especially true for the months to come
Because it’s not the same if you fail to prepare or prepare to fail
You have to be on your toes when it comes to stock management, it helps you calculate exactly how much inventory you need to have on-hand at any time. But having enough products that you can sell isn’t enough, you also need to have your boxes and packaging ordered and ready before the holidays begin. If you don’t have the boxes and packaging ready, it means that you will certainly have delays when it comes to shipping the items you’ve sold, which can even lead to sad kids on Christmas mornings! To avoid making children sad on Christmas Eve, make sure that you’ve ordered all your boxes ahead of time, so you and your customers can happily enjoy the holidays.
It can help you avoid the Boxing Day blues
Now that you’ve survived Black Friday you think it would be time to celebrate – but that post-Black Friday elation you will feel is fleeting – as it’s time to do everything all over again by prepping for Boxing Day! How can you avoid all the stress that comes with it? Be prepared! Being ready for Black Friday and the holiday season includes being ready for those post-Christmas sales as well. Here’s where stock management comes into play again – it helps you calculate how much inventory you’ll need for the following period.
Oh, and don’t forget that having sufficient inventory should include having enough boxes to ship your products!
It helps you save precious time and money
When you have spot-on inventory management, you know exactly what’s in your warehouse. You will also know what is being shipped where, the current location of your products and their final destination. By knowing all this, it means that things are less likely to get lost in transit or sent to the wrong address. By ordering higher quality boxes, you can decrease the chance of the products being damaged in transit. When issues like this are eradicated, you won’t have to waste valuable time and money on dealing with customer complaints, tracking down lost orders and returned goods during the busiest period of the year!
You will have more room for creativity
Why not invest all that time and money in adding a unique touch – try giving your packaging a festive theme! Even though the products are purchased by the receiver, you can use colorful packaging to make the products feel more like a gift! This will surely make your customer feel special. This can result in free advertising – everyone wants to share photos of their beautiful Christmas gifts!
It can help to keep customers coming back for more
It’s a proven fact that good stock management leads to returning customers. If you want your hard-earned customers to come back for your products and services, you need to be able to meet your customer’s demands quickly and efficiently. You want to be remembered as the company that went beyond to make someone’s Christmas – not as the one who ruined it!
Conclusion
It’s clear that efficient inventory management helps your business and its reputation. It allows you to meet customer demands, by giving you the tools to have the right products, in the right place at the right time.
This is where Nventree can come in handy – the software has been perfected to handle inventory management across multiple sales platforms, centralizing all of your product stock data in one place.