Are you still trying to run your product business without any way to manage your inventory? Unfortunately, you aren’t alone. Only 18% of small businesses use an inventory system to manage their products.
The problem with this is that it’s a recipe for huge problems.
Keeping track of your inventory is essential if you want your company to run smoothly. Below are five common inventory management errors that you need to avoid.
1. Ignoring Vendor Relationships
Having a great operation is all well and good. However, that isn’t worth much if you have vendors that aren’t reliable.
That’s why maintaining excellent relationships with your vendors is essential. Make sure you’re on good terms so that they’re more willing to go the distance to help resolve the issue if problems do arise.
It pays to regularly check in with your contacts to see how things are going. See how you can help each other succeed.
2. Not Collecting Metrics
Even if you run an efficient inventory management process, the chances are good that there are things that you can improve. Even if there aren’t, you never know when something will change in the future.
That’s why collecting metrics is essential. From pack time, the time it takes to find products, to total delivery time, you need to collect all the data you can. You can analyze every data point you have to find potential improvements.
3. Doing Everything by Hand
Handling your inventory by hand might not be challenging when you don’t have many products. However, things change drastically once you start increasing your product lines and total inventory numbers.
Not using inventory management software is a big mistake in these scenarios. These software programs will save you time and help you keep better track of your products.
4. Not Regularly Auditing
There are many businesses out there that don’t have auditing as part of their inventory management strategy. While you might not have any issues most of the time, not auditing your inventory can create nightmare scenarios when it does finally cause problems.
Create an auditing schedule to verify your inventory. Don’t only do this once per year, either. Try to do audits at least monthly, so you know for sure how much inventory you have.
5. Trying to Handle the Whole Supply Chain
As good as your inventory management practices are, there are still limits if you’re a small operation. What happens if you get a lot of new business and don’t have enough resources to handle things? You’ll get delayed orders and unhappy orders.
That’s why working with a larger fulfillment company to help ship orders is an excellent option for managing your inventory. Click here to learn more about eCommerce fulfillment.
There Are More Inventory Management Errors Out There
When running an inventory business, the last thing you need is to run out of stock without knowing you were low. There are many inventory management errors out there that will cause this to happen. Keep learning how to optimize your operation so you can avoid making them.
If this post was helpful, head back to the blog for more tips on running your business.
Read Also: Economics 101: A Quick Guide to Supply and Demand
