Given the trend, many vendors have started considering selling their products on multiple channels to earn better profits. Long gone are the days where everything was sold in one store.
Also, recent reports show that companies such as Walmart, Amazon, etc., have seen a rise in their growth rate after revamping their sales strategy. As we know, because of the pandemic, there were many cases of shipment delays and delivery issues for Amazon. However, it seems like they have somehow grown further in sales numbers during that period and also increased their B2B cross-border payments.
Besides, it is not clear that expanding to new channels will always be favorable for sellers, especially for overseas payments. The problems do not end there. Vendors are often challenged when it comes to managing operations. And one of the essential tasks for them to handle is inventory control on multiple channels. This type of management is called multichannel inventory management. Let’s learn about the most common challenges that the sellers face when managing inventory and their solutions.
Common challenges
Overselling
One of the significant challenges that vendors face is not optimizing every channel independently in real-time. If not done correctly, you could end up selling the same product to two different consumers. Thus, not having your inventory updated can cause you delay-in-order, returns, and worst of all, bad reviews.
No transparency
Consumers expect their orders to arrive at their doorstep without having to put much effort. They could have ordered their products from anywhere. So, it is the seller’s responsibility to track your inventory across every sales channel. However, manually tracking your product list could lead to multiple complications.
Incorrect stock levels
Every organization works somewhat differently when running a sales campaign. For example, some companies have set rules that they must follow during a sales promotion. If the stock levels are not accurate, they could fine you seriously. So, look out for the stock levels on all the channels in use.
Solutions
Systematize your inventory
These days, cloud-based systems let you oversee and manage your inventory automatically to give you error-free optimized inventory control. You can keep a record of the stock levels and their performance across each channel separately.
Analyze and report findings
When moving from one season to another, sellers tend to follow up with different plans each time. If those plans do not work, analyze the other possibilities and approach you can take to solve the issue.
For example, you can scale for company-based promotions or channel-based product sales. However, there must be some connection between your inventory reports and sales performance to manage every channel’s inventory.
Also Read : 10 Useful and Practical Tips for Managing Cross-Border E-Commerce
