If you hope to get any control over your inventory as it gets bigger and more complicated, you should strongly consider utilizing a pick and pack process.

As a matter of fact, you may already be using one of the main types of Pick and Pack processes already without knowing what it is in name. A Pick and Pack is, in short, the process you use to pull items from inventory to fulfill customer orders. The steps you take to gather items and prepare them for order packing are all part of the Pick and Pack process.

There are about four different main methods for fulfilling orders: batch, wave, zone, and discrete order.

The last type, discrete order picking, is one of the most popular for small businesses. But even large-scale enterprises use a variation of the approach to fulfill orders quickly and smartly.

What makes the strategy so versatile and universal for businesses? It is a rather simple strategy that helps keep your inventory flow concise and clean regardless of its complexities.

How it Works

Let’s say you have an order. A few minutes later, you get another order. You now have a queue of two orders to deal with.

Discrete ordering means that you complete one order at a time. You pick and pack everything you need for order one, even if it includes multiple items. You send this order to customer fulfillment, even going so far as to package and complete it. You then turn to your second order and pack all the items for it before turning to the next one in your queue.

The strategy means that you only ever complete the process for one order at a time.

The benefit is clear. You stay focused on one track at a time. If you have a single warehouse and your products are in the same general area, the strategy is incredibly helpful. You are not bouncing between different orders, fulfilling none in the process of collecting for all. You are on a single track, and you keep up the flow in a single lateral direction. It is a great system for keeping your flow manageable and clean.

Now this is not to say that all businesses utilize this strategy. This is hardly the case. Discrete ordering is far more common for small businesses that have smaller product catalogs and lower overall volume to manage. As you scale up, you may find this strategy a needless hindrance to your productivity. While there is certainly a benefit to doing one order at a time, allowing you to focus and stay on a single track, you may find order processing slower than expected as your catalog gets more complex and layered.

Other Methods

There are different methods that apply to different business types and sizes. For example, batch orders require you to acquire batches of the same product, fulfilling orders that need that specific product first. Another method is called zoning, where you fulfill orders based on their location, with different employees covering different zones. If you have multiple warehouses and very distinct subareas to go through, this strategy could be helpful. There are about four main types in total.

DEAR Systems

Overall, DEAR is designed to cater to the type of inventory management that suits you. You can deploy any type as needed, realizing you will have the biggest positive impact to your business with our system.

Contact us for any information pertaining to inventory management and maintenance. Use a strategy that fits you – not changing to fit the strategy.

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DEAR Warehouse Management Gets Better by Getting a Voice (Coming Soon)

How Closely Should You Monitor Your Inventory?

DEAR is a robust and scalable enterprise-level system for all your inventory needs. It is designed to work at any level, and this includes the incorporation of massive warehouse spaces and even multiple warehouses. It allows enterprises to cut costs, reduce their wait time, increase productivity, and ultimately fill more orders.

Finding what you need, when you need it, and copying that process over clean time and time again is a staggering challenge. But it is a necessary system to put in place, especially as the business grows and evolves.

The bottom line: DEAR Warehouse Management Solution will make your life easier.

And it is only getting better.

Features of DEAR Warehouse Management Solution Today

Right now, the system is designed to hit all the most vital marks of inventory management. The features are extensive and powerful, and can fit any size and scale. What are the top five most important features of DEAR Warehouse Management:

• Wireless Scanning: Open your possibilities with quick wireless scanning

• Serials: Simply and instantly retrieve product serial or lot numbers with a single scan

• Discover Errors: When ordering isn’t perfect, you will know about it. A built-in alert system will help you discover stock discrepancies. Handle it before it becomes a problem.

• New Labels: Create new item labels on demand, right there on the spot. It is in easy way to save you countless hours heading back out to the lot.

All of these features seek to help you streamline your processing. Our DEAR System has managed to evolve with the times, deploying new approaches to order fulfillment so you can keep your business on the competitive cusp of the industry. Additions, like guided walk paths, help you pinpoint the ideal way to get around. Every trip is money saved.

And you can’t afford to be relaxed in this area. Quality stock management is an essential piece to the puzzle. In a 2017 e-Commerce Fulfillment Report from 2017, it was stated that about 34 of businesses ship late because products are sold which are not actually in stock.

These leaders have failed at proper organization. They failed at inventory management. Frankly, over a third is absurdly high. They are disappointing customers, leaving sales on the floor, and eroding their business’ bottom line. This is only one area. Quick fulfillment, invoicing, warehouse-to-warehouse shipping, and much more are all paramount to good inventory control.

It is a huge hole that is being left by non-savvy business leaders who can’t fathom the importance of good inventory control – and you can take advantage of their failures.

Adding Your Voice

Every feature above is a worthwhile addition to inventory management. They all work to make your logistics smoother and more efficient.

But what would help improve every feature? What single addition would dramatically reshape the power, influence, and speed of order fulfillment?

The answer is voice command.

We are about to launch the voice picking system which will seek to redefine expectations and create the new standard of performance. Voice picking will allow for instant orders, create a hands-off approach to fulfillment, and result in a better business.

It is just another example of how only the best businesses are thinking ahead. If voice picking is dominating customer behavior, should it not also dominate in the warehouse? It is part of a huge new trend in business, but we think of it as far more than a trend. We see voice picking as a powerful opportunity to help you achieve even better results.

Improve on all the features with the addition of one. Want to know how you can deploy voice picking in your own inventory management? Ask more today.

How Closely Should You Monitor Your Inventory?

Is Low Inventory Okay to Build Demand? How to Manage Low Inventory in a Competitive Marketplace

Inventory management software can streamline your inventory flow, keep products moving, and keep your backend in order. It is an invaluable tool for managing your products. If you fulfill many orders in any given day, you have to have some kind of system in place to track what you have, when, and where it is.

Inventory management software is often integrated through automation. It is the great big secret of the best inventory management practices, and it saves you a lot of time and money. You are not stuck needlessly tracking and monitoring your inventory at a micro level.

But can you take this too far? Is it possible that you can actually not manage enough?

It is a peculiar question, especially when so much discussion around inventory management software revolves around implementing automation. But the secret to automation is knowing when and how to use it. Go overboard and you can make costly mistakes.

Alerts and Approvals

How closely should you monitor your inventory? The big part of the answer has to do with alerts and approvals. It works as follows. You can set a par level for a product. This may pertain to the lowest count you are willing to allow in your active stock. When an item hits a par level – let’s say three in stock for the purpose of this exercise – you receive an alert. The you in this case could be any staff member who you best think should be informed of this stock level.

A party is now alerted to the par level. So how can they respond? Administrators can set up an approval process within the software management. In short, the system will automatically reorder the product only if it meets the condition of approval. Whoever received the alert can approve a reorder in a single click. But the important step is the approval.

It helps answer the question of how closely stock levels should be monitored. In this example, you are only alerted once you approve the order. Full automation would mean the order is made regardless of approval.

Why is Full Automation (Sometimes) Bad?

“Full” automation in this example could have some frustrating ramifications. There are definitely some circumstances that may apply.

• The reorder price per product is exorbitant, confirming an automated reorder on a product you may no longer make a profit on
• The item is on a waiting list, causing you to possibly pay for a reorder you may not receive for months.
• You over-exhaust a particular financial account
• You forgot to turn off the reorder
• Because you automated the reorder, you can fall victim to any of the above scenarios.

With alerts and approvals, you are buffering yourself from a potential unwanted reorder. It is a great way to watch over your stock when it matters, but still keep a healthy amount of automation on the table.

Only you can determine how close you want to watch your stock levels. If you only have one product, it may be easy. If you are juggling hundreds of products with distinct seasonal slants and variable pricing, close inventory management could be a huge time waster. You need to consider what is most important and what you can automate, and create a healthy balance between it all.

We can help answer a lot of questions regarding inventory management, including how and what to automate and to what degree. Contact our team for further details about inventory control. Our DEAR Inventory system can help you create productive automated processes, but with reasonable checks and balances so you can avoid many of the situations above.

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Is Low Inventory Okay to Build Demand? How to Manage Low Inventory in a Competitive Marketplace

How to Determine the Right Inventory Level for Every Different Product

Some enterprises are fortunate enough to only have to deal with one main product. They aren’t flooded with a wide range of products across a huge spectrum. Add different variables to every product and the whole thing can quickly become a mess. Our heart goes out to every clothing company in the country.

So as a smaller-sized enterprise with big ambitions, how do you manage all these different products? How do you know what to stock, and at what level, to maximize profitability and keep your inventory manageable? This is one of the many secrets of good inventory management, and how inventory management software can ease the burdens of daily management.

Where do you start?

Too Low and Too High

We first need to counter one of the main arguments of precise inventory management. Why can’t you just stock it all? Get a high count to reduce the price-per-product. It will sell eventually, right?

For clothing, perhaps. There isn’t an obvious shelf life for most apparel, so this approach might actually play well. For most other product types, shelf life is a serious issue. But perhaps just as importantly is space. No matter how impervious a product is to natural degradation, it still takes up space on a shelf.

If you stock too little, you aren’t satisfying customer demand. If you stock too much, your shelves are wasted with unwelcomed and unmoved product.

Par Level

You have to address your par level. Different businesses look at par level in different ways, but it is basically the minimum amount of a product you are willing to have on your shelf at any given time. What is the lowest acceptable inventory level for that product?

There are many ways you can determine your par level per product. We look at a few areas you can consider.

• The size of the actual product: How much space is it taking up in your warehouse?
• Seasonal trends: Is it something that sells year-round?
• “Add-on-ability:” Is this a product that could be easily “added on” to another to encourage a sale. For example, stickers, poster, or a similar smaller-sized complementary product can be healthily stocked at all times.
• Restocking speed: Is this a product you can get back quickly if you miscalculate the inventory you need? If so, you might want to stock up when you can.

Setting your par levels correctly can be challenging, especially early on. Software for inventory management can help you review metrics and reduce your trial-and-error period.

Par Levels Vary – a Lot

Par levels are not created equal. In business reality, some products may need to go out of stock. This could be to create demand or cater to a very seasonal selling cycle. Others can have high par levels, especially if sales on that product are sporadic, unpredictable, and at the whims of cultural trends. You want to have a high inventory count here to capitalize on that big break.

While it may take some practice, awareness of your market will really help you nail the right par levels.

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4 Quick Tips Towards Improving Your Inventory Flow

Price Forecasting and Inventory Management, Making Bold Predictions and Big Steps Forward

Inventory management requires juggling lots of small tasks. While inventory management software can ease these burdens, there are still some things all business owners need to do to facilitate a good working order of their inventory.

Utilizing the ABC’s can go a long way in detailing exactly how, where, and why inventory is stored and managed. We take a brief look the ABC strategy and how to make the most of this fundamental game changer.

What is ABC Inventory?

Everyone has an underlying strategy, whether it is organizing everything in a single Excel sheet or just shoving everything in a giant warehouse. There is at least some method to the madness…probably.

But the ABC method streamlines things at the most basic level. ABC Inventory organizes your contents into three essential categories: A, B, and C.

• A Items: These are items which are sought almost daily. A items are bestsellers. They are sold quickly and either don’t take up a lot of long-term space because of this turnover or they are stocked right “upfront” and are easy to access.
• B Items: B items are sold regularly, but there is a higher cost related to them. Perhaps they are larger items that require a lot of warehouse space. Perhaps they are popular seasonal items that may be burdensome nine months out of the year but make back any their space costs during the peak season.
• C Items: C items are the remaining inventory. These items can be bulky, they usually don’t sell well, and they can spread out all over the warehouse. Common C items are seasonal, declared a specialty, part of small or limited runs, or overstock.

The above is the basic breakdown of the ABC Analysis. Inventory management software consequently helps organize inventory into one of these three core categories.

How Does it Help?

The ABC approach helps divide inventory based largely on how often it is accessed. But how does this help in practice?

It helps by easing inventory management practices. More specifically, the ABC method helps owners identify the flow of their products. If you identify a product as A, you know it needs to be reordered more frequently. You can make proactive steps towards stocking these items regularly. B category items can safely be moved to less immediately-accessible areas of the warehouse. This allows you to make room for A category items and also keeps inventory stock at the proper level and location.

A proper utilization of the ABC method ultimately reduces obsolete inventory. Owners have a much better idea of what items are regular stock and what items can be pushed aside. This can help identify areas of marketing potential (such as special sales on C products) and items which can remain future focus areas (A items are bestsellers).

The location can help expedite work orders and even decrease working capital. You only stock what is needed to the closest approximation. It keeps more money fluid and less tied up to (sometimes) needless inventory orders.

Inventory turnover is tighter, allowing for a maximum utilization of the warehouse space you have. You aren’t buried in extra space (and paying higher rent), and you aren’t scrambling to find inventory you need to fulfill orders because it’s buried in obsolete stock.

While many inventory managers have a general idea of what item belongs in what category, they don’t often actively practice it. Make a habit of identifying the status of your inventory. Know it inside and out so you can make informed decisions about what you should do with it- and where it should go.

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4 Quick Tips Towards Improving Your Inventory Flow

Price Forecasting and Inventory Management, Making Bold Predictions and Big Steps Forward

The secret to growing faster and smarter is automation. It is the crux of DEAR inventory management solutions, especially at enterprise levels.

Clients who can properly capture automated workflow funnels can really see how fine-tuned and perfected inventory management can get.

Our automation module consists of:

• Notifications
• Tasks
• Report Scheduling
• Reminders
• Workflow Automation

Our system gives you a full set of tools to automate any and all tasks you need within your workflow.

Automation will get you a few steps further a whole lot faster.

Finding and Applying Automation

You achieve automation by creating a new task funnel. These different automated funnels can help you optimize the system as you need.

You can create workflows within the settings. Here, you can create, edit, and review all the workflows you have crafted. This module will help you anticipate future changes and ease daily frustrations from your team. Allow the platform to do the heavy lifting. It is more than a tool for tracking some basic numbers. Enterprises who harness the potential of automation can really see the impact. Their time is placed elsewhere. The team can focus on growth outside, and not needless daily maintenance.

Some of our clients use automation to require management approval if an order exceeds a certain size. Others will create minimum reorder levels so a specific item never dips below a certain point. The same can be created for maximum orders to keep inventory at management levels all across the board.

You can apply all of the above, from task lists to prompts and reminders, to advanced workflow funnels to daily alerts, to take automate control.

More Help

Automation can ease burdens and reduce manual time spent on repetitive and common tasks.

If you need any additional details, you can review our comprehensive videoon how to set up a workflow automation for sale. This will provide an analysis of where you can set up an automated workflow. Our follow-up videocaptures more of the nuances within workflow management, giving you a lens into the backend of managing, editing, and reviewing your sales workflows.

Both videos give you the finest entry-point for getting in and around workflow automation. This will be a pivotal area for elevating your experience. Capture the highest level of inventory flow. Scale your operations as needed to anticipate much-deserved and earned company growth. Automation readies you for any kind of future.

Take full advantage of our automation module. See the possibilities unfold as you work smarter and grow faster.

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5 Inventory Management Habits You Should Establish Now to Save You in the Future

Price Forecasting and Inventory Management, Making Bold Predictions and Big Steps Forward

The best inventory managers didn’t earn the status by buying the highest-quality software on the planet and calling it a day. They worked to establish many habits, and continued to fine-tune their efforts to keep an impeccable track of the inventory on hand.

Inventory management can be improved substantially by applying some very informative and helpful habits. We recommend the below habits to improve inefficiencies and create the best possible inventory flow.

1. Apply Special Promotions coinciding with Stock Levels

There’s often a stock level that is just a little too disproportioned. It is either too high to justify or too low, causing problems for your inventory levels. You can always settle on promotional deals and discounts which play into the current stock levels. Make a habit of adding promotions, even small ones, to keep your audience based engaged. While this is definitely a marketing priority, it should be something inventory managers look at as well. They can recommend special promotions to help ease high stock.

2. Review Forecasting and Trends

What is happening in the industry and how is it impacting the business? We recommend reviewing the larger aspects of the industry regularly. Take a look at societal trends as well as local community trends. Account for them in stock management. This is an extremely useful habit which can help you capitalize on social movements or take advantage of a very specific change in supply and demand.

3. Audit Your Stock

While inventory management software can be very accurate, it always helps to get in there and audit the stock. Make sure the numbers match and make sense. Human error can often compound and cause substantial problems if you don’t take the effort to double-check periodically.

4. Review the Sales Analytics

Information is more valuable than any best guess. It usually dictates the decision-making process. Sales analytics from inventory management software can really help you untangle a story which once seemed complicated. Make a habit of reviewing the analytics with things like daily stock updates, low stock triggers, unpredictable boosts in sales of a certain product, and more.

5. Review Inventory Quality

Make a habit of reviewing the shelf life of your products before they expire or degrade beyond sale. Many small businesses will remove bad product once it is already bad. This is often a lost opportunity. For example, preemptive searches can help you push a promotion to product about to expire. It can help you tackle the inventory issue before it becomes a direct cut off your bottom line. If you are quick and habitual about it, you can retain tight quality control, avoid product loss, and make more money.

Of course, inventory management makes keeping to these habits a whole lot easier. Contact our team for more details. Utilize inventory management software which saves you time and money, yet remains extremely intuitive. We want to provide you a platform that grows your business, making the transition to it clean and easy.

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Price Forecasting and Inventory Management, Making Bold Predictions and Big Steps Forward

Ease of Use: What Does it Mean and How Do You Find it When Exploring Inventory Management Software?

On the surface, solid inventory management should be able to offer some basic details. What is the current stock? What is the value of the inventory?

These two things are relatively basic, and available in most inventory management platforms. But good software goes above the basics and offers something far more valuable. With some excellent features and more nuanced data, businesses can make bold predictions.

Perhaps the most valuable is price forecasting. Good price forecasters are like weather professionals. They use the information provided to make timely and accurate decisions. But they rarely resort to guessing. They have the resources to make informed decisions. We look at how price forecasting plays a role in inventory management.

Supply and Demand

Price forecasting is ruled by supply and demand. Whatever amount you set for a price should be dictated by supply and demand. Of course, these things are in a constant state of flux. Products inbound and outbound are affected by the variables of supply and demand.

Most small business leaders fundamentally understand how supply and demand can affect the price for their products, but what does that mean in practice? It is not necessarily something that will just happen naturally. It takes someone with a strong sense of price forecasting to make adjustments to maximize profit margins.

Scenarios for Price Changes

A price adjustment should be justified by the marketplace. There are some very clear ways small businesses can make sensible market price adjustments.

• Seasonal Products: Shorts won’t usually garner the same price during the winter compared to the summer. Seasonal products change price cyclically. Brand suppliers should strongly consider this by having in mind a standard winter rate and a standard summer rate.

• Supply Costs; Supply costs can change, also affected by marketplace supply and demand. This can have a “trickle” effect for products which rely on other products to exist. It is always important to look not just at the product but the resources it uses. For example, inventory managers may look at the cost of shorts, but their attention should also be placed on fabric and textile costs.

• Trends: Inventory managers and price forecasters can keep a very close eye on local and national trends. This applies to all industries. There are trends sweeping companies from auto manufacturers to toy suppliers. Can you capitalize on these trends?

Price changes have to be consciously evaluated. If they are done without justification, it could anger a core audience. If they are done too loosely, sales could be lost.

Good price forecasting is a really valuable skill to have. It requires a patience and comprehensive understanding of the marketplace. It may be easy to just increase the price when supply is low and decrease when it goes up. But as any good business leader has experienced, it is never that simple. Inventory management can help small businesses pull records and reports to understand the current status of supply and demand. If used properly, they can make bold predictions to lean into the ebb and flow of the marketplace.

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Ease of Use: What Does it Mean and How Do You Find it When Exploring Inventory Management Software?

Three Things All Good Inventory Managers Must Take Control Of