4 Ecommerce Inventory Basics to Review Constantly

It doesn’t matter if you’ve been selling online for a long time or if you’re new to the game. Either way, in order to maintain effective ecommerce inventory tracking, you need to manage these basic fundamentals on a regular basis:

Detailed Organization

Do you know what you have in stock and where to find it?

Of course, this applies more to larger brands with products stored in warehouses. In these cases, it’s especially important to invest in a quality inventory management system that keeps detailed real-time records.

But even if you operate a small ecommerce store, you still need to have super organized records and be able to track inventory in real time in order to be successful.

Accurate Forecasting

Effective ecommerce inventory management is based on strategic planning. In particular, it is a combination of solid market research, analyzing patterns, and understanding stock levels.

Accurate forecasting across channels helps you to predict products you’ll need, when you’ll need them, and in what quantities. It also helps you to avoid surplus stock, which can be very detrimental budget wise.

Product Prioritization

Do you know what your core and non-core products are?

ShippingTree explains that ecommerce inventory core products are the items you never want to run out of, or fall short on, while your non-core products are, well, basically everything else.

This is an important distinction because knowing the difference will help you with reordering. And, more importantly, you will always have the core products on hand for your customers.

Supply Replenishment

In this article on managing your eBay inventory, I pointed out, among other things, the importance of never running out of stock.

Experts, for their part, recommend physical inventory counts at least once a week, preferably by the same person if possible.

I know it’s tempting to ignore these ecommerce inventory basics or figure they’ll take care of themselves. But, in the end, you risk losing both frustrated customers and business.