A lot of businesses have failed because their customers were dissatisfied not of their product but because it is not available. Termed as stock-outs, it can cause a dramatic effect on the performance of Amazon sellers. As a seller, you should know that customers often buy lots of items on holidays. You should be able to see which items they buy most and which items they won’t but they got higher income. Unfortunately, for some companies who do not care about these trends, they end up incurring opportunity losses. Don’t let this happen to you. You can be successful in ensuring that you never go out of stock. This infographic can help you keep up with inventory requirements.
1. Tracking sales trend is a must. There are many ways to track the sales trend. You can do it daily, weekly, monthly or annually. However, for seasonal items, you have to track it annually as well. During holidays, you can check on last year’s sales and try to predict what could be the turnout for this year. You can also use simply too complex forecasting methodologies to avoid large errors on your forecasted demand.
2. Why is it necessary? Selling a large number of items require that you know which products will be sold more so that you can stock more of that product as well. If you are in doubt whether the number of items is enough, just add some cushion by having buffer stocks. However, you can’t have as many buffers as you want because all of these stocks have other associated costs (e.g. storage cost). That is why you have to check the trends.
3. Managerial or marketing functions are very much different for inventory controller. You have to find someone who can manage your inventory so that you can be effective in your own function. They must be trained enough to conduct an inventory audit from time to time. More so, the inventory controller must have basic knowledge in solving for economic order quantities, lead time and safety stocks. They must immediately report to you whenever you are nearing the EOQ level.
4. Invest in a system that will allow you to monitor real-time inventory. There are sophisticated programs that automatically reflect the level of inventory whenever you need it. Whenever a customer buys regardless of product assortment, it will automatically be reflected in the system. This allows the manager to make sound decisions whether to get more of the stocks or not.
5. Attend events of Amazon sellers. From whom can you get the best advice about avoiding stock-outs? Of course, from the people who do the same business as yours! Attend to their events so that you can benchmark on their inventory strategies.
source: https://www.prospershow.com/media/prosper-blog/preventing-the-dreaded-out-of-stock-message
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