Why You Need an WMS Software for eCommerce Inventory Management

Warehouses hold large inventories and are a critical part of the supply chain that ensures equitable e-commerce service to all regions served. As soon as a customer place an order, the warehouse teams locate inventory and prepare for shipment. Running and maintaining this operation requires robust technology to fine-tune inventory management and order tracking. But that does not make these systems the right tool for all business models.

The E-commerce industry has very unique business needs. Housing their inventory requires a more diversified approach, which needs an advanced warehouse management system (WMS) that could deal with those tactfully.

Visit Sharp Brains website or email us at solutions@sharpbrains.co.uk to book a demo or for any queries.

Why is WMS Software Important for eCommerce Business?

eCommerce businesses deal with a wide transportation network, multiple location shipping, and determining local-specific inventory volume. A perfect ecommerce order fulfilment could be a long, laborious task. It needs software tied with tools to secure everything together. Using the right warehouse inventory management software could:

Reduce order Processing Costs

When your order fulfilment speed is increased, it automatically reduces the process costs. An WMS software makes this possible. The system does this in a wide variety of ways.

It lets you improve warehouse floor layout based on sale, making it easier and faster for staff to locate particular items when an order is received. This optimizes the process, reduces the order picking time and resources involved, which eventually lowers the overall operating costs. You could accommodate your warehouse inventory better and optimize supply chain by a significant margin.

Improve Tracking and Visibility

Conducting regular inventory counts helps to ensure that the correct number of products are available in stock and in good condition. Inventory management software allows workers to maintain count frequency through automation. Users could simply press a few buttons or scan the barcodes and keep the information about inventory levels up-to-date.

Further, warehouse management software tracks inventory in real-time via serial numbers, barcoding, or RFID tagging, efficiently documenting every product that enters or leaves the storehouse and where they are stored. This improves the visibility of stock levels at any point in time, which helps you forecast demand better. You would be able to avoid stockouts and overstock situations.

Seamless Synchronized Procedures

Fulfilment centres have many operations, and communication between them could be siloed, resulting in your employees wasting time going back and forth to find the correct record.

E-commerce warehouse management systems let users seamlessly synchronize operations from order management to inventory. It offers a centralized platform to track orders fulfilled, shipping details, fulfilment times, customer feedback, and more in real-time. This means all your teams would have updated information about your business, thereby cutting down human error and bottlenecks that might occur due to improper communication between departments.

Optimized Warehouse Space

When you classify products and assign specific storage space, it helps you optimally place them in particular bins and shelves. This enables you not just to find ordered products faster but lets you accommodate maximum inventory.

With an ecommerce inventory management software solution, you could optimize your storage space and make use of recorded product details to place them in the right racks from where they could be easily processed for order fulfilment, while also know which stock needs to be replaced in a much more streamlined fashion.

Faster Order Fulfilment

Ecommerce customers expect fast order delivery. WMS software could expedite the order fulfilment process. The system allows you to optimize product movement within your warehouse, helping you better plan your inbound strategy, such as receiving stock, barcode scanning, and putting away inventory. This enables your warehouse team to quickly pick up and pack orders, reducing order processing times.

Setting Up Your E-Commerce WMS – Important Features

Earlier, we plowed a lengthy list of benefits that a good WMS could bring to an e-commerce business. Here, take a look at the features that the system should have:

Warehouse design manager

Warehouse space is often wasted when stored goods are not organized well. WMS allows you to customize and set up the most efficient warehouse layout that speeds up the pick-and-pack process.

Integration with back-office systems

Your WMS should include inventory control, order entry, purchase order, finance, and modules for other processes that help to keep the business running. Implementing it could enhance operational efficiency, improve service, reduce costs, and increase profitability, thus offering your organization a competitive advantage in the long term.

Integration with inventory tracking devices

Your warehouse management system must allow integration with devices like radio-frequency identification (RFID) and barcoding technologies. They could automatically track inventory data and update it whenever a change occurs. You would be able to access this information on your dashboard and find goods easily when they need to move.

Real-time inventory tracking

Inventory control in real time helps you stay up-to-date with stock movements. This improves supply chain workflows, keeps inventory levels under control, enables more accurate forecasting, and provides a better customer experience.

Picking and packing

Inventory management software that supports multiple picking and packing methods like zone picking, wave picking, and batch picking could be optimized, and employees could be guided to complete the process most efficiently.

Workforce management

The workforce management module could help you allocate tasks to your employees and monitor their performance to enable consistency and efficiency in their performance.

Yard and dock management

This feature is majorly for more extensive operations, where the system could assist delivery partners in finding suitable docks for loading and unloading goods.

How Can We Help?

Say goodbye to e-commerce inventory management complications with our WMS software. At Sharp Brains, we design incredibly easy-to-use ERP software for warehouse management to give insight into how the inventory and fulfilment operations are performing daily.

Visit Sharp Brains website or email us at solutions@sharpbrains.co.uk to book a demo or for any queries.