Maybe no one knows better than eCommerce retailers that too much of a good thing can be disastrous. When a buyer’s forecast overshoots the mark, inventory can pile up in warehouses and mean big losses when products don’t move off the shelves as quickly as anticipated.
For shoppers who are out looking for markdown deals on their favorite products, a retailer’s surplus inventory can be great. And we all know that the end-of-season sale is a quarterly rite of passage for most retailers, a tried and true way to move old products out, get some of your money back and make way for new stock, all while placating your customers' desire for getting a great deal.
But the way a sale affects a customer is just part of the equation. To the retailer who's courting an effective inventory management approach, an end-of-season sale is an essential part of doing business.
To Manage Well, Control
Inventory management is the process by which retailers forecast product needs, replenish stock, schedule sales and otherwise ensure their product is moving in and out at the rate it should. The entire process relies upon good inventory control to be effective and run smoothly.
Inventory control centers entirely on keeping track of the product that exists for the retailer right now. And because roughly 45% to 90% of a business's capital is wrapped up in its inventory at any given time, avoiding stock outages and shrinkage while keeping expert track of exact product numbers is key to retail success.
But how do you exercise and maintain control of your inventory, let alone manage it effectively?
In many ways, good inventory control and management is about the system or systems you have in place that either encourage—think Apple—or discourage—think Best Buy ruining Christmas—keeping track of your products so you can sell what you currently have for a profit.
You also need to make good decisions about the products you have coming into the pipeline so you can sell those for a profit, too. And the system you have in place should help you do that with ease.
A Visual Catalog Management System
While no system can completely guarantee you never lose track of a single handkerchief or miss out on a potential customer's desire to score an out-of-stock, reissued bicentennial hand towel, a visual catalog management solution is one of the easiest ways to control and manage your entire catalog and inventory.
With a visual catalog management system, There are convenient and unobtrusive graphic overlays that keep you aware of current stock counts, colors, sizes and other product attributes, as well as robust analytics that let you know in real-time what's selling, what's trending and even what's being abandoned during checkout.
This enables you to see what's happening to your inventory. Coupling knowledge with a rich graphic interface lets you more easily schedule sales, move items to better positions, delete sold out stock and otherwise manage your product like an all-knowing deity.
Manage and control your inventory with a visual catalog management solution, and discover how too much of a good thing—namely, all-encompassing knowledge—can, indeed, be wonderful.
See what Smart Merchandiser can do to help you better manage end of season sales—download The Digital Merchandiser’s Guide to Maximizing Margins with Visualized Data eBook today to learn more!
