Warehouse management in an eCommerce system

Does inventory management affect business growth and financial condition? The answer is yes, definitely. Looking back at the unfortunate Walmart experience published by  Forbes.com in 2014, when the company lost $ 3 billion in revenue simply because the goods were out of stock, or inventories grew so fast that they exceeded demand and merchants could not sell available goods, we can conclude that inventory management is critical in business.

Time goes on, but the problems remain the same. In 2018, the U.S. uncovered a $ 300 billion loss from poor inventory management, according to a Celect and Coresight study.  Let's look at another example. A survey by GT Nexus shows that in Germany, 63% of shoppers leave the e-shop and go to competitors if the desired product is not available in stock.

Today, the availability of stocks must be ensured as ever, as the use of technology in people's lives is gaining momentum, and the pace of life is increasing simultaneously. Still, the time of users' patience is decreasing. In addition, the national and global situation must be taken into account, where the restrictions imposed complicate the trading process and force traders to switch online to keep their business. Warehouse management and e-commerce are what this article will be about.

We live in the age of technology. Each company uses different IT systems, accounting, CRM, etc. However, various companies run their sales in an Excel document. Although Excel is built with complex formulas, it cannot compete with the ERP system. Of course, Excel is an excellent tool for solving tasks. But is the situation known when a customer arrives and needs to track a product sold in the previous month?

In such situations, the answer is found after several hours at best, but the level of dissatisfaction is high. For convenience, of course, several Excel documents are created. If several employees are employed, each specialist has their file, and although the same is registered, these documents may differ. Do you recognize yourself in this paragraph? If so, we will proceed to a more effective solution.

Inventory management is one of the most critical tasks in the trading industry. Odoo helps automate this process as much as possible and makes it transparent, starting with the receipt of goods and ending with the ordering for delivery to the courier. Each activity is fixed and can be found in the system, whether moving a product from one shelf to another or selling a product on different platforms - Amazon, eBay, physical store, or e-shop. Everything is traceable, and every record is easy to find.

With Odoo, we get:

• Effective inventory management.

• Flexible process management.
  

The integration of barcode scanning into warehouse management has become increasingly popular in recent years. It is not at all surprising, as this feature helps to improve the operation of the warehouse. If you haven't had one before, implementing the system and activating the scan can take a lot of effort, but the benefits outweigh the time and effort.

Barcode scanning increases productivity and reduces human error. Product traceability becomes completely transparent, starting with the receipt of the product in the warehouse, placing it on the intended shelf, moving from one shelf to another, and ending with order picking. Everything happens through barcode scanning, and it becomes easier to receive the product, perform annual inventory and other operational activities.

Odoo ERP system provides a wide range of business functionality and includes the management of each process on one platform. The system needs proper configuration to ensure maximum use, and it is one of Midis's processes when integrating the Odoo ERP system.

At the beginning of the article, we mentioned the losses that a company can incur due to poor warehouse management. The module also provides stock level forecasting, and it allows you to decide on increasing or decreasing stock levels at the right time. What to do when the stock level reaches the "0" mark? It is better, of course, not to allow such situations to drag on. Therefore, we can automatically configure the Odoo system to purchase goods when the minimum stock level is reached.

We want to remind you that Odoo is a modular system and can be integrated with other modules, thus covering all the necessary processes in the company.

Can you imagine commerce without a warehouse? Just in case when it comes to "Dropshipping," in the classic form of business, we need a warehouse. The inventory module provides full connectivity to e-commerce.

Products in the e-shop are reflected directly from the stock. All the features that are defined for the product are available and are beautifully designed on the website. When selecting a product, the user can see product variations, sizes, colors, images, descriptions, etc.

The inventory module makes it possible to manage several warehouses and display the balance of goods to the customer, which appears on the goods page, indicating in which warehouse the goods are available.

Digitizing each activity provides an accurate picture of the situation. We can tell you how effective each process, employee, or sales channel is. A decision based on facts helps to achieve the set goals. Every day, we see what's happening in real-time, with a few mouse clicks, without waiting for weeks or even months for reports from an Excel document or from different solutions that aren't connected on the same platform.