Choosing an Inventory Management System For Your Retail Business; A Buyer’s Guide

Investing in your retail business is one of the amazing ways to help your business grow. However, the real challenge is to have a clear perspective on how to invest in your business. Pinning your focus on finetuning your  inventory management system and How To Perform An Accurate Inventory Count Every Single Time can help to illuminate pg slot your unique track to profit when managing your retail business… yet the question remains, how does this happen? 

If you decide the time is right to invest in inventory management software, you should look into the details. What, specifically, does your business need and lack, and how can an inventory management system help you improve those areas?

In this guide, we’ll peel down all of these complexities into five simple steps that will offer insight on why inventory management systems matter for your retail business, how to budget and prepare for inventory management software, how to identify which system is right for your constantly growing business needs and much more.  

The Five Steps To Choose The Right Inventory Management Software For Your Business

  1. Understand your stock control needs.
  2. Recognize the value of inventory management software.
  3. Figure out the cost of your inventory management system.
  4. Choose the right inventory software for your specific business.
  5. Set up and deploy the system in your store.

1. Understand Your Stock control needs

What do you think stock control is about? It is all about optimizing your stored inventory so that stock levels are maintained to a minimum to keep storage costs down, however, they must be kept high enough to ensure all orders, even those somewhat unexpected orders can be filled. 

So the first step to finding a stock control system or the best inventory management system should be to determine your needs. And by determining your needs, we meant that you should evaluate the efficiency of your existing systems as well as the results that you’re currently getting.

To give you an idea of how your business stacks on one-on-one against the competition, we’ve assembled 10 questions for you, but you have to answer all these questions quickly and honestly. Think of it as a rapid-fire game, 10 questions in 1 minute!

Remember the rule: you should answer quickly and honestly.

Since the goal of the evaluation is ultimate to help you identify where your business shines and where you might need a little work.

      a. How often do you run out of inventory?

      b. Do you lose money due to over-ordering or excess stock?

      c. Have you implemented a barcoding system to track and label your inventory?

      d. Is your warehouse cluttered, or are the main aisles clear and easy to navigate?

      e. Similarly, how long has it been since your last safety hazard?

      f. How much time does your warehouse staff spend in transit?

      g. Are you pulling sales data from your inventory management system?

      h. Can you easily change and modify orders, or create bulk packages?

      i. Does your system automate promotions and discounts, or do you do it all by hand?

      j. What type of feedback do you receive from customers on the product once it is delivered, such as shipping times, packaging, product damage, etc.?

Utilize your answers to these inquiries as reference points, so you can start to distinguish what areas of your business are working at the full limit and where there is an opportunity to get better. 

For instance, in the event that you find that you’re continually coming up short on stock, at that point that shows that you may require an inventory management software system that enables you to expertly stay on top of merchandise movements.

Or then again, if your current system requires a ton of manual work, at that point, it implies you should consider looking for a system that can automate your processes. 

2. Recognize The Value of Inventory Management Software

Do you know what is the most important and crucial investment is for retailers? The answer is pretty simple, Inventory Management Software. However, it is not as simple as it sounds, your entire business depends on it. It helps to streamline every aspect of your business’s operations. In addition to maximizing ROI, inventory management software can help to facilitate more satisfying relationships with your customers, employees and vendors alike by reducing the burden of tracking inventory while struggling to balance your daily operations.

There are a lot of affordable inventory management systems available that offer a suite of tools that allows: 

a. In-depth and real-time insights into the inventory, consumer and supplier, ultimately delivering the right goods at the right time and at the right cost. 

b. Product performance indicators with the sense to forecast.

c. Customer support for vendors and customers; this could include self-help like what we see with many online retailers

d. Keeping track of costs, sales, discounts and providing on-demand or timely reports.

e. Reducing the chance of fraud either by a customer or by an employee.

Every retailer is familiar with the struggle of running a very complex supply chain. Inventory management in a retail business is indeed a crucial task to perform and when it is not done in the right way, it can create lots of problems for your business. With all these problems in mind, we would like you to know that Wrkmash is everything you need for your business. It would be a big game-changer for your retail business if you use the right inventory management software. Wrkmash can accomplish all these complex tasks easily, this software is able to optimize business processes effectively and it can automate the entire process. All you have to do is sign up.

Try Your 14-Day Free Trial Now!

3. Figure Out The Cost of Your Inventory Management System

Efficient and savvy business leaders understand the reality that it takes money to make money. Investing in an inventory management system is not an exception, at any cost, you must invest in it. However, the good news is that this investment doesn’t leave holes in your pocket or leave your bank empty because Wrkmash is here with everything you need for your business, plus it is super cost-effective software, all you have to invest is $49/month, unlike any other software which cost heavy amounts on subscription and more money just to keep the software updated. Wrkmash doesn’t need all this heavy amount, just a flat investment.

By evaluating your company and setting in on where inventory management software can assist your business run more smoothly, you’ll be better prepared to identify how much money you need to get software that can maximize your ROI. 

 If you are thinking of making any decision, consider these 2 factors.

3.1. Software Investment Range

Inventory management system prices run the scale from $49 a month to $2,000 a month so if you want to make the maximum ROI from your investment, you must correctly budget your resources. However, the question remains the same… how much should your business invest in the Inventory Management Software?

The answer in short is, it depends on what kind of features you are looking for your business, how many store locations and payment processing points you want to get. 

However, Wrkmash gives everything you need for your business at just a flat price of $49/month, isn’t it amazing? You should give it a try. Try 14-Day FREE Trial now!

3.2. Insight Into Your Own Business

There are many factors to consider when creating a budget for your inventory management platform, including depreciation, inventory turnover, and gross margin, among others.

If you want to know how much your company should be investing every year, you should measure profit goals against your annual sales and existing liquid capital. The cost of an inventory management system may seem unsettling at first, many wholesale distributors report seeing up to 75 percent annual growth from their initial investment, plus thousands in profits and up to 100 percent in increased customer engagement

However, if you are still worried about budgeting, see if the inventory management software offers free trials. If yes then what are you waiting for? take the tour, explore it and avail full advantage of the software and get understand how it can help your business to grow. 

4. Choose the Right Inventory Software For Your Specific Business

Now we are sure that you have a better understanding of the costs involved with inventory management software, you are ready to take a look at the prices and advantages of different system features to conclude which type of inventory management software is right for your constantly growing business.  

We’ve made a Cost Versus Capabilities Assessment for you to decide which features are must-haves for your business.

Cost Vs Capabilities Assessment

Answer the following action-oriented questions correctly if you want to know what features you need from the inventory management software. 

1. How many employees need access to your inventory management system?

a. Only me!

b. 2-20 employees.

c. 20+ employees.

2. How large is your business?

a. 0-2 Stores.

b. 3-5 Stores.

c. 6+ Stores.

3. Does your software need to be compatible with an existing Loyalty Program?

a. I don’t need to implement a loyalty program

b. Not now but hope to in the near future

c. Absolutely!

4. Do you sell and accept gift cards in your store?

a. No

b. Not yet, but I might need it in future

c. Yes!

5. Does your business need Online Store to showcase your products?

a. No

b. Not yet, but I might need it in future

c. Yes, absolutely!

6. Do you need an accounting feature in your inventory Management?

a. No.

b. Not yet.

c. Why not? 

7. Do you need a Point of Sale feature in your inventory? 

a. No.

b. Not yet.

c. Of course but only if I don’t need to pay extra money for this. 

8. Do you sell on multiple channels (online, in-store, mobile, social)?

a. No, I have one store and that’s it

b. I have a store, website, or app, but they’re not really connected to each other

c. I do and I need inventory support across channels

Time To Analyze Your Result

Whether your answers were mostly a’s, b’s, c’s or a mix n match of all these. If you find a solution that is affordable but lacks key features, you’ll surely have to replace it in a few years as you grow beyond its capabilities and it will definitely leave more holes in your pocket. That’s an expensive proposition compared to finding a solution that’s affordable, robust and has every feature you need for your business. Wrkmash might be the perfect fit for your inventory management needs because Wrkmash offers amazing features like Online Store, POS, Accounting, Low Inventory Alerts, barcode scanners and much, much more in just $49/month, unlike any other software. Give it a try, you’ll surely love the experience.

5. Set up and deploy the system in your store

If you are preparing to set up a new inventory management system, the first most important thing for you is communication. You need to communicate expressively with the software vendor. It can take anywhere from a few hours to a few weeks to get your inventory management system up and working, so it is crucial to have great communication with the software vendor. 

Conclusion

Every business will have its own different inventory management needs, so it is extremely important to choose a system that suits your business. In the early days of the business, you might be able to manage your inventory using spreadsheets but as soon when your business begins to grow you will surely require a bespoke, robust solution that caters to a large number of orders processed every single day. 

Wrkmash is a cloud-based software system that is designed to meet the needs of your business and to give you better results. It controls your costs, allows you to track every product in and out plus Wrkmash has lots of features including Online Store, Accounting, Point of Sale in just $49/month. Great, isn’t it?

To find out more about how to finetune your inventory management, take a look at our guide to inventory management systems. Or if you’d like more information on the fundamentals of stocks, read our inventory management basics blog.

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