Shopify Inventory Management: Enhance Your Shopify Store

Shopify Inventory Management: Enhance Your Shopify Store

TABLE OF CONTENT

Shopify Inventory Management in a nutshell

4 Benefits of Leveraging Shopify Inventory Management

When do you need Shopify inventory management?

Using Shopify Inventory Management App: What to Look For

Top 5 Powerful Shopify Inventory Management Apps For Your Online Store

Conclusion

Shopify Inventory Management in a nutshell

Inventory management entails the meticulous oversight and control of a business’s product flow. This encompasses tracking of goods and materials movement, alongside the monitoring of inventory turnover rates. Through optimized replenishment strategies, businesses can ensure consistent product availability, ultimately enhancing customer satisfaction.

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The primary objective of inventory management is to minimize cost by determining the optimal time for product replenishment or buying more materials for manufacturing purposes.

Similar to most ecommerce platforms, Shopify inventory management system allows merchants to track inventory at the SKU level, including all product variants. Additionally, it offers product categorization with various criteria such as type, season, sale while also streamlines barcodes to quickly scan products.

By leveraging Shopify inventory management, businesses can establish the foundation for accurate inventory levels and reduce the risk of overselling, regardless of whether you sell solely on Shopify or a multi-faceted approach through websites, pop-ups or dropshipping.

4 Benefits of Leveraging Shopify Inventory Management

To run a profitable retail business, your products should be in stock whenever your customers want to purchase them. However, keeping the right products on hand can be tricky as the process of ordering, delivery and storing can get messy. This is how Shopify inventory management can act as a helpful assistant that automates the complex tasks, giving you more time for selling and supporting your customers.

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Here are four key benefits of using an inventory system to streamline your retail businesses.

Reduced missed sales

In the US and Canada, it is estimated that a significant financial burden of $350 billion is attributed to stockouts annually. This problem arises due to the lack of sufficient inventory to match customer demand, leading to missed sales opportunities.

Thankfully,  today’s Shopify  inventory management can replace guesswork with real-time data, you will know exactly how much inventory you have available to sell. When a product is purchased, sold, or returned, the inventory systems would update the stock levels immediately.

Loss reduction

Automated inventory software can function like a GPS for your stock, regardless of its location. This functionality is especially useful when putting in the context that you have multiple warehouses and physical stores, or even sell online. The software tracks it all in one place.

As you can guess, knowing the exact location of your inventory saves valuable time for your operations. Instead of manually searching for different warehouses or stores, you are able to pinpoint where an item is located in your supply chain. This is the catalyst for faster ordering fulfillment and minimizing the time it takes to get products to end users.

Adversely, without a thorough tracking system, your retail business can get trouble of unaccounted losses, such as you don’t know where the item is lost in large warehouses or false data of inventory updates due to improper records.

Lower warehouse costs

High storage expenses are major challenges for retailers. However, Shopify inventory management system can be a game-changer reducing a large amount of cost.

Utilizing inventory management systems means based on its reports, you can identify what products are slowing-selling items. By stocking less of these, you free up more space of your warehouse, spending space for a higher sales volume items to maximize storage efficiency. Likewise, strategically reducing low-selling SKUs can help you save on storage costs.

Manage third-party logistics partners

As you are a store owner, you may have to chase moving targets due to fluctuations in customer demand, seasonal trends or supply chain complexities. This becomes even more challenging when collaborating with a 3PL provider, which requires clear communication to ensure adequate stock levels during sales rush surges.

But it can have a different perspective with a centralized Shopify inventory management system. It allows every party to access the same information, eliminating confusion and ensuring great streamlining communication between merchants and 3PLs.

When do you need Shopify inventory management?

In a number of situations, managing inventory with Shopify Plus can bring you huge benefits. However, not all ecommerce brands should use this system. If you are in the context below, Shopify inventory management is for you.

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You're growing your Shopify business

Dealing with increasing volume of inventory manually can become time-consuming and prone to error. Therefore, using Shopify inventory management can automate your mundane tasks and provide you full control of real-time data to deliver the best results.

You sell through multiple Shopify channels

In a hyperconnected world, we no longer sell solely by physical stores, we prefer online marketplaces through social media or online stores which can generate a high number of leads. This arises the problem of effective management across multiple sales channels.

So, when you have obstacles in handling numerous channels, Shopify inventory management software ensures you have a unified view of your stock across all channels, minimizing the possibility of overselling and ensures a smooth customer experience.

You have a large or complex product range

With a variety of SKUs (Stock Keeping Units), it’s easy to lose track of stock levels and reorder needs. Hence, having inventory management software is a must because it helps you to categorize and track products, optimizing ordering and preventing stockouts.

You deal with fluctuating demand

Customer behaviors are now becoming much more complicated and unpredictable. It can fluctuate due to seasonal trends, special offers, and unforeseen events. How do you get to know them and prepare timely?

The key is  managing inventory with Shopify Plus. The system not only works at inventory tracking, it also has the capability of using sales data to forecast demand and suggest reorder points, ensuring you have enough stock to meet customer needs.

In essence, Shopify inventory management is a valuable tool for any business. If you desire to take your ecommerce business to a higher level, do not overlook this software to streamline operations, improve efficiency, and gain control over stock.

Using Shopify Inventory Management App: What to Look For

Shopify inventory management boosts a rich ecosystem of third-party apps in Shopify App Store. These specialized tools assist merchants to leverage this strong foundation to achieve comprehensive and optimized solutions.

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However, with a plethora of inventory management apps available on Shopify Store, how can you choose the most appropriate option for your online business? To guide you to the final decision, here are 5 key features for store owners worth prioritizing when evaluating these applications.

Multi-Warehouse and Multi-Channel Functionality

A great Shopify inventory management app should offer real-time inventory updates across multiple sales channels and fulfillment centers. This feature is crucial as it prevents overselling, leading to a more customer-centric fulfillment process.

Order Routing and Automation

When choosing Shopify inventory management mobile app development, make sure that it can minimize shipping costs by automatically routing orders to the nearest fulfillment center. The intelligent order routing capabilities should consider real-time inventory levels across zip code or delivery date, guaranteeing cost-effective and on-time delivery.

Inventory Control Features

Perhaps it would request a lot of hassle if business owners have to navigate through many extensions to take full control of their online presence. Therefore, the best solution is that your Shopify inventory management can act like an all-in-one solution, which means an desirable app is able to adjust unit quantities across all channels. This inventory adjustment should reflect in real-time to reduce the risk of order fulfillment delays.

Comprehensive Analytics and In-Depth Reporting

To get in-depth insights of a company’s health, analytics and reporting plays a key role that merchants cannot ignore. This encompasses relevant data such as stock level, inventory turnover rates, profitability, etc. These metrics empower data-driven decision making with the aim of maintaining optimal stock levels to cater customer requirements and maximize revenue.

Cross-Channel Capabilities

Multiple-channel sellers require a comprehensive view of their inventory and sales data from each channel. For instance, they might want to know how each SKUs is distributed across listings or the inventory levels at each warehouse. However, not all inventory management systems can provide them with details. That is why an desirable app should offer this advanced feature for further control.

Top 5 Powerful Shopify Inventory Management Apps For Your Online Store

Shopify inventory management app can optimize your ordering and empower you to manage your warehouse with confidence and efficiency. So, let’s begin. Here are some of the best options to consider.

ShipHero

ShipHero Inventory & Shipping is a management system designed to help large ecommerce businesses with a high volume of SKU. The system helps big companies to manage their ecommerce warehouses and shipping operations with powerful tools.

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The synchronization inventory data of ShipHero goes beyond basic standard. It gives you advanced reporting capabilities, purchase order details and return management. Need to integrate with high-level enterprises? It is not a problem because this system can streamline your sales process in no time.

Pricing: 3 flexible pricing plan including:

  • Standard Plan: $1995/month.
  • 3PL Plan: $2145/month.
  • Enterprise Plan: Talk to sales for a quote.

Stocky

The system helps you keep the good status of inventory levels by analyzing profitability data and recommending what products you need with detailed quantities, preventing overstocking or lost sales. Plus, its reporting tools will widen your overview of the whole process, leading to smart inventory decisions every step of the way.

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Pricing: Stocky offers merchants various plans along with Shopify POS pro system. You can check it here.

SkuVault

SkuVault shines as an Shopify inventory management software for small and mid-sized retailers with a certain level of automation. For larger ecommerce businesses, SkuVault’s features might not be able to handle their complex workflows.

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While this system allows you to take control of multiple locations, it has limitations in centralizing all your business data to show on a single dashboard. Likewise, SkuVault does offer basic accounting-related features, but they cannot support multiple currencies and are not functioning well as fully integrated accounting.

Pricing: Like many inventory platform, SkuVault has 3 pricing options:

  • Growth: $269/month.
  • Pro: $409/month.
  • Enterprise: $809/month (all based on users).

QuickBooks

QuickBooks Online Global is among the top leading Shopify inventory management systems which can eliminate the hassle of separating systems, allowing store owners to track inventory levels and connect all their international storefronts within a single platform.

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Moreover, it provides a build-in accounting feature, making it easier for expense tracking and tax planning.

Pricing: The pricing options ranging from trial to advance:

  • 30-day free trial
  • Simple Start: $30 per month (50% off or $15 for the first three months).
  • QBO Essentials: $60 per month (50% off or $30 for the first three months).
  • QBO Plus: $90 per month (50% off or $45 for the first three months).
  • QBO Advanced: $200 per month (50% off or $100 for the first three months).

Zoho

Zoho is an Shopify inventory management software specialized in warehouse management and ordering fulfillment. While it offers various integrations with other Zoho applications, the added functionalities are not as good as having native features.

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This inventory management system is not the best option for very large enterprises since the highest tier only covers 15 warehouses. Although it has reporting and order features, some higher levels are only available for top tier such as barcode scanning, picklist or automation which are included in other apps with just popular pricing plans.

Pricing: 

  • Free plan
  • Standard: $59/month.
  • Professional: $99/month.
  • Premium: $159/month.
  • Elite: $239/month.

Conclusion

As shown in our list, Shopify inventory management comes with a wide range of benefits. Not only do these apps automate your Shopify stock management, they also help prevent losses and maximize your profits by the end of each accounting period.

As soon as your needs grow more complex and demanding, that’s the time that you should consider one of these apps. If you have a number of questions about Shopify inventory management, AHT does not hesitate to help you. We are the leading technology with more than 10 years of experience in ecommerce development. Our partners include 25+ giant ecommerce brands around the world such as Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce, ensuring end-to-end services in the most efficient way.

Contact us, you would get our sincere support to grow your stocking management. You can also watch this video below for more understanding about our ecommerce service: