Why Real-Time Inventory Sync is the Key to E-commerce Efficiency

Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2- Understanding the Real-Time Inventory Sync
3. E-commerce Business without the Real-Time Inventory Sync
– Is Your Inventory Smart Enough?
– What Is the Right Amount of Stock?
– How Much Inventory and Where?
– Do You Know Your Warehouses Enough?
– Are You Losing Orders to Out of Stock?
– Is Your Inventory Under Control?
– Does Your Inventory Go with Your Business?
4. E-commerce Business with Real-time Inventory Sync
– Inventory Replenishment
– Inventory Forecasting
– Multichannel Visibility
– Multi Warehouse Clarity

– Inventory Control Techniques

– Inventory Management Customization
5. Unlock Real-Time E-commerce Success with the Smart Sync

Let’s say you’ve just won the championship game and are just seconds away from receiving your grand trophy. You’re next in line, heart pounding with excitement, when suddenly—boom! You’re told there are no more trophies left. Sounds disheartening, right? That’s exactly how your customers feel when your product catches their eye. They are excited to purchase but are only hit with an ‘out of stock’ message at checkout. You can leave a lasting dent in your brand image right there! 

Inventory is the first thing you need to run any e-commerce business. Managing your stock provides you with a blueprint for your business. The smoother your inventory flow, the more effortless your business will become. And finally, the effortless business and the trouble-free profits, straight to your pockets! 

What is Real-time Inventory Synchronization?

Technically, real-time synchronization refers to maintaining consistent data on all channels. In the case of inventory, it means updating your inventory count on all your sale channels, such as your website, different marketplaces, and, if your business model is omnichannel, your stores, too. Your inventory is always dynamic, and it is impossible to manually keep up with these dynamics on a larger scale. 

Imagine updating your inventory records daily, tracking all the changes from orders, returns, damages, and expirations. In the e-commerce business, this process is constant. Products are sold, some are returned, others may get damaged or expire—often across multiple product lines. Managing these records accurately by hand would be nearly impossible. And it sounds like a trail of tasks always open to human errors.  Even if you try, manual management is prone to mistakes, and the efficiency of your business might get killed. 

The main agenda here is that through the technology of centralized visibility, you don’t have to keep track of your inventory on multi-channels manually. The less dependency on the manual process, the more it reduces the chances of discrepancies. And the more the possibility of efficient business with hassle-free functioning and happy customers! 

E-commerce Business without the Real-Time Inventory Sync

1. Is Your Inventory Smart Enough?

Every business has its way of functioning in stock management. However, one common aspect for all businesses is the requirement for the right amount of stock. For instance, the most-selling product might go out of stock earlier than the others and can change with time. So, the real question is: Is your inventory system smart enough to alert you when a product is about to run out and needs a purchase order?

The cycle is simple: if you have data that says the inventory is about to run out, you raise a purchase order. However, this cycle is impossible to process without data. You might have no record of the critical time when your inventory is about to run out, and that’s when you will need to stock your products throughout the process. Mismanaging your stock like this will only result in losing sales and potential revenues. 

2. What Is the Right Amount of Stock?

The right amount of stock is not the only concern that should be right. But, the right use of warehouse space is also a critical requirement. Let’s understand this with an example. You have a hair-care brand and stocked all your products in an equal amount in your warehouse. But you receive an ample amount of orders for the hair shampoo. Since you stocked everything equally, you will go out of stock for the shampoo, losing your profits. And all the products that you have stored could have been used to stock the hair shampoo. 

In this situation, the other inventory has blocked your warehouse space, which could have been used to stock the right amount of inventory to keep up with the demand. 

3. How Much Inventory and Where?

In today’s e-commerce world, staying competitive means being ‘available’ on multiple platforms while maintaining your presence through your website. Instead, many growing brands evolve themselves into marketplaces. They are not just lucky but also shaped their potential in the strategies. This highlights the growing importance of multichannel selling. But what about the challenge of managing inventory across these different channels? What if one marketplace outperforms another, leaving you with stock tied up where there are fewer orders?

Imagine receiving orders on a channel where your products are listed as out of stock, even though you have them—just on a different platform. It’s like a silly mistake we used to make in those math problems. Online purchases happen in seconds, and you won’t have the luxury of quickly moving inventory from one channel to another. 

4. Do You Know Your Warehouses Enough?

The e-commerce game is not just limited to various sales channels. The business requirements are extended to multiple warehouses. Hence, it brings us to the two levels of inventory management—one for your sales channels and the other for your warehouses. The functionality of your storage can be different, like having one warehouse in the north and south directly stocked by the vendor or moving your inventory from the vendor to the parent warehouse and then to the child warehouse. 

Secondly, your products can perform differently in different regions. So now you have the additional work of stocking your inventory in the respective warehouses. 

5. Are You Losing Orders to Out of Stock?

Let’s say you manage to balance your inventory across multiple sales channels. But what happens if you miss the moment your stock on a particular channel is about to hit zero? If orders keep coming in, you won’t be able to fulfill them, affecting both the revenue and your brand image. 

The line between earning profits and losing sales is thin, and it hinges on catching that critical moment when your inventory is ‘about to go zero.’ This can only be controlled and managed if you have the data to track your inventory levels in real-time. Otherwise, while owning a business, you will keep losing your orders without being aware. 

6. Is Your Inventory Under Control?

Only stocking inventory the right way might not book your ticket to an e-commerce business. The next step is to be able to manage your inventory.  Let’s take an example to understand this in detail. Let’s say you stock your inventory every month, and the remaining inventory from each month is also stored. However, due to mismanagement and lack of visibility, you are unaware whether the orders are being processed with the new inventory or if the old one is first getting out of the warehouse. 

There’s no other way of keeping track of it by having centralized data and reports with you. Ultimately, you might just waste all that inventory, earning nothing. And if it continues, the amount of inventory turning as ‘unsellable’ will affect your business in the long run. 

7. Does Your Inventory Go with Your Business?

We should understand that inventory and your business are two different entities. You have to match your inventory stocking to your business needs. For example, if you own a cosmetic brand, it will have a lot of SKUs; how will you manage them? FMCG  or organic products have a limited shelf life.  

Hence, every inventory has its own particular needs that you should cater to so that most of your inventory remains good and sellable and you don’t have to bear its cost. 

E-commerce Business with Real-time Inventory Sync – Top Benefits

The above information informs us of a business’s challenges without a real-time inventory sync. Let’s explore how things work out for businesses with real-time inventory visibility. 

1. Inventory Replenishment

What if I told you you could smooth your stock management process like a well-coordinated team? From restoring your inventory on time to quality checks, your system can alert you when inventory is about to run out. It can also create a purchase order on time, controlling everything. 

The advancements allow you to process with new features like auto GRN. This streamlines warehouse operations by automating the creation of purchase orders, Goods Receipt Notes (GRN), and putaway tasks. This automation streamlines shelf-wise cycle counts while handheld devices guarantee the precision of your SKUs. 

[More detail – What is Inventory Cycle Count?]

2. Inventory Forecasting

Your warehouse space is also a cost. Hence, storing the right inventory quantity is essential to use it smartly. This will ensure a smooth flow and that no space is blocked by inventory that does not sell well. But how will you know it?

A smart system is capable of forecasting it for you. What product is doing us the best on channels? The system provides accurate data and reports that help you strategize your inventory and use your warehouse like a smart seller. 

3. Multichannel Visibility

You don’t need to worry about blocking your inventory on any marketplace, and all the hurdles of being ‘out of stock’ can be managed with a few clicks. The central visibility across all your sales channels allows you to put the SKUs uniformly across all the platforms, and you will not end up clocking your inventory; there is no need to move it from one to another at the end moment. 

Secondly, you can easily avoid going out of stock by using a buffer. This allows you to put a buffer to one particular number. For example, as your inventory touches the quantity of 3, and the buffer is set, it shows zero and gives you a window to restore it. This way, you are never out of stock, and your sales revenues are safe and sound. 

4. Multi Warehouse Clarity

We agree that managing multiple warehouses when selling on multiple sales channels is one of the tasks. But it is quite easy to manage it all when you have one central unified platform to know it all.  It’s easy to sort and pack. You can easily control inventory flow in the case of parent and child warehouses. 

Whether working on a 3PL or your brand’s warehouse, you will have clarity about everything. All questions, such as where and what quantity, will be answered in seconds, and you will no longer have to depend on manual processes.

[Related read – Multi-Warehouse Inventory Management: Challenges and Their Solutions]

5. Inventory Control Techniques

Inventory management is not limited to inbound and outbound processes. How you manage inventory within the warehouse also matters a lot. For instance, stock rotation techniques like FIFO, FEFO, and LIFO, as well as how you bundle your products according to your business needs, are important. Is your system aware of all this information?

You only have to let your system know how you wish to use your products, and it’s all sorted. The system will then tell your manpower how to proceed with your inventory. 

[Read in detail – Types of Inventory Control Systems]

6. Inventory Management Customization

Let us ask you a question: How do you know a solution is good for your business? Is the most advanced one the right one to invest in, or is it the one with the best price? The right answer is that the solution that has the potential to fit your business needs is the right choice. 

For instance, as discussed above, a cosmetic brand might need a system that caters to more bundles of products. An FMCG brand might be looking for a system that helps them manage the products according to their expiry. At the same time, what if you have an organic body care brand that needs both? Hence, a ‘pluggable’ solution like Inventory Management Software is the right choice.

Unlock Real-Time E-commerce Success with the Smart Sync

We would be understating it if we said that real-time inventory sync is the game-changer. Instead, it is your business’s need in the fast-paced e-commerce world to maintain and excel at the competitive edge of the market today. Like any product that goes through the product cycle, the inventory cycle is the same. Not only do we just have to keep the game alive, but we also have to roar with success!

More to Explore:

• What is Revenue Leakage in E-commerce?
• What is Inventory Management?
• What is Order Management?
• What is Multi-Warehouse Inventory Management?
• What is Multichannel Selling?
• What is an Inventory Control System?
• What is E-commerce Payment Reconciliation?
• What is Order Fulfillment?
• What is Inventory Tracking?
• What are Top Inventory Management Challenges?