In the current fast-paced e-commerce field, efficient inventory management is vital for the success of any online shop.
While Shopify continues to lead the industry in 2023, it’s imperative to stay ahead of the curve by implementing the best Shopify inventory management practices; in this post, we will highlight tried and tested tips that can help you streamline your Shopify inventory management procedure, minimize mistakes, and maximize income.
Whether you run a giant e-commerce store or are a small business owner, these practices will assist you in optimizing your Shopify inventory. This ensures you don’t miss anything in satisfying your clients and beating your competition.
Features of Shopify inventory management
Shopify is a great e-commerce system that offers the easiest way for businesses to build and personalize their online shops. It offers a strong set of inventory management features. The features are designed to assist business owners in keeping track of their products, monitoring stock levels, and managing inventory. They include:
- Product management
- Inventory tracking
- Bulk actions
- Multi-location inventory
- Automated inventory updates
- Stock transfers
- Inventory history
- Barcode support
- Inventory forecasting
- Reports and analytics
- Integration
Note that these features are perfect for the advantages they bring. Let us look at some of the best Shopify inventory management practices that can help you leverage these features and run a successful e-commerce platform.
Setting up inventory tracking
Your Shopify inventory management won’t be successful if you fail to pay attention to inventory levels. Tips for setting up inventory tracking in Shopify:
Head to the Shopify admin section and choose items. Click on the name of the item you want. Under the inventory heading, press check track quantity. Below quantity, key in how many you have and press save.
If the products have variants, include them in the inventory totals. You can continue selling the items even if they are sold out.
Strategies and tools for inventory tracking
The simplest way to start tracking inventory items is by uploading a CSV file. This automatically updates the totals. You have the alternative of hiding the items that are out of stock. Unless you want to offer pre-orders, this may be a good idea.
But since you want your clients to see how big your store is, you may want to have every product available for them to sell, irrespective of whether it’s in or out of stock.
Setting up inventory notifications for low inventory quantity
Having low inventory alerts in your online store is important for maintaining optimal stock levels and avoiding stockouts. You can adjust your stock allocations or reorder products in a timely manner, making sure that you meet client demand.
By setting inventory alerts, you will improve client satisfaction, avoid lost sales, and maintain the general efficiency of your business. When setting up these alerts, you need the inventory tracking techniques Shopify offers.
You can then download one of the different low-inventory apps that Shopify provides. After you make your choice, go back to the platform and click Track Quantity next to every item. Make sure you have a reorder point (ROP) on.
Using barcode scanner
If you plan to sell a significant number of products to online or physical clients, you need a barcode scanner to expedite the checkout procedure for every client. Barcode scanning provides a reliable and cost-effective solution for reducing human mistakes and improving efficiency in your operations. If you are looking for a faster solution to stave off the risks of bad inventory management, you should get a barcode system.
Organize your items into collections.
Organizing your items by collection allows clients to find what they want quicker. For example, if you are selling women’s clothing, it might appear like this:
- Pants
- Shoes
- Tops
- Jewelry
That means all the shoes should be in one collection. This allows your clients to browse the whole women’s shoe collection; it removes the risk of male shoes getting mixed up and spoiling the user experience. Product organization has several advantages. They include improving navigation and usability, increasing customer satisfaction, improving the visual appeal of the site, and keeping better track of inventory levels.
Refining your product listings
Suppose your items are featured on the product comparison shopping engine; it’s important to refine the product listing. This will help you catch the attention of shoppers when researching the products. When they visit a site, the possibility of them buying a product is high.
Benefits of refining product listings include;
- Boosted web traffic
- Improved brand awareness
- Increased conversion rate
- Improved ranking in search engine result pages and Google images
Use inventory reports
Inventory reports offer real-time data. These reports are important for various reasons since they assist online shop owners in making good business decisions and maintaining smooth business operations. Besides, they offer an end-of-the-month snapshot of the shop’s inventory. The benefits of inventory reports include:
- Evaluating how much the products are selling
- Predicting future demand
- Improving client satisfaction by restocking products on time
- Predicting future demand
- Optimizing the inventory expenses
Setting up automatic recording
The automatic recording makes everything simple. In simple terms, it means that if a client wants to reorder something, they do not have to go through the same hoops as before. It’s easy to add to your tour of stores, and this will assist you in getting more sales. Automatic recording helps your e-commerce business increase client lifetime value by removing barriers to reordering.
Frequent audits of the inventory
Errors in Shopify inventory management are inevitable when running a product-centric business. Nevertheless, it’s important to tackle these mistakes head-on and locate their root causes through techniques like cycle counting and comprehensive planned audit. Frequently auditing the inventory might be time-consuming, but it’s a vital aspect of effective Shopify inventory management.
No inventory app that can make up for bad Shopify inventory management procedures. That is why you need to understand the best practices before using this technology. We believe this post will serve as a perfect guide.
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