Inventory Archives – unicommerce.com

FIFO based Picking in Warehouse – How to Overcome Inventory Challenges to Maximize Efficiency?

Team Unicommerce — Thu, 21 Sep 2023 06:21:28 +0000

Do you own a warehouse? Is inventory management one of the greatest challenges for you right now? Let us take you on a ride over how to solve this challenge and invest more of your time in managing revenues and profits!

FIFO Based Picking for Inventory Management in the Warehouse

Many retailers, wholesalers, manufacturers or even e-commerce sellers have hundreds of locations to carry thousands of items. But majorly face these three specific challenges with the inventory-

Out of Stock
Shrinkage
Outdated

Stock rotation to avoid loss due to out of date inventory is the prime issue companies face which even digs them into huge losses if not managed efficiently in time. Many businesses have the inventory with an expiration date. So, shipping the items on the principle of “First in, First Out“, protects the product quality and freshness. Using FIFO, you can ship products relatively in neat and clean boxes, as products would have spent less time in your warehouse.

Companies that sell perishable products, such as food products, medicines or in trend fashion accessories, apparels, footwear etc. commonly follow FIFO as their method for inventory valuation.

For example, a medical store purchases medicines at regular intervals to stock its shelves. As customers purchase medicines, the stockers push the oldest medicine carton to the front of the shelf and replace medicines with new MFG date behind those cartons. The cartons of medicines with the nearest expiration dates are sold first, whereas the ones with later expiration dates are sold after the older medicines. This ensures that the first products purchased will be the first products sold!

Read: How Urban Company Achieved 8X Growth in 27 Months with Unicommerce’s Warehouse Management Solution!

Benefits of Adapting FIFO Inventory Software based Picking in Warehouse

1. Reduce Inventory Loss Due to Obsolescence

Outdated or obsolete products aren’t an issue for most of the industries. But for those who deal in perishable products, to remove the outdated inventory is the costliest and most unnecessary task in a warehouse. Use of FIFO in such industries ensures the products to be picked and shipped as quickly as possible.

2. Improved Customer Experience

Reduce the number of incidents where customers can receive an older, obsolete product due to improper rotation of stock in your warehouse. With FIFO you can now ensure a better user experience and deliver a fresh product which is cleanly packed.

3. Warranty Control Improvements

With FIFO implemented in your warehouse, define Shelf life, Expiry, Manufacturing Date & Tolerance. This will eliminate incidents of shipping products that are close to or past warranty expiration.

4. Make Your Warehouse Stock Rotation Efficient

Implementing FIFO will ensure that you ship the most recent and desirable products to your customers. It is the most widely used inventory valuation method as it is practically much easier and safer for companies to opt.

Let’s Manage Inventory Smartly!

By implementing FIFO, businesses can effectively overcome common inventory challenges, streamline operations, and ultimately contribute to higher customer satisfaction and profitability. Adopting such a robust system is vital for the success of any inventory-dependent business.

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Top 6 Multi-Warehouse Management Challenges & Their Solutions for E-commerce Businesses in UAE

Team Unicommerce — Thu, 07 Sep 2023 13:23:02 +0000

After our last blog – Order, Inventory, and Logistics Management in the UAE: Challenges & Solutions Associated with the Processes, we continue to dive into the UAE economy along with covering the vast market of Saudi Arabia. But this time, we will shed light on one of the most critical areas of concern — Multi-Warehouse Management — given its importance in the above-mentioned countries.

The e-commerce industry in the UAE is growing like never before. Businesses are increasingly shifting from offline to online. And do you know why? Because the seismic shift has fundamentally transformed the human mindset and the way business is being conducted. Not only are the consumers’ buying patterns changed, but their thinking patterns are also replaced by the convenience of online shopping.

Amid such transformation, especially within the younger cohorts, e-commerce players have been reinventing ideas to expand their trade over multiple sales channels. Right from expanding their brand reach over multiple sales channels to redesigning the strategy for consumer retention, e-commerce businesses are broadening their horizons. But you know when the problem arises? When they have the plan to sell over marketplaces but their backend operations are not capable enough to manage it.

Imagine this; you are planning to expand your customer base, for which you have started selling on multiple sales channels, which has eventually increased your warehouse management workload capacity (to manage inventory & orders efficiently). But due to manual labor, you are not able to manage the operational workflows seamlessly, right from managing the cycle count to updating the warehouse inventory in real-time. Maybe you don’t have a centralized view of your inventory. Or maybe you don’t have proper stock visibility of your inventory and order data. This is when the need for a robust warehouse stock management system arises.

In a nutshell, with the surge in the opportunities for e-commerce and the need to sell over multiple sales channels, it has become difficult to align your inventory & order operations across multiple warehouses. But what can you do to solve it? Well, you need to automate your functionalities on a centralized interface system so that you don’t disappoint your customers and fulfill orders on time.

Still, confused?

Well, let us first walk you through the challenges in warehouse management that the businesses like yours are facing in the UAE & Saudi Arabia amid the multifaceted e-commerce ecosystem along with their solutions.

Challenges Faced by E-commerce Businesses of UAE in Managing Multiple Warehouses & Their Solutions

Some of the common pitfalls of managing multiple warehouses are poor visibility of inventory, problems in analyzing unique demands, and messing up the warehouse structure.

Looking at the e-commerce industry in the UAE from the warehouse perspective, it’s one of the toughest markets to crack. Why? Because the e-commerce industry is continuously evolving in the countries, right from the adoption of new technology tools to selling over diversified sales channels.

Don’t you want to understand what these challenges are and how can you overcome them to boost your business in the UAE? Come on, let’s have a look at them!

1. Difficulty in managing inventory

Managing the inventory across multiple sales channels is itself a crucial task. But it goes hand-in-hand with warehouse management. And when you add multiple warehouses, the level of complexity also increases. Now you not only have to manage the inventories of one warehouse but you also have to accumulate the incoming & outgoing inventory of multiple warehouses. If you fail to manage it optimally, you will have to bear the consequences of inventory stockouts and overstocking — the occurrence of which can be both dangerous and heinous to your business.

How to solve it?

With a centralized and integrated warehouse inventory management system, you can have full control and visibility over your inventory operations. While the centralized system updates all the inventory from multiple warehouses in real-time, uneventful situations of overstock or stockouts — if they happen — can also be tracked almost immediately. Additionally, it’s the best way to manage inventory as the automatic stock synchronization ensures accurate stock visibility and helps improve sales and controls order cancellations.

2. Varied consumer demands in different areas

Which item should you have more in your warehouse and which product do you need to slow down on manufacturing? Maybe chamomile tea leaves could be appreciated in the northern part of your country but don’t hold any significance when sold in the southern part.

Thus, it is fairly difficult to fulfill the demand of multiple markets simultaneously over a short period of time. And when you are planning to expand your horizons by adding multiple warehouses, you can definitely come across these types of situations. While the complexity behind equating the demand & supply can challenge your backend capabilities, the seasonal trends add another layer of difficulty.

How to solve it?

If your warehouse management system has the functionality of reports & dashboards, most of your efforts get centralized, easing out your distress. From checking the inventory availability of fast-moving SKUs to analyzing the products with zero orders last month, you can actually get the real-time insights that can allow you to track your sales, stock, and revenue proportion and forecast apt plans for the markets.

3. Managing shipping across multiple warehouses

When you have warehouses spread across the country, you can easily ship orders from one place to another and fulfill them timely. But it becomes challenging to establish real-time coordination between warehouses. Information can be distorted and the lack of sync can also restrict the ability to manage various functions such as picking/packing, sorting of inventory, and placing in shelves. But if you are not integrated with multiple logistics providers, you might end up shutting your operations in one or more warehouses due to high costs (capital cost & logistics cost).

How to solve it?

Outsourcing a sound logistics & warehouse management system software that is pre-integrated with multiple logistics players and shipping aggregators can solve your problem. This way you can also tie hands with the local logistics providers who are aware of narrowed nooks & crannies of your region — which is again one of the crucial problems in the UAE, due to the absence of postal codes.

4. Problems in utilizing warehouse space

Another problem associated with warehouse management is when you fail to utilize the warehouse space adequately. A small warehouse can still be managed easily, but the main problem arises when you have to manage multiple spaces with a large set of inventory. It’s not just about keeping a hygienic structure, but it’s rather about wisely placing inventory so that the fast-moving goods can be picked easily when required. But the presence of multiple warehouses negates it as you need to hire more staff to manage the same that will eventually increase your manpower cost.

How to solve it?

If you have a robust warehouse management system in place, you can wisely plan & structure your warehouse components. You also get a virtual warehouse feature that gives you a unified view of operations so that you can place and position your products wisely. Moreover, you can also manage shelves with the virtual system while streamlining the identification of product placement.

5. Failing to minimize the Product damages

One of the many reasons to increase your warehouses is the rise in consumer demand. But in order to fulfill the demand on time, you often compromise with the quality check processes. While that could directly pose a risk to your bottom line, you might witness a huge rate of order returns.

How to solve it?

Preferably, your company needs a barcode inventory system where you can conduct a seamless quality check of the products at various stages to be sure before it gets delivered to the final user. You can use handheld devices such as barcode scanners. This way you can capture an array of detail regarding the item, facilitating smooth order processing and returns management.

6. Managing Order Returns/Exchanges

Another warehouse challenge that e-commerce businesses face is dealing with the issues of returns. Order Returns often challenge the operational efficiency of the business, especially when you have more than one warehouse to manage. And when you receive the returned item in another warehouse, making space for it is a whole new challenge. Additionally, transporting it to its original destination could be costly and might damage the product. So the question is what can you do to avoid such circumstances?

How to solve it?

You can’t obviously avoid the problem of returns from your business but a seamless backend system can definitely enable you to minimize it. Moreover, a robust e-commerce system with robust returns management feature can answer all sorts of order returns queries. With returns management aligned to your operations you can:

Organize the warehouse space
Allocate a dedicated area for returned products
Segregate returns items based on their nature and type
Enable smooth & efficient order replacement
Hasten up Return Inventory Turnaround

With the change in customer behavior, we need to clearly buck up our current operating system so that it doesn’t get bogged down while adding multiple warehouses. Thus, the warehouse managers must design a full-proof action plan to maximize the performance index while leveling the trade-offs for improved profitability. Also, one thing’s for sure, you definitely need a centralized warehouse management system that can support all your warehouses all while giving a centralized view of operations. An agile warehouse management system can assist you in centralizing the crucial tasks such as maintaining healthy stock levels automatically and location-allocation in multiple warehouse sites along with real-time e-commerce inventory management, automated purchase management, routing and tracking of shipments, order management from multiple POS, etc.

What is Order Management and Processing? A Step-by-Step Guide

Team Unicommerce — Tue, 17 Jan 2023 18:08:19 +0000

Running an e-commerce business is not just about selling products and services online but also ensuring seamless and efficient order management and processing. Imagine the disappointment of seeing your potential sale slip away just because of an order delay. That’s precisely what happens when 38% of online shoppers abandon their carts due to longer delivery periods.

Tracking the status of orders received via marketplaces and (D2C) websites is crucial for any business. The inability to easily track order status can lead to confusion, delays, and unhappy customers. Don’t let this happen to your e-commerce business.

In this guide, we’ll dive deep into the world of order management and processing and provide you with a step-by-step guide that covers everything from tracking orders to handling returns. So let’s get started!

E-commerce Order Management: A Brief Overview

Order management refers to the process of tracking, managing, and fulfilling customer orders, from the time they are placed until they are delivered. This includes tracking inventory, processing payments, shipping, tracking orders, handling returns and refunds, and providing customer service.

A robust e-commerce order management system (OMS) is essential for any e-commerce business. It ensures that orders are processed efficiently, inventory levels are accurately maintained, and customers are kept informed about every step of their order journey. By streamlining order processing, e-commerce businesses can improve customer satisfaction, reduce costs and improve overall efficiency, leading to a better bottom line.

Order Management Process Flow: Key Steps

Step 1: Order Received on Marketplace or D2C Website
Step 2: Order Details Received via APIs Sent to WMS
Step 3: Creating the Picklist
Step 4: Order Picking and Packing
Step 5: Shipping the Order
Step 6: The Post-Sales Follow-Up Process

The order management process starts with receiving an order and ends with ensuring the customer is happy with their purchase. Here are the key steps in this process:

Step 1: Order Received on Marketplace or D2C Website

The “Order Received” step marks the start of the order management process when a customer places an order on a marketplace or D2C website. At this point, it’s important to verify that all the necessary information is captured correctly, like customer details, item details, quantity, etc., and that the payment mode should be confirmed. This helps ensure that the order can be efficiently and effectively processed at the warehouse.

Read: How Honasa Consumer, the parent company of Mamaearth, attained a 99.99%+ Order Fulfillment rate for its D2C operations?

Step 2: Order Details Received via APIs Sent to WMS

Using APIs in order management helps businesses automate processes, improve accuracy, and streamline operations. For example, when an order is placed on a D2C website, the order details, such as customer information, item details, and shipping details, are sent via API to the warehouse.

This allows for real-time updates on inventory and order status and enables warehouse staff to quickly and efficiently pick, pack and ship the order.

Step 3: Creating the Picklist

Now that the order details are received, they can be passed on to warehouse staff through an automated process known as a picklist. This step typically takes place in the warehouse after an order has been received and the inventory has been updated in the warehouse management system (WMS).

The picklist is a document that includes all the information required to pick, pack and ship the order, such as product codes, quantities, and the precise location of the products in the warehouse, such as shelf details and batch numbers. Once this picklist is created, warehouse staff can use it to go to the relevant locations and physically pick the items required to fulfill the order.

Step 4: Order Picking and Packing

It’s time for warehouse staff to physically locate the items on the picklist and retrieve them from their storage location. Using a handheld scanner or a mobile device to scan each item’s barcode to ensure that the right products are picked and to update the WMS system.

Once the items have been picked, they are moved to the packing area, where they are inspected, packaged, and labeled for shipping. This process involves wrapping and packing the items securely in a box or a shipping envelope, adding any necessary padding or packaging materials, and attaching any required shipping labels or documentation.

Step 5: Shipping the Order

The order is picked and packed; it’s time to ship the order. There are typically three primary stages to the order shipment process:

Stage 1: Order to Be Picked By Delivery Agent
Stage 2: Order Picked and On the Way
Stage 3: Order Delivered

Order to Be Picked By Delivery Agent: In this stage, the order is prepared for shipment, and the delivery agent is notified to pick up the package from the warehouse or fulfillment center.

Order Picked and On the Way: Now, the order has been picked up by the delivery agent and is on its way to the customer. The delivery agent tracks and monitors the order, and updates are sent to the OMS and the customer.

Order Delivered: The last phase of order fulfillment is the actual delivery of the package to the customer and updating the OMS with delivery details.

Read: How XYXX, One of the Leading Men’s Innerwear D2C brand Streamlined its Inventory and Order Management across 17+ marketplaces?

Step 6: The Post-Sales Follow-Up Process

The post-sales process is the final step in order management and is crucial in building and maintaining customer loyalty. This typically includes thanking the customer for their order and ensuring they are satisfied with the product.

In case of a return, several steps are taken to ensure the return process goes smoothly:

Step 1: Return Initiated
Step 2: Return Picked
Step3: Return Received
Step4: Return Processed

Return Initiated: The customer initiates the return process by contacting the customer service team, either through the marketplace or D2C website or by phone, to request a return. The customer has to provide the order number and a reason for the return.

Return Picked: Once the customer service team authorizes the return, a return pick-up is scheduled, and a delivery agent is dispatched to collect the returned item from the customer.

Return Received: When the order is picked up, it is received and inspected by the warehouse to ensure that it is in the same condition as when it was shipped. The return information is also updated in the warehouse management system (WMS).

Return Processed: After the item is received and checked, it is processed, and a refund, replacement, or credit note is issued to the customer based on the return policy and the condition of the item.
By having a well-defined and efficient post-sales follow-up process in place for returns, e-commerce businesses can ensure that customers can easily initiate and process returns.

Watch how Order Management System (OMS) helps in timely order fulfillment –

Wrapping Up!

Optimizing order management process flow is important for every e-commerce business. Only a fully integrated OMS can automate processes and provide real-time updates on inventory and order status.

When choosing your order management system, it’s essential to check if it provides ready integrations with your shipping providers and marketplaces, as this will help you focus on growing your business rather than worrying about order processing and fulfillment.

Choose wisely and use technology to keep your e-commerce business moving forward!

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