Inventory control is a vital part of handling an ecommerce venture, yet it may be one of the most complicated and technical elements of the job to master.

Keeping track of items bought and sold can be made complex by overhead, sale/turnover rate, cost of purchase, and other factors that can be challenging to keep up with as your e-commerce expands.

However, if you wish to keep your store profitable, you must have precise inventory regulation because the cost for holding inventory can reach up to 25% of its full worth.

Furthermore, inadequate oversight resulting in shortages and being too generous in inventory can incur substantial expenses.

Having too much stock could result in you having to pay for the storage and managing of goods that might not even be sold, while running out of stock means customers will be lost, shipping times may become long, and customer contentment will decrease.

This is especially pertinent for Amazon vendors, whose postings and Amazon search engine optimization will decrease drastically if they do not have any product available.

Having an exact record of your stock allows you to organize when to reorder, have the suitable number of items on hand to meet customer needs, and decrease expenses by realizing your purchases and losses.

You should begin by seeing to it that your physical inventory numbers are accurate so the rest of your inventory details stays precise. There are numerous components of your stock that need attention.

How to Physically Organize Your Inventory

In order to have precise stock accounting, the initial action to take is to arrange your inventory. As the size of one’s ecommerce store increases, the requirement to take this step becomes more and more essential. However, this particular action is usually omitted by the proprietors of very small businesses.

Having an organized system allows you to identify what you own, keep track of it, and improve your comprehension of the information once you have made a tally.

The first step in managing your stock should nearly always be to arrange it in a physical way.

Label bins
Create a structured order
Integrate an inventory movement system such as “first in, last out” or “last in first out.”

This will give you the ability to monitor the locations of items in your warehouse as well as facilitate counting at a faster pace.

A quality inventory control system requiring precise labeling and classification is essential for an effective organization.

Inventory Labeling

Employing physical labeling allows you to upgrade the precision of your stock count with the aid of barcode scanners and other technology. Even if everything is produced in-house, it’s essential to have an identifiable system of labelling to correspond with the digital inventory.

Your label should include:

SKU (Stock-Keeping-Unit)
UPC/EAN
Measurements
Location, if applicable

Inventory Naming

You require precise and well-ordered product names so you can keep track of and control your inventory and stock amounts. This usually entails developing SKU numbers to keep track of your internal stockpile while taking advantage of other technology to improve and make available for purchase.

You need to give particular items a title that is determined by their type, dimension, shade, etc.

Many of us are inclined to think of product names that are meaningful, but successful inventory management necessitates coming up with labels that can be easily found through searching.

Semantic: Blue Chuck Taylor Converse Shoes
Searchable: Converse, Chuck Taylor, Blue, Size 8.5

Why? When manually updating, if the item you are looking for is “Blue Converse Shoes” you should look for it under “Blue” rather than “Converse”.

Using a labeling system that does not rely on connotations, it is possible to prioritize the critical aspect of the product first. Using barcodes makes it simpler to keep track of inventories since it is simpler to identify what a product is.

SKU

A SKU is the lowest amount of any type of stocking item (e.g. a bundle of paper cups or a vacuum cleaner) that can be sold, and it enables you to keep track of in-house items and the number of them. If you have not already done so, it is essential to assign Stock Keeping Units to your items now and begin to keep track of your inventory with them.

A SKU that works well should have a name that accurately portrays the product, should have between 4 and 14 characters, should not contain any special symbols, and ought to be distinct from all other SKUs.

For example, using a simple first letter and product number system, you could create SKUs like:

Chocolate bar – SKU: CB001
Chocolate bar, vanilla – SKU: CB001-01
Chocolate bar, hazelnut – SKU: CB001-02
Toffee – SKU: T002
Toffee, Caramel – SKU: T002-01

This system permits you to categorize all the items in your system in a straightforward alphabetical and numerical sequence. Making sure you can easily differentiate each object and variations increases the accuracy of your tally.

In contrast, when you use a SKU such as 0001ABC, you can’t use sorting to locate it easily and it doesn’t provide any intuitive understanding on what it represents.

SKUs provide a way for you to modify the number of tangible items available for purchase, and arrange them into a format that meets the needs of your company.

It is simple to manage physical arrangements either by alphabetical order or numerical order. For instance, you can arrange and arrange your storage facility in total by using a method that assigns each SKU a value depending on when it was entered in the system (first one 0001, last one 12987).

If your warehouse is sufficiently spacious, and all your products are tracked from one particular location, it is possible for you to add the locations of your SKUs. It is not a good idea to use Amazon FBA, a third-party logistic firm, or any other outside fulfillment system.

How to Create SKUs in BigCommerce

There are a variety of methods for generating SKUs through the BigCommerce system. There are two main options:

Import products and SKUs from an excel file
Create custom SKUs on a per product basis

If you need to generate special stock keeping units for each item, you have some possibilities. Every item in BigCommerce could possess more than five hundred selections or choices. This means 500 different stock keeping units for a single item. You can also make it so there is just one product with no options.

Here is how you set that up.

Units of Measure

You can incorporate units of measurement into your stock keeping unit or product labeling to figure out the exact amount of each item you possess, which will make taking stock a breeze.

By guaranteeing that you have officially sanctioned units of measurement, a system can be constructed that makes it possible to keep track of SKU quantities in a straightforward and effective manner.

Common measurements include:

Unit
Each
Pound
Gram
Crate
Box
24 Count
12 Count

By determining the unit of measurement and setting up agreed-upon abbreviations for them (e.g. ea. instead of EA, Ea, EA(s)), you can make your tally operation more organized as you understand what any particular amount implies.

Why do we need BigCommerce Inventory Apps?

If you just have a small amount of items for sale, it might be possible for you to take care of your stock levels unaided. As your company expands or you plan to introduce new products, you may find it increasingly tricky to keep tabs on all the details.

The cost of inventory is now factoring in multi-channel commerce. Customers want to be able to purchase things in an easier way no matter their location. Thus, companies must be able to distribute their products through multiple outlets.

If you use a manual system for handling inventory, you will be spending a lot of your time seeking out documents, fixing data inaccuracies, and leaving items neglected and uncounted. Software designed for tracking inventory could be helpful in streamlining the process of maintaining a record of inventory and conserving both time and money.

Boost your inventory’s accuracy

Keeping track of the quantity of goods on hand can be a hassle, particularly if you are distributing their products through many different channels due to the difficulty in monitoring the amounts of inventory present across all of them. It could be more complicated when you offer more items for sale than you actually have in your inventory (on your product webpage). Consequently, if you have the right resources and techniques, your stock control system will be usable via the internet.

Make judgments based on data

If you don’t monitor your inventory closely, it’s likely that you’ll end up with too much stock or not enough. When anyone purchases something associated with holidaying, a promotional drive, or launching a new item, the chances improve.

When inventory control is executed successfully, extra data is available. The inventory and sales records demonstrate the volume, frequency, and quickness with which products are being sold. Examining the choices and actions of customers can be useful in making decisions that are supported by data.

Boost your efficiency

Tremendous amounts of labour are expended on activities such as keeping track of products by hand, searching for misplaced items, updating stock levels in eCommerce systems, and addressing customer questions related to inventory disasters.

Utilizing BigCommerce’s automated inventory management system allows for you and your workers to be a whole lot more productive. Third-party programs and warehouse control systems can increase automation even further, eliminating the need for manual revisions and lessening the likelihood of human errors.

Best Apps for BigCommerce Inventory Management

1. Brightpearl

Brightpearl is a retail operations system designed specifically for companies that either make more than a million dollars in revenue or those that anticipate reaching that threshold in the coming days. This system is equipped to accommodate a large amount of orders, even including large amounts of requests. Brightpearl makes it simple to manage numerous warehouse inventory. For enterprises with stock stocked in various spots, this simplifies matters.

Brightpearl is best for Big Businesses and Wholesalers. Utilizing this system will dramatically reduce the amount of time and money that would be required for these tasks. Brightpearl provides pricing options that are tailored to the size of your enterprise.

Key features

Order Routing and Fulfillment with Flexibility

Brightpearl offers an advanced fulfillment element which can be adapted to fit the requirements of different orders. BigCommerce does not have to fret if a given order is delivered through a third-party shipping provider, drop shipment, or backorder. Brightpearl is responsible for organizing and sending the item to the customer.

Inventory Control in Multiple Locations

A retailer can look at which of their warehouses should be assessed for their merchandise quality standards for each e-commerce store by using the BigCommerce link, so that their sales capabilities are optimized. When buying something, Brightpearl’s execution and mechanization procedures refer customers to whatever location makes the most sense for the company’s preferences.

Accurate accounting for inventory

Input of the same data is utilized multiple times in various systems such as sales, purchases, inventory management and accounting, thereby heightening the prospect of mistakes in each stage. When it comes to invoicing sales, payments, inventory reception, and other tasks, Brightpearl creates journals automatically. It streamlines data entry and shifts the accountant’s focus to exceptions instead of manual data input.

All the data is immediately available, so the company can get an accurate and timely picture of their operations without needing to use any external services or compile different sets of data.

For a customer who has many BigCommerce sites, Amazon marketplaces, or EDIs, they should link up each of their channels directly to Brightpearl individually. Brightpearl will keep all related information and sales channels synchronized in a timely manner.

2. Skubana

For companies attempting to increase their profit through multiple channels, Skubana provides a distributed order management system that contributes to a successful fulfillment process, inventory management, and business intelligence. Skubana links together data from different sales channels, storage facilities, 3PLs, point-of-sale systems, and other sources so that retailers can give customers the best possible satisfaction.

Skubana is ideal for companies in the mid-sized and large range who are distributing their products via multiple platforms.

Key Features

Manage product listings across different markets, suppliers, large stores, and your BigCommerce page all in one convenient dashboard. You can prevent over-selling and market fees by utilizing comprehensive demand explanations, programmed re-stocking, and alarm systems when necessary items are diminishing. Increase orders by producing bundles and kits or changing stock numbers in order to create an artificial lack of availability.

Automate Operational Responsibilities

Find the most economical way to fulfill any BigCommerce order and get rid of any issues associated with shipping from multiple places. Orderbots are capable of carrying out virtually every task associated with orders, keeping track of inventories, and doing the necessary work to complete each order on all channels. Make sure to never run out of stock again by quickly utilizing automated purchase orders to fill demands based on channel velocity, the amount of orders, and other considerations when buying.

Multi-Channel Confusion is Converted into Singular Simplicity

Predicting future necessities, gauging profitability, and predicting inventory deficiencies can be achieved by employing multiple sources of information and discernment. Our analytics tool allows you to quickly identify ways you can decrease costs and increase profits for each individual SKU and sales channel. The exact amount of gain from each product taking into account all expense types, such as marketplace fees, cost of goods sold based on the Last-In First-Out approach, and managerial expenditures, should be determined.