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8 Tools and Strategies to Automate Your E-commerce Business & Grow Faster

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Archives, Global Logistics, Global Trade Daily, Software

8 Tools and Strategies to Automate Your E-commerce Business & Grow Faster

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The automation of e-commerce businesses has become much easier and more efficient in recent years. More and more online retailers are choosing to automate their activities and workflows and for a good reason. Automation can positively affect multiple areas of your business, including marketing, sales, customer service, order fulfillment, inventory management, accounting, and much more. Let’s see how this works in more detail.

Why Automation is Key for Ecommerce

There are many substantial benefits that different automation software can bring to your online shop. Here are some of the most important effects of a well-executed automation strategy:

-Speeding up all kinds of processes and streamlining workflows in the company.

-Saving time: your marketing, sales, IT, customer service, and operations department will be rescued from performing a number of tiresome, repetitive tasks on a daily basis, which will give them time to focus on strategic and creative aspects of their work.

-By saving time, it cuts your expenses, so it saves you money, too.

-Increasing conversions by improving customer experience and optimizing the sales process.

-Minimizing the potential for all sorts of human errors.

-Collecting, storing, and interpreting loads of customer data and putting them into action. These data can be vital for gaining a slight but crucial edge over your competitors.

All in all, automation can improve the way your company works on many levels. In this article, we’ll deal with some specific areas of your business you should look to automate. We’ll explain how to make the best use of automation tools in these areas and take a brief look at some of the concrete tools you can utilize for this purpose.   

Email Marketing Automation

To this day, email marketing remains the most cost-effective digital marketing strategy. Different automatic emails can generate a lot of revenue if they’re being sent to the right people at the right time.

For instance, the cost of automatic welcome emails is next to nothing, yet these can significantly affect your bottom line. On average, welcome emails bring five times more sales than regular bulk emails.

Of course, welcome emails aren’t really enough. You’ll have to be more specific and carefully set triggers that will prompt the software to send different follow-up emails. Take cart abandonment, for example – as much as 70% of all online carts end up abandoned for various reasons. And it turns out that a brief reminder about the abandoned cart can be that little nudge in the right direction that a shopper needed. If you automatically send them emails as soon as they give up on purchasing a product, these will generate 36 times more sales than ordinary bulk mails – especially if you offer discounts or other incentives.

In general, emails can open up a whole world of upselling and cross-selling opportunities with consumers that have already shown interest in some products. Sending follow-up messages with related products can boost your sales substantially. Here it’s important to send the right offers to the right people, which basically comes down to accurate customer data and smart segmentation. You need to set the parameters and triggers right, and the automation software will do the rest.

A great tool to consider for this purpose is Klaviyo. It offers fast integrations with a huge number of e-commerce platforms, which will save you tons of time, as everything can be controlled from a single dashboard. Klaviyo also provides great segmentation and personalization features, including dynamic data blocks that will ensure that different sections of an email are shown to different carefully targeted groups. More than 30 thousand users who choose Klaviyo may be a good indication that it’s a very useful tool to automate your email marketing efforts.  

Inventory Management Automation

Not having the right amount of control over your inventory can hurt your business in many ways. In an era where UX and CX are only getting more important, making a customer wait for an additional week or two because you don’t have the product in stock is anything short of a disaster. To put it in numbers, 24% of all shoppers reported having canceled their order because of slow delivery, while 38% of them said they’d never buy from a retailer again after a negative delivery experience.

Updating info about your inventory manually may be possible for some very small businesses. But in e-commerce, every business can become an overnight success, and every business needs to be scalable. Manual updates are not a scalable solution.

That’s why some sort of inventory management automation software is becoming a must for most companies. The right automation tools will ensure you continuously have a detailed real-time overview of your stock. This approach is much more efficient than periodical updating, as selling online is an unpredictable endeavor, and you don’t want to leave anything to chance. The software can monitor your inventory and automatically order products you need more of, unpublish out-of-stock products and even pause advertising for these products until you replenish your supply.

A great inventory management tool you can use is InFlow. It can help you organize your products with the help of lists, categories, photos, and serial numbers. It helps you stay on top of your costs, it helps you track your stock, and it can also take a lot of the stress out of reordering items. You can easily monitor everything from a handy dashboard. 

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the tool’s features. Best of all, InFlow integrates with plenty of the most popular e-commerce platforms (Shopify and Amazon included), as well as Zapier and QuickBooks, so you’ll have no trouble making the absolute most of it. 

Workflow Automation 

A lot of the work we do is done haphazardly and without that element of forethought that can make it productive, effective, and efficient. As humans, we’re certainly not always capable of giving 100% (and neither should we be). But sometimes, all it takes is a tool to help us make the most of the time and resources we have at our disposal.

With a clever workflow automation tool, you can build a smart workplace that will enable your team to communicate better and stay on top of all of their tasks. A smart workplace will ensure team members can tell at a glance who is doing what at any given time, what the priorities are, and when there is time to relax a bit. 

It will also offer plenty of flexibility: you can still choose to tackle tasks in any order, but you do have a reliable and up-to-date set of data to base your decisions on.

A good example of such a tool is Asana. While there are certainly more trending workflow management tools out there, Asana has been around for quite some time and it has perfected its solution. Asana allows you to design your own processes and create boards that help you stay on top of tasks. You can manage projects and teams with it, and there is a calendar you can use integrated with the tool. Plus, it works for any team: marketing, sales, IT, and so on.

Smart Calendar Tool

Smart calendars can be used for much more than just reminding us of birthdays and dentist appointments. A truly advanced calendar app can help you organize your team, arrange meetings, increase your productivity, and eliminate noise in communication.

This kind of scheduling tool is useful for any business, not just online-based ones. When designed well, they can save you a lot of time and instantly provide you with info relevant for your meeting or appointment. These can include a social media profile of a person you’re meeting or the weather forecast for the day and place you’ve set.

It’s best to show the benefits of such a tool as an example. Take Woven, for instance. Apart from standard functionalities you would expect from any calendar app, it offers conveniences such as smart templates for different meeting types, group polls, and availability sharing that speeds up the process of arranging a meeting immensely. Instead of losing time on endless group chats, everyone involved can simply mark their free and busy hours with just a few taps. This sort of tool can relieve you of a lot of frustration and time-wasting.

Live Chat Tool 

The introduction of modern technology into the field of customer service has resulted in consumers asking more from brands in this respect. Instant responses and constant availability are big priorities for shoppers. As much as 90% of consumers have labeled an immediate response to their customer support issue as “important” or “very important.”  

Users also expect you to be available via all possible channels. If they have a question about a product on your website that they’d like to buy, they may not be in the mood to search for your brand on social media in order to DM you. Additional few clicks or taps can make all the difference in the world here. That’s why you should think about a live chat automation feature on your website.

Now, very few chatbots today can engage in a truly complex conversation and solve complicated issues, as they still have trouble with properly processing natural language. Still, they can be very useful for answering basic questions and routing the right customer service rep into the conversation once things get too tricky for them. This tactic reduces costs, employs a “worker” that will be available around the clock, increases the average order value, and can boost your conversions by up to 20%.

Drift is the world’s leading conversational marketing platform with some very useful advanced live chat features. For instance, you have multiple inboxes at your disposal to manage different types of conversations, and you can save replies to common questions.  A great thing about Drift is that you can see who’s browsing your website even before they choose to engage in a conversation and you can easily import all leads from Drift into your marketing automation platform. Finally, detailed chat analytics will help you learn whether you’re doing things right and make improvements accordingly.

Repricing Automation Software

If you’re selling on Amazon, then you understand the importance of continually updating your prices. Readjusting your prices based on the prices your rivals offer makes you more competitive and gives you a better chance of obtaining a Buy Box, which can substantially increase your sales.

In short, only the top sellers can win a share of the BuyBox, and the Amazon algorithm decides who the top sellers are based on several factors. Among other things, top sellers are supposed to provide reliable and fast shipping, quick responses to customers, stable inventory levels, and low order defect rate. Finally, one of the most important factors is the price.

That’s why you need to be up-to-date with price trends among your competitors and update your prices on a regular basis. It can get very difficult, if not impossible, to constantly check on your competitors’ prices and manually modify yours whenever needed. If you fail to adapt to prices offered by other sellers, you can get pushed out of the BuyBox almost instantly.

Here, repricing automation software can solve your problems. Aura can be a great tool of choice in this case. It will follow other designated retailers, register any changes in price, and react based on the values that you set previously. For instance, you can aim to be the FBA seller with the lowest price or simply target the current BuyBox price. Aura offers many different strategies and strategy templates and lets you easily define your competitors. It updates your prices just a minute or two after a relevant change happens and thus helps you maximize your time in the BuyBox.

Order Fulfillment Automation 

Simply put, order fulfillment is the process that starts when the customer clicks the “order” button and finishes when the ordered product is at their door. It incorporates many different activities, like order processing, sending the confirmation email, printing labels, packing, shipping, and even managing returns. To fulfill the order successfully, businesses also have to handle some issues prior to the actual order, such as receiving inventory shipments or storing and managing the inventory.

Obviously, this whole process has a lot of moving parts, many parties are involved, and managing everything manually can be a nightmare. Automating these procedures can save a lot of time and money, and serve as a safeguard against human error.

It’s vital that all these processes are integrated and that they can all be controlled by a single tool. If you use one app to process the order, a second one to find a carrier, a third one to print labels, and a fourth one to handle returns, it can still get very confusing. That’s why you will want a good tool that enables you to monitor your inventory and optimize your stock.

Automating Personal Life

Finally, let’s try to conclude this article on a different note. Automation tools can help your business a whole lot, but it’s important to remember that they’re not almighty and that, at the end of the day, you’re the one controlling them. That’s why you should try a bit of automation in your daily life and introduce stable, healthy habits.

Different software can indeed help substantially boost your productivity, but it all starts with you. 

Productivity comes from the stability of your body and mind, and your big-picture business decisions can’t be automated. The technology is there to help and you’re there to lead. It’s important to remember that and not overestimate the power of automation. Especially in the times when we need to think about our mental and physical health more than ever.

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3pls, Archives, Global Logistics, Global Trade Daily

How to Prepare Your Online Store for the Holiday Season During COVID-19

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We’re already getting super hyped for the holiday season. From delicate snowfalls to generous gift-giving to spending time with family and loved ones, it really is the most wonderful time of the year.

But if you work in retail, the holiday season can mean something VERY different. Many boutique owners find themselves busier than ever during the holidays. Most years, the holiday season means long lines at malls, loads of crowds, and tons of in-person sales. But this year’s going to be totally different.

Online stores have steadily grown in popularity over the years – but COVID-19 made the shift to e-commerce accelerate at its fastest ever rate. This holiday season will be totally dominated & led by e-commerce stores. Many believe the 2020 holiday season will be the single biggest e-commerce event in HISTORY.

If you own an online boutique, that’s great news for you! It means you’ll have the chance to capture all kinds of new and existing customers looking to buy gifts for their loved ones (and take advantage of the great deals for themselves, too). But it also means you’ve got to brace yourself. Things are about to get WAY busier.

Whether you’ve already made it through many a holiday season as a boutique owner before or this will be your first one, read on to learn how to prepare your online store for the holiday season during COVID-19.

Make it easy for your customers to buy online

Make sure you’re totally prepared to accept online orders – and that your website makes the online buying experience as soon as possible. Go through your online store as though you were a customer and make sure the entire buying process is crystal clear. Take a moment to work out any kinks you find so you can provide a seamless buyer journey. If this is your first time selling online, make sure payment solutions are totally ready by running a few test purchases.

Once you’ve done that, update your website for the holiday season. Update your inventory so in-stock items are clearly marked. Promote seasonal offers and holiday deals throughout your website. Clearly display your boutique’s shipping and return policies, especially if you’ve modified them for the holidays. The easier it is for your customers to make a purchase (and take advantage of awesome holiday deals), the more likely they’ll be to do so!

Plan & stock your inventory in advance

And by “in advance,” we mean ASAP! It’s always a good idea to start stocking up on holiday inventory early, but this year it’s more important than ever. Many shipments have been delayed due to the pandemic, so the sooner you can order your inventory, the better.

Make sure you choose to work with a reliable supplier. While the increase in high demand affects retailers like you, it also affects manufacturers, distributors, and wholesalers in a big way. Order early and choose a supplier with great customer service. Supplied is a great option for online boutique owners looking for a wide variety of wholesale boutique items, flexible payment terms, and free shipping (yes, even during the holidays!)

Schedule out promotions

Many customers pretty much expect great holiday promotions from the brands and boutiques they love. Start planning out what sorts of promotions you’ll run and when you’ll run them. Stagger promos and marketing efforts carefully so you have a flow of ongoing sales instead of a few huge peaks. It’ll make it easier for you to fulfill orders and provide great service.

With COVID-19, it’ll be difficult to predict exactly how long shipping times will take. To make it easier for you to ship items out well in time for the holidays, incentivize early buying with sales. Experts predict that Amazon’s October Prime Week will cause many buyers to purchase holiday gifts earlier than ever before. Consider offering a sale during it in an effort to pick up some of that traffic.

You’ll also want to make sure you take advantage of Black Friday. Many of the largest retailers have already announced that their stores will be closed for Thanksgiving weekend, meaning there will be far fewer in-person Black Friday doorbuster deals. Try and capture some of that excitement online by offering a great deal for Thanksgiving weekend.
Expect delays

During the 2020 holiday season, getting packages to arrive on your customers’ doorsteps on time will be tricky. Encourage people to buy early. Be transparent about shipping delays you’re aware of and do your best to manage your customers’ expectations. As tempting as it may be, don’t promise a delivery date you can’t guarantee.

Once the guaranteed holiday shipping deadline passes, offer virtual gift cards that can be instantly delivered and used towards any item in your shop. This provides a way for last-minute shoppers to still support your shop.

Prepare for fulfillment & delivery

A lot of online boutique owners are out there running a one-woman show – but during the holiday season, you might want some help. If you usually do shipping and fulfillment operations all by yourself, consider enlisting a friend or an employee to help with the busy season.

If you have a brick-and-mortar location or a lot of local customers, offer in-person pickup to allow customers to save on shipping costs – and to allow you to package and mail fewer orders!

To sum up – to prepare your online store for the holiday season during COVID-19, you’d best get started now. Start ordering wholesale boutique items now so you have plenty of time to prepare for any delays, update your inventory, schedule out promotions, and allow your customers to order their gifts as early as possible.

Supplied members enjoy up to 75% off of wholesale prices on over 100,000 wholesale boutique items. And with free shipping, flexible payment terms, and no minimum orders, it’s perfect for stocking up quickly in preparation for the holiday season. Become a member (it’s free!) and place your first order today.

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Joseph Heller is a small business expert and CEO of SuppliedShop.com. Supplied makes it easier for small boutique owners around the world to access high-quality, affordable wholesale boutique items, whether to stock their physical store or IG shop.

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3pls, Archives, Global Logistics, Global Trade Daily, Warehousing

10 Experts Share Tips For Better Inventory Management

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Think about the online stores you buy from regularly. Do they consistently have the product you want? If the answer is no, then the business likely doesn’t have as good control of its inventory as it should. Inventory management is at the heart of any well-run, sustainable retail business. 

When a retail store owner or manager doesn’t have a detailed understanding of the inventory they have in hand, they’ll be greatly constrained in their ability to make smart reorder decisions. They cannot list items with accuracy on their online store since they don’t have correct visibility into their inventory. They could easily get stuck with too much inventory or fail to fulfil orders due to lack of product. 

If you want to get inventory management right, you’ll do well to listen to what the experts have to say. Here are 10 paraphrased tips from people who know a thing or two about successful inventory management.

1. Update inventory records in real-time and make the information available to relevant staff – Jonathan Gaunt, Managing Director, FD-WORKS

To stay a step ahead of their competition, businesses have to move quickly and accurately. Access to fresh, correct information is key in this regard. 

In the context of inventory management, tracking when the last transaction occurred, for instance, is crucial. There are costs to holding dead inventory such as warehousing, cleaning and security. Some products are seasonal or trendy. If it’s been weeks or months since a certain product sold or if there has been a dramatic decrease in its turnover, it might be financially prudent to sell it at a loss and inject the resulting revenue into an item that’s currently hot.

2. Categorize your inventory – Dan Schmidt, founder and CEO, The Emerging Business CFO

All products in your inventory aren’t created equal. If you devote equal inventory management time and resources to each product, you’ll be running overkill on some while shortchanging others. To maximize your inventory dollars and increase efficiency, divide your inventory into several categories depending on turnover, profitability and other distinguishing factors. 

3. Weigh the costs of inventory against the benefits of inventory – International Purchasing and Supply Chain Management Institute (IPSCMI)

Successful inventory management comes down to your ability to constantly balance the costs of holding inventory against the benefits of the inventory. Small and medium-sized ecommerce stores can be especially vulnerable to miscalculating the real cost of carrying an inventory. It’s not just the money tied down in inventory but also storage, insurance and taxes.

4. Inventory requirements vary from business to business – Norm Saenz, Managing Director and Don Derewecki, Senior Consultant at St. Onge

Whereas there are principles that underpin inventory management best practices, inventory management procedures will vary depending on customer requirements and the types of products the e-commerce store sells. There will be variation in inventory management between pharmaceuticals, food, apparel, electronics, furniture, stationery, automotive, building materials and general merchandise stores. 

5. Use effective methods for calculating safety stock levels – Bain & Company, Inc.

Are you using statistical formulas that incorporate production lead times, sales forecasts, manufacturing schedules and each product’s service-level data? Or are you still using rigid rules such as all products from a certain manufacturer requiring 20 days of safety stock? 

The problem with rigid rules is that they are often applied to products with uncertain delivery histories. Use a standard or automated statistical formula that extracts historical individual product data in order to come up with an up-to-date safety stock level.

6. Align individual delivery sub-elements with overall objectives – Mani Iyer, Senior Business Manager, Genpact

Ecommerce stores often believe that order-to-delivery cycle time reduction would realize the competitive edge their business needs. However, many drop the ball when it comes to defining goals of individual cycle elements that contribute to overall lead time adherence. Inventory management must incorporate sub-targets such as supplier performance management on fulfillment, customer service satisfaction, working capital levels and more.

7. Keep customer satisfaction at the centre of inventory control – James Ellis, Assistant Professor, Business Department, Central Oregon Community College

Avoiding excess inventory is certainly a desirable goal. However, getting overly fixated on minimizing inventory levels can take away your attention from the thing that matters most of all—customer satisfaction. If the inventory is running too low or running out, that will lead to lost sales and, ultimately, lost customers. Therefore, inventory levels should constantly be compared to customer satisfaction levels.

8. Put one person in charge of inventory management – David Wheat, Materials Manager, Krausz USA

Many ecommerce stores are small enough to be a one-person operation. However, if your business has grown to the extent that you have 2 or more full-time staff, assign the role of purchasing and inventory manager to one person. The designated individual should keep track of inventory and be the first person informed if there’s any change in supply requirements. They’ll negotiate discounts for volume purchases or early invoice payment.

9. Invest in inventory management training – Jaymison Haeussler, Warehouse manager, Graphic Packaging

#1 is absolute attention to detail when training and developing your inventory management staff and system. In several different scenarios, I’ve seen excellent staff and processes fall short of their goals because the training and implementation weren’t cohesive.

It’s hard to row a boat across the ocean when everyone is paddling in different directions.

10. Incorporate lead times for your peak sales seasons – Andrew Chritton, Head of Account Management, Stitch Labs

Most businesses have a seasonality to their sales. Q4 is crucial for many ecommerce stores thanks to the holiday season but different stores will have different peaks depending on the product they sell and the market they sell to. The peak season is critical for many businesses ‘ annual profitability so careful planning and management of inventory are needed. 

If you don’t own your means of transportation, which is the case for the overwhelming majority of ecommerce stores, transfers and shipping of products can be unpredictable. Build lead times early into your peak season inventory for shipping optimization and to ensure products are available in sufficient quantities.

11. Implement Inventory sync, Chris Crane, Advisor, Excelsior Integrated

Startups often run lean with minimal software layers. These companies should check which channels they can sync inventory to, or just rely on manually setting inventory themselves. For larger merchants with many sales channels, keeping inventory in sync across them all can become a challenge. When a sale happens on one channel, you want the other channels to be aware of it. Plus, if you’re selling with Amazon and using FBA, you’re responsible for maintaining enough inventory so you can quickly replenish FBA. There’s a point at which channel complexity justifies adopting an ERP system. Look for one that can handle inventory syncing to all your possible future channels, and if you’re using a 3PL, make sure they can integrate to it. 

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Will Schneider is the founder of insightQuote, a match-making service for B2B services, and writes informative posts about fulfillment services at Warehousingandfulfillment.com. He is passionate about helping businesses find the right solutions to improve their operations. When not working, Will enjoys coaching youth basketball.

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Archives, Global Trade Daily, Warehousing

How to Reduce Commercial Warehousing Costs

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With an unpredictable market, erratic economy, and huge competition, it can be quite difficult to get a warehouse business running smoothly. Your goal is to maximize profit while cutting down on production and operation costs. Well, that is not always easy. One of the biggest issues that create setbacks is spending money on things you don’t need to keep a business running. My goal is to show you how to reduce commercial warehousing costs, and increase your earnings while keeping the quality of the service on a satisfying level.

The Primary Goal

The primary goal of every professional warehouse must be to reduce commercial warehousing costs. Since all items must be in buy-ready condition, and in their proper place, you must have enough funding to keep this well-oiled machinery running smoothly. If you wish to improve the efficiency, speed, and accuracy in your warehouse, this strategy is a must. Let’s see how to achieve that.

Optimize Your Storage by Reducing Space

Optimizing your warehouse space is crucial for peak performance of your facilities. If we think about expenses, one of the major contributors is land cost. Since the productivity rate of the warehouse depends on the speed of locating the item and loading it onto the truck, you must think of the best system.

Optimize your aisles by carefully calculating the necessary length and width. Learn the dimensions of forklifts, and reduce extra space by moving the racks closer. Furthermore, sorting the packages on the racks makes everything easier.

When we think about square footage, it is crucial to go narrow and tall. That is the best way to reduce warehouse space, without losing productivity and effectiveness. Nevertheless, it is important to factor in the safety requirements of your workers, and provide enough space for them to work without constrictions.

Protecting the Inventory

Every warehouse has its own financial problems. Damaged inventory is most certainly one of the biggest culprits for the loss of money. Smart inventory management helps you keep your inventory protected.

One of the first approaches to take is to tightly stick to the packing and storage procedures. Extensive employee training is imperative for a smoothly-operated business without many losses.

Furthermore, it is not just the damage to the inventory that causes loss of money. It happens many times that a package is lost. That not only dries out your budget, but it is also bad customer service. Implementing proper control systems like RFID, VDP or RF is the best solution.

Finally, increasing overall security by installing top-of-the-art security systems will prevent theft, which is also a huge issue in many warehouses.

Cross-Docking

Cutting out the middleman and transferring a package directly to the customer is a great way to reduce commercial warehousing costs. This system is called cross-docking, and while many are aware of it, not everyone is using it. It is a great way to save both money and time, and improve store management, shipping, delivery, labor costs, etc.

Utility Bill Management Solutions

Reducing your utility bills is a great way to simultaneously reduce commercial warehousing costs. Better insulation, automatic lighting system, and water consumption reduction are just some of the ways to achieve this.

The more windows you have, the more natural light enters the warehouse. If you install hands-free faucets or automatic flush toilets with low flow, you will see great results.

You may also consider having utility bill management solutions to efficiently manage all aspects of your utility bill expenses, and avoid those costly late fees and other oversight penalties.

All these changes require funding, but it is a long-term investment that always pays out in the end.

Used Containers vs. New Containers

Buying new containers for your warehouse seems appealing. Everyone likes to have new things straight out of the factory. However, that can be a costly investment. Instead, you should turn your focus towards used containers. You can find plenty in good condition, at a lower cost.

Believe it or not, you can save up to 40% on the smart purchase of used containers. All vendors keep them in superb condition, and all the containers are cleaned and inspected before selling. With such great savings, it really isn’t that difficult to see the benefits of used containers over new ones.

Cutting Down Labor-Related Expenses

When we talk about cutting down labor-related expenses, we are not referring to reducing employees’ salaries. That is not the way to go about this. However, it is important to properly manage your employees. Having idle workers is only draining your budget.

A great solution is to put everything you have into employee retention. If you keep your employees satisfied and give them an opportunity to develop, they will stay with you. Over time, they will turn into experienced employees that really have no cost. That strategy is much more affordable than hiring and training new employees.

Furthermore, the automation of warehouses is also an option. Machines can run as long as you need them. However, do not forget to factor in the installation and maintenance costs. Nevertheless, it is the main strategy of the future to reduce commercial warehousing costs.

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Joshua Collins is a business owner with a degree in economics, with over 10 years of experience. In his spare time, he runs a blog about startups and writes articles for multiple companies, like ccmover.com and many others. He is offering his advice both to young entrepreneurs looking to find a way into the small business industry and to experienced business owners looking for ways to increase earnings. Furthermore, his vast knowledge of marketing strategies provides a great foundation for any business and helps in reducing costs and increasing effectiveness and productivity.

Archives, Global Trade Daily, Warehousing

6 Ways to Improve Efficiency, Speed, and Accuracy in Your Warehouse

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Modern warehouses are already much faster and more efficient than those 20, even ten years ago. But you’re still feeling the budget crunch every quarter. And, if you’re like us, you know that there are always things we can do to make a warehouse a little better.

So, we crunched the numbers, talked to experts, and meditated in the back of the warehouse to come up with these six methods designed to improve your warehouse efficiency, speed, accuracy, and how much we like working in a warehouse.

Improve Your Operational Software

Your first step in improving your warehouse operations is having the right tools in place to measure, track, and understand what you’ve got. A modern warehouse management system (WMS) is your safest bet to start establishing baselines of your efficiency, waste, how quickly you fill orders, and how accurate everything you do is.

We’ve all heard it a thousand times, but it remains true: you can’t improve something you don’t measure. Choose and implement a capable WMS to gain a better understanding and give your team plenty of ways to use their time and your inventory better.

Enhance Your Metrics Choices

Metrics, especially key performance indicators (KPIs), build on that introduction of a smart WMS. They help you tell the story of your business and how it can do better — and sometimes communicating KPIs is just as important as choosing the right ones.

Review the metrics you track and how you define KPIs. Do they measure productivity? Can they respond to changes to your baseline? Do they match up with current targets and accurately track as performance changes?

Don’t get overly complicated.

You want KPIs that are easy to understand and measure. Glancing at your system and dashboards with these metrics should give you an idea of the health of your business. You and your warehouse team can understand five metrics much better than 20. So, find what easily tells the most important story.

Reorganize Your Inventory Locations

Once you know what to track and can start tracking it, it’s time to review your standard day’s orders and the routes people take to pick them. Look for high-volume products and see if they’re in a good or bad location.

Put your most popular products near they critical points in your warehouse that can speed up picking and packing efforts. Usually, this includes aisle ends and exit or transition areas. However, you might also have enough volume to give them their own space that’s closest to your packing areas, with a set team of pickers grabbing only these while others grab the secondary items to complete each order.

You can speed this up further with a WMS that support voice picking and wave or batch pick and pack methods. They’re faster, more accurate, and improve your efficiency for filling orders.

Try Custom Kitting

When you redo your inventory locations and start reviewing route changes, you’re collecting a lot of data along the way. Use it.

Productivity can see significant gains when you implement custom kitting in your warehouse. Kitting can occur with the packages you sell or how you manage your warehouse, both increasing efficiency by reducing pick points. Selling kits means you can control inventory better and generate higher-value orders more often.

However, you can kit within the warehouse simply by grouping products that are typically bought together. Some companies even bag select items together to give pickers an option to grab one thing instead of many. It can help you control your space and keep inventory counts more accurate, giving you a nice boost.

Give Receiving Its Due

The warehouse mantra is often about getting orders out the door as quickly and accurately as possible. Unfortunately, that leads to bottlenecks and procrastination in the receiving department. The faster and more efficient you become, the quicker you need to get your inventory ready for use.

Make every aspect of receiving, from putting away inventory to breaking down boxes and taking out the trash, important. It should be habit, and your systems should reinforce it. The better you do this, the more accurate and reliable your data, making all these other steps more efficient.

Besides, do you really want a bad inventory count because an empty box listed as full?

Talk to Your Team

And the final way we’ll think about running a better warehouse is by asking you to stop thinking about it. All of the steps above require data and activities from your warehouse team, IT, leadership, and more. Every group interacts with each change in a variety of ways, giving them varied perspectives.

Don’t let all that experience go to waste.

Talk to your team in the warehouse, in IT and sales, and leadership. Discuss what’s working, what isn’t, and their suggestions to change things regularly. You’ll get a two-prong benefit:

-People interacting with the systems and changes have excellent vantage points to find breaking points or see additional changes that can boost your performance.

-It helps your teams feel heard, which makes them happier to come into work and more likely to implement the changes you make.

Your company pays a lot to have different experts in and around the warehouse. They’re the most significant resource for maximizing your business. And, we all like feeling respected at work.

Archives, Global Trade Daily, Special Reports

6 Important Tips for Effective Logistic Management

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The larger your operation, the more steps you will have in your logistics plan and the harder it is to manage. A supply chain has to be very efficient to supply different materials to varying locations at specific times.

It’s also important to be able to respond speedily when there’s a problem. Here are six tips to help you manage logistics effectively.

1. Define your goals

The business sector uses the term logistics to describe the efficient flow and storage of goods from where they originate to where they’re consumed. The supply chain includes transportation, shipping, receiving, storage and management of all these areas.
 
Some of the key goals for all businesses are increased efficiency, more sales, and greater customer satisfaction at the lowest cost. However, for every business there are different logistic/supply chain needs and they must support the goals of the business.

For example, if one of your goals is to make your supply chain as lean and efficient as possible, you will continuously strive to identify opportunities to streamline work processes and minimize waste.

In order to implement a logistics management strategy, business owners need to take a thorough look at every part of the chain, define how it should work and how it contributes to the overall supply chain management goals i.e. are the distribution centers in the right locations and are there enough of them?

2. It’s all in the planning

Logistics can be very stressful without good planning. The entire operation should be able to progress smoothly with minimal interruptions and this requires planning ahead.  Of course, there are always unexpected hiccups but the fewer off-the-cuff decisions that have to be made the better.

Shawn Michaels who works for paper writing services has spent a decade motivating business owners across various industries. He suggests logistics managers should devise flow charts for the entire operation. It needs to include factors such as goods procurement, storage facilities and delivery of products to an exact location.   

3. Have a contingency plan

Logistic managers need to have a contingency plan for every aspect of the logistics. No matter how good the original plan, covering every eventuality is impossible. Managers have to follow the supply chain at every point and be ready to switch to a backup plan if necessary.

Inventory management is often one of the main culprits that can adversely affect business goals. Being able to track and manage inventory in real-time helps with smooth and efficient functioning and increase sales.

If there isn’t the capability to give the alert about potential shortages and relay information about bottlenecks, costly delays can be expected that can significantly affect the company’s bottom line.

Logistics managers need to know that they can’t depend on one supplier or vendor and usually have an extensive network of sources for products and services. Michael Osborne who works as a writer for rush essay stresses the importance of having a network of contacts to rely on in event of an emergency. 

4. Hire the right logistics manager

Your company needs a good logistics manager who knows how to sort out issues and keep things moving. He must be able to keep a cool head and think on the fly. 

He needs to be good with people and have the interpersonal skills to communicate with employees and make alternative arrangements when necessary. It helps if he has a network of industry contacts he can rely on when he needs to sort out problems. 

Richard Alderman, manager of My-Assignment.Help, says that apart from good interpersonal skills, and the ability to remain calm under pressure, good logistics managers also need strong leadership skills and good financial acumen.

5. Adopt automation

Technology can play a major role in increasing еру efficiency of the supply chain. Today’s software is able to measure and analyze just about anything, improving the chances of success in any logistics venture. Valuable software saves time and maximizes performance.

Potential problems in the supply chain such as inadequately tracked fleets, scattered inventory or mismanaged warehouse processes can be improved by automating systems.

For example, using fleet and inventory management software and HR software can help refine processes taking into account factors that have the most impact on the bottom line. Tracking a truck in transit not only provides valuable data but helps to make sure delivery is on time as a driver may have questions about the freight and problems could occur.   

Kenneth Novak who heads up a writing service has found that using systems to centralize information and automate provides access to real-time information. This can help a business to reach its maximum potential with a minimum investment in planning and implementing solutions.

6. Learn from your mistakes

Poor logistics management can undermine a company’s future. In order to optimize your supply chain, you have to learn from your mistakes. This means regularly sitting down as a team, being open about mistakes and discussing how to put systems in place to prevent them from happening again. 

According to John Abrahams who writes easyessay, learning from mistakes is vital when it comes to conducting logistics-related activities in an economic and efficient way. Team meetings need to be held frequently that include all the primary functions of the business in order to review and discuss problems and solutions.

The aim of effective logistics management is to improve operations, ensure customer satisfaction, and increase productivity.  Using the best logistics practices can help your company to gain a competitive advantage. The supply chain environment is continually shifting and so logistics strategies need to be constantly reassessed. If you keep these tips in mind, you can make sure your supply chain is as effective as possible.

This guest post is contributed by Kurt Walker who is a blogger and college paper writer. In the course of his studies he developed an interest in innovative technology and likes to keep business owners informed about the latest technology to use to transform their operations. He writes for companies such as Edu Birdie, XpertWriters and uk.bestessays.com on various academic and business topics.

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Archives, Global Trade Daily, Warehousing

Not Just the Warehouse: How Smart Inventory Management Improves Your Ecommerce Overall

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Once you start using Smart Inventory Management (SIM) in your ecommerce, you’ll notice lots of benefits mostly surrounding inventory control and workflows. But it can improve some other aspects of your business as well, like marketing, margins, and accounting.

It’s all about data, and this moves far beyond the limitations of preventing out-of-stocks by reordering goods faster. While there are software opportunities, such as using SIM to integrate your warehouse and ecommerce platform to allow customers to see what’s available and shipping times 24/7, we’re looking at bigger business processes that can have an impact on company culture, leadership, and communication.

These are some of the biggest bangs for your buck because they help you keep the business healthy.

Saving money from inexperienced purchasing decisions

One benefit of SIM technology is that you will have up-to-date access to current inventory information. This will prevent the purchase of unnecessary amounts of additional inventory. You will save money by only making purchases you will need.

You are also able to save money by being smarter about how inventory is stored. Locating goods at the proper places within your warehouses or strategically around the country in partner fulfillment locations can save you significantly on the time it takes to ship an order and the cost a shipment takes to reach your average customer.

In the warehouse, SIM helps you move inventory to shelves that reduce walking and movement, making your team faster at getting orders out the door. For partners, SIM can help you track the data you need to get a better understanding of where your customers live and how they shop. So, you’ll be able to select warehouse or fulfillment partners located near to them and provide these locations with the right mix of goods so that they can continually fulfill orders without any risk of running out of stock.

Financial Reporting

Accurately knowing your inventory, storage costs, and more data make it easier for your ecommerce store to understand its overall health. You get a complete snapshot at the expense of goods over their lifetime in your care, especially if you link up SIM with your marketing data.

You get a 360-degree view on each item, including sourcing and production, shipment to your warehouse, storage, delivery to customers, and any returns. You may be surprised to learn what the total margins on your goods are, helping you understand what to promote and sell as well as what products it might be time to phase out of your offers.

Plus, it is in these reports that many companies first acknowledge and get a complete picture of their dead-stock: what never gets sold and just slowly eats away at your overall income.

Give leadership and your accountants the ability to understand the costs of your business entirely and discover what you can best manage and change to maintain a healthy ecommerce offering.

Developing New Sales Opportunities

One reason we really like SIM tools is that they make it easier to track your overall sales and look for patterns. Plus, you can test upsell and cross-sell efforts more easily with all this new data.

Combining your products, through efforts like kitting, allows you to leverage your products for the best return both in the immediate and the long-term. You can sell multiple items together, reduce inventory levels (and related storage costs), and even get rid of things that are sitting on shelves for too long.

Customers like it because it’s convenient for them when the products work together. If you add the right set of products, kits can make your offers more useful, less costly, or start a need to reorder from you. This is common in most industries, and one of the best examples are razors that come packaged with a series of disposable heads. The customer gets the handle and heads together and then has to go back to you to get the next set.

Returns and More

Another area to consider for your smart inventory management system heads back to the warehouse but touches on many of the other elements we’ve discussed: returned goods.

Returns present a significant problem for most ecommerce businesses. You have to figure out how to approve and process the customer’s request, handle the items themselves as they come back to you, potentially repackage and resell these, and eat much of the sale cost even if you’re charging a restocking fee.

Customers returning goods tend to be unhappy and want you to automate as much of this process as possible, and they expect an email from you to include things like a shipping label.

SIM tools can integrate with your order system to generate the information the customer needs automatically. Giving your own shipping labels within an SMI also helps you out by updating your team with package tracking data, so they know what to expect and when. You’re able to manage customer expectations and prep your warehouse, minimizing the disruption.

The same system can also record information from customers about the nature of a return, giving you a feedback loop into product development and sales, helping you adjust based on price, materials, or other information.

We’re seeing a rise SIMs on their own as well as integrated with tools like ERPs because being smarter about your inventory cuts down on costs, keeps your warehouses efficient, and makes it easier to manage your business. It’s time for every ecommerce store to start considering a smarter tech stack that includes inventory controls.

Improve Customer Service

It all comes down to customer service, one of the core differentiators in the world of ecommerce. With so many drop-shipping companies, Amazon sellers, small shops, and global partners, it can be challenging to stand out on product selection alone.

So, one way companies are building a competitive advantage is by developing best-in-class customer service. Inventory management is a core part of this even though it doesn’t seem like it. Inventory management allows you to keep filling orders and even get ahead of spikes in orders that are new or seasonal by giving you smarter business analytics.

When you’re ready to ship immediately, instead of having to wait for a new restock, customers are happier. They also like it when your returns policy and other policies are clear and easy to understand. Greater knowledge of your inventory makes it easier to control those types of concerns, allowing you to simplify any steps your customers have to take.

Run a smoother business and have happier customers just by developing better control of your inventory.

Jake Rheude is the Director of Marketing for Red Stag Fulfillment, an ecommerce fulfillment warehouse that was born out of ecommerce. He has years of experience in ecommerce and business development. In his free time, Jake enjoys reading about business and sharing his own experience with others.