Chelsea Cohen

Start by doing an audit on inventory shortages and overstocks in the past 365. Isolate the causes of these things, whether issues with manufacturers, incorrect lead time attribution, faulty forecasting logics or supply chain problems. Systematically resolve these issues. To prevent supply chain delays, track the timeline of past and current shipments to isolate the true lead times to adjust order schedules to match reality. Developing a feedback loop to determine the accuracy of your forecasting by looking at forecasted vs actual sales on a weekly basis. Address any issues with a high variance. Leverage an inventory-marketing coordination to avoid marketing into stockouts & to reduce storage cost through strategic sales initiatives.

There are two ways you could be losing money, lost revenue & excess storage. Stockouts can cost you in lost revenue, missing out on sales you could have made if not stocked out. This type of loss is generally pretty painfully obvious to business owners. The more insidious is the profit erosion caused by monthly storage fees stacking on top of each other due to holding too much stock at a warehouse or fulfillment center. Tracking your monthly per unit and how long your inventory will sit at this storage facility will give you an idea of the impact of excess inventory. When ordering, projecting out both to avoid stockouts & excess storage fees is key. It is also very important to factor excess storage to determine your true margins.

Ultimately, inventory software is about increasing your revenue, cash flow and profit. A good invenory software should be able to pay for itself many times over. It should save you money by helping you to avoid stockouts or unnecessary fees such as excess storage costs. It should also free up time so you can focus on other revenue generating activities. The software should track stock across your entire supply chain, including in production, inbound & warehouse inventory. Smart forecasting should account for seasonality, stockouts & sales spikes. You should be able to factor marketing plans into your inventory plans. Lastly, it should provide you data to strategically plan marketing, finance and operations to scale your business.

Get to know your clients or customers. Finding those who have a vested interest in the success of your company and what it has to offer will provide amazing insights into what they need, how you can provide it and how to market it in the language they are speaking. Our growth was in large part due to the relationships and partnerships we formed with our target market. We were able to scale faster and build more loyalty and authority by working closely with those we served. An honest, transparent line of communication and a genuine desire to improve their lives is what allowed us to create such valuable relationships. Not enough can be said about being authentic and showing you care and are accessible.