A great product doesn’t amount to much if you can’t get it to your customers. You need a supplier that ships on time and with excellent quality and a shipping process to quickly ship after purchase. In between those two things is the inventory management process.
The problem is that it’s not easy to do inventory management right. Reports show that only 43% of small businesses have a system in place to manage and track their inventory.
You must do everything possible to avoid common warehouse storage errors. Below are four of the most common errors warehouse management makes.
1. Bad Paths
It isn’t enough to know where everything is in your warehouse. If your team can’t get to the products you sell often quickly, they’ll waste time traveling back and forth on paths in warehouses that don’t make sense.
When placing items in your warehouse, put things in the optimal place. If you sell something often, put it closer to the picking station to reduce the trip time. If you have items that customers regularly buy together, group them in your warehouse to reduce time traveling to get multiple items.
2. Poor Tracking
It isn’t enough to have your inventory in the proper locations. Even if everything is organized, your team still needs to remember where everything is.
Luckily, you can invest in tools that help you keep track of your products. From RFID tags and other technology, use tools to help your team find products quickly when picking. You can also use these tools to keep track of your inventory counts to ensure you don’t have bad information.
3. Lack of Software
Software programs can help in every industry. It removes much of your administrative work and helps automate tasks you regularly do. If you don’t use software for warehouse management, you’re making life much more challenging for you and your team.
The first place to start is inventory management. You can use warehouse storage technology to keep track of your current inventory counts and get reports covering how much you sell. This data will help you understand when to re-order to avoid running out of products.
4. Bad Inventory Level Management
One big mistake companies make is stocking too much inventory for poor-performing products. They don’t want to ever run out of a product, but in an attempt to keep a good supply, they tie up too much capital and space on products that don’t sell well.
Investing your money into your best-selling products and experimenting with new offerings makes more sense. Doing this will help you use capital more efficiently and not waste resources on products that sit and do nothing.
Look at your reporting to see what sells best and focus on stocking those items.
You Can Now Avoid Warehouse Storage Errors
Managing your inventory and warehouse the wrong way can be a nightmare for your business. You won’t be able to find products, lose inventory counts, and have unsatisfied customers. That’s why you can’t afford to make mistakes with warehouse inventory management.
But with how long warehouse management has been around, many best practices have been created to make things easier. Avoid the warehouse storage errors above to avoid making severe mistakes.
Are you interested in more tips that will help with housekeeping for warehouses? Read more posts on the blog to discover more great advice.
