Navigating the complexities of stock availability is a cornerstone for triumph in the eCommerce industry. When customers go to a website to buy a specific product, if the item is out of stock, it can quickly sour the shopping experience.
Stock availability is an intricate dance of supply and demand rather than just having items on shelves; it’s about strategic alignment of inventory with market needs. Too much inventory can raise warehousing costs, reduce shelf life and lead to losses. Too little inventory can lead to inadequate supply and products being out of stock more often. Let’s look at stock availability in detail.
Image Source: Stock availability analytics | 42Signals
Understanding Stock Availability – The What
In essence, stock availability is the synchrony between inventory levels and consumer demand. It’s a vital cog in the eCommerce machinery, ensuring that products are accessible for purchase without surplus or deficit.
It means having the product when the customers want it without overstocking or understocking warehouses.
The Crucial Role of Stock Availability – The Why
Image Source: Commerce IQ
Stock availability isn’t merely a logistical concern; it’s the backbone of customer satisfaction and business growth. The longer products are out of stock, customers lose confidence and trust in that brand, sending them elsewhere to competitors.
This experience if unchanged can lead to high customer attrition rates and significant losses in revenue. Let’s look at the reasons why stock availability is such a crucial component to success –
- Enhancing Customer Experience: Timely order fulfilment is instrumental in cultivating customer satisfaction and allegiance.
- Maximizing Sales Opportunities: Optimal inventory levels are critical in minimizing lost sales opportunities.
- Cultivating Brand Reliability: Consistent product availability fortifies a brand’s reputation for dependability.
- Streamlining Operations: Effective inventory management optimizes resource utilization and warehouse operations.
Strategic Approaches to Stock Management – The How
Image Source: https://www.netsuite.com/
Being such a volatile and dynamic component of the eCommerce supply chain, stock availability management comes with its challenges. This could be inaccurate demand forecasting, supply chain disruptions, fluctuations in market needs, unforeseen events and their impact (like Covid-19) to name a few.
These challenges in stock availability must be top-of-mind when looking at optimal inventory management. A few solutions are –
- Advanced Inventory Solutions: Deploy cutting-edge systems for seamless stock tracking and analysis. Solutions like 42Signals, allow users to predict and identify out-of-stock situations beforehand, enabling proactive inventory management.
- Predictive Demand Analysis: Use data-driven approaches to anticipate market trends. Seasonal sales are easy enough to prepare for, but trending products that rise and fall require sophisticated forecasting.
- Strengthening Supplier Networks: Foster robust supplier relationships for consistent supply chains and stock availability. Without this, the whole system falls apart. Trustworthy suppliers ensure items arrive at the right time and can be delivered to the customer as needed.
- Supply Chain Diversification: Mitigate risks by broadening supply sources. Plan A, Plan B and Plan C; when the first plan or system falls through it serves well to have backup measures in place. This could mean, alternate shipping companies, raw material suppliers and so on.
- Adaptive Warehouse Strategies: Implement flexible approaches like JIT for optimal inventory levels. A just-in-time (JIT) inventory system is a management strategy that has a company receive goods as close as possible to when they are actually needed. Such systems allow for reduced inventory costs while not derailing production schedules.
Conclusion
Stock availability metrics can be the missing piece to the puzzle that propels your business forward. With this data, gauging the demand and supply of products becomes easier and more accurate.
If you’re interested in exploring this solution, contact us for more information.
