Modern pillars to support your inventory and order management tasks

Managing stocks is often a complicated task. Even if you know what is Inventory management and Order management in detail, some guess work always goes into this.

However, with SaaS based applications making their way into the market, optimization is getting a big boost.

Today, leading e-Commerce platforms like Magento and WooCommerce is allowing many business owners to open an online store in minutes.

From offering an intuitive interface to ensuring smooth purchase process, such platforms are surely helping in the front-end. But what after receiving an order?

How technology is shaping the world?

Whether you are at home or at work, technology is being used amongst students, work-going

people, as well as, the older generation too.

What does technology mean?

Technology is basically a combination of tools that makes it easy to perform tasks and offer solutions to mankind’s problems. And today, in this fast-moving world the use of technology in our daily lives is undeniable.

However, in this blog, we will discuss on how technology is helping business owners in the eCommerce industry.

The importance of technology in e-Commerce industry

Technology has come a long way- anyone can run an online store without a need of hiring website and software developers.

Opening an online store is no rocket-science; however, managing stock requirements and fulfilling customer’s orders can lead to waste of resources without automation.

Traditional way of dealing with an online sales order:

1^st You’ll have to ensure you have stock in hand.

2^nd Create and Print picking and packing slips.

3^rd Connect with carriers to fulfill orders.

4^th Communicate with your customers until product delivered.

Initially with less business in hand you may find the above tasks manageable, however, adapting technology can simplify processes and save you time.

What are the most important areas that technology is helping online sellers?

A- Easy integration

As soon as an order hits your store, the first thing you need to ensure stock availability with your warehouse staff.

Performing these tasks manually for each product can be time-consuming and the chance of inappropriate stock level increases.

Role of technology

Inventory management software is helping many online sellers to gain a competitive advantage over others who are still manually managing their warehouses, or, addressing stock

requirements.

Such software allows real-time stock management capabilities, helping online sellers to organize all their warehouses and make it easy to access and update stock levels on-the-go.

For example, if you have the same product listed across multiple warehouses- instead of taking the hassle of updating stock levels for each of them separately, using inventory management technology will ensure your product counts are in sync across all warehouses you deal with.

Benefit

With all stock information available in real-time, there are no chances of experiencing stock-outs, especially when need the most. Adopting technology, you won’t have to worry about updating stock level after each sale, as it will be done automatically.

B- Instant order processing capabilities

After you ensure accurate stock availability, next a seller would focus in processing the customer’s orders out for shipping. The major tasks include printing of labels and sending the package for fulfilment.

Manually creating and printing shipping labels is monotonous and chances of error in printing can delay order fulfilment tasks.

Role of technology

Order management software is allowing online sellers to eliminate the hassle of manually creating and printing shipping labels.

By allowing easy sync of orders coming from your multiple stores, such software does not only automate shipping label processes but also, helps online sellers to create multiple in few simple clicks of the mouse.

Benefit

Eliminating the hassle of having to type each of your customer’s order and shipping details manually and printing labels one-by-one- are helping online sellers to boost delivery performance.

Automating the process of creating and printing shipping labels, such software is helping online sellers gain a competitive advantage by allowing them an ability to process multiple orders on-the-go.

C- Connection with shipping carriers

After picking and packing the customer’s orders, online sellers need to immediately connect with right shipping service and ensure quick and safe delivery.

Not having an ability to connect with the correct solution at the correct time will automatically delay the shipment dates as promised to your customers.

Role of technology

Shipping management software is allowing online sellers to connect with leading shipping providers in seconds to ensure safest and in-time product delivery.

For online sellers who limit themselves in dealing with more than one supplier, such software will automatically encourage them to build strong relationship with popular carriers from across the globe.

Benefit

Being tied up to specific shipping provider can limit you from expanding your presence, however, having an ability to easily connect with multiple shipping companies will allow online sellers to expand their reach and deal with the ones that save them money.

D- Quick communication

Suppliers and customers are considered to be any seller’s backbone for running an online business. Using different accounts to co-ordinate with daily customers can lead to miscommunications.

With no instant access to any of your customers can lead to a delay in processing orders, as well as, spoil the overall customer’s experience.

Role of technology

Contact management software is helping online sellers to manage multiple suppliers and customers by securing all their transactions and details.

Instead of relying on those spreadsheets or phone calls, such software is making it easy for sellers to quickly gain access of their supplier’s and customer’s information in real-time.

Benefit

Switching over messages to access your customer’s or supplier’s information can lead to unwanted delays and confusions. However, having instant access to important information will help online sellers gain transparency and quickly make decisions on-the-go.

E- Centralized management

Multi-channel being the buzzword, however performing daily repetitive tasks for each channel separately can be a major concern to many online sellers.

Whether it’s managing stock for each channel or processing your customer’s orders, performing every task using different systems will slow down the growth rate for your business.

Role of technology

Multi-channel integration software is encouraging more and more online sellers to confidently expand their online presence.

Without having to worry about logging into various accounts, such software will make it easy and quick to manage and process complex tasks in few clicks.

Benefit

Allowing online sellers to easily sync their multiple store data at one place, a centralized system is making it easy for them to access any information and perform tasks from the place.

F- Access to important metrics

With the above, I’m sure you’ll understand how technology is helping online sellers to simplify their daily business activities. However, tracking the performance of major tasks is surely helping online sellers grow smartly.

Be it your inventory, orders, suppliers, or customers- not being able to track performance for each will stop you from extracting new opportunities that you may never realize.

Role of technology

Reporting and analytic management software are allowing online sellers an opportunity to leverage all their major back-end tasks performance in real-time.

Allowing an opportunity to measure the performance of major tasks, such software will help online sellers make the best optimization of resources.

Benefit

Allowing easy access to powerful insights, reporting, and analytics tools are saving online sellers to trace pitfalls and immediately take measures to avoid them in future.

The race is still on…

Technology offers numerous benefits for online sellers, but the question is “How many are really taking an advantage of it?”