What is Inventory Control and How Can It Improve your Business

As your small business grows, you come across that eCommerce, shipping, and the stock becomes more complex. It is not an easy task to record inventory and restocks. So, you need systems that can handle your new workload.

This is when inventory control comes into the light. If you control your inventory well enough, you can manage operational costs and meet your customers’ demands. Generally, inventory control is responsible to avoid shortages, overstocks, and other storage-related problems.

We will walk you through the importance of inventory control for your business and describe ways to manage it properly.

What is inventory control?

The success of your online business depends on how you store and deliver your inventory. Spending time and resources to improve this process is an essential part of your long-term goals.

If you are an online seller, wholesaler, or another type of business owner, keeping track of inventory can be a game-changer. Nowadays, different systems can be used to manage the inventory process and track every step of the supply chain. However, at first, you need to have a clear idea of inventory control and its benefits.

Inventory control is the process of maintaining the correct number of products (inventory) in stock to avoid shortages, overstocks, and other problems. In other words, this process helps businesses to deliver items without any mistakes. Of course, inventory management is connected to the whole circle of business operations. Once your inventory is correct, you can deliver packages to your customers and improve the quality of service.

How can inventory control improve your business?

Inventory control is an essential part of any business’s operations and has a vital effect on its ability to make a profit. Let’s take a look at few reasons why you need strong inventory control:

• Efficiency. Inventory control helps you to optimize the picking process. It is a great way to increase efficiency and streamline your processes.
• Accuracy. Inaccurate inventory can cause a lot of mistakes, costs, and unhappy customers. Thanks to the inventory control you can have the correct data.
• Increased sales and decreased costs. By using inventory control, you will be ready for any kind of increased demands. This will help you to boost up your sales of different products.
• High customer satisfaction. No one likes when they want to buy the item, but it is not available. In fact, Out-of-stocks could cause a store to lose one in every 100 customers completely. Controlling your inventory lets you avoid stock issues and make your customers happy.

Finally, research shows that 55% of shoppers would not purchase an alternative item when their regular product is out of stock. So, if your business has a constant problem of maintaining product stocks, the business will lose its customers.

How to control inventory?

Here are some of the techniques that business owners can use to manage inventory:

1. Manual control

There are different ways to control inventory. However, the oldest one is to manage is manual. Of course, this takes a lot more time than software would use, but small businesses still use this method. You can use pen and paper to make a list of all your items or use your notebook.

2. Stock cards

Stock cards record the stock movement and help you to compare the balance between the record and actual items. This is most useful when you need to check the number of received goods.

3. Spreadsheets

Spreadsheets are very useful when it comes to controlling inventory by yourself. This can be Excel or another type of sheet, that works the same way as your pen and paper but is upgraded. This is also easier to share with your colleagues and save time.

4. WMS

The last and the most beneficial option is to invest in the warehouse management system. This system will give you information about your stocks, the number of items at any moment, and the exact location.

The process of inventory control

• Receiving goods
• Storage and tracking
• Inspection dates and rotation
• Security
• Deffirent storage logical – First In First Out or Last In First Out
• 3PLs

How eComhub.net can improve your inventory control?

Our fulfillment center can provide visibility into your inventory control process. The first mission is always the security of the inventory, while we can implement accurate and fast shipping. As an online seller, you will be relieved, because the stock will always be full, and the customers will be satisfied.