With more goods being bought online than ever before, the e-commerce sector is incredibly fast-paced, and businesses are under growing pressure to meet customers’ high expectations.
To fulfil orders accurately and on time, e-commerce businesses need to implement effective e-commerce warehousing. As the business grows, this becomes more complex, which is why many rely on e-commerce warehouse management systems.
What is an e-commerce warehouse management system? And why does your business need one?
What is e-commerce warehousing?
E-commerce warehousing is the process of storing goods before they are sold online. This includes safely and securely storing products, and tracking where they are located, when they arrived, and how long they’ve been in stock.
What is an e-commerce warehouse management system?
An e-commerce warehouse management system is a software solution that will give you full visibility of your business’ inventory, allowing you to manage the complete supply chain.
Widely used in the manufacturing and retail industries, a warehouse management system (WMS) tracks all materials and goods as they come in to and go out of the warehouse, as well as any movements they make while being stored.
Not only this, but the WMS can also build systems to streamline processes such as picking and packing orders.
This helps you optimise all the processes in your e-commerce warehouse.
What happens without an e-commerce warehouse management system?
Without an e-commerce warehouse management system, you can run into a number of issues with warehousing, including:
Lost inventory
Without an e-commerce WMS, it can be difficult to keep track of where every product is stored. This means inventory can easily get lost, particularly if you’re handling a large number of different products, which can translate into a loss of income and profit.
Shipping errors
Without effective warehouse management, it can be difficult to keep track of inventory meaning that the wrong products can be shipped to the wrong customers. This will impact on customer satisfaction, put increased pressure on your customer service team, as well as increasing costs.
Overstocking and understocking
Without proper warehouse management, it is all too easy to over or understock your warehouse. Not having enough inventory can result leave you out of stock and missing out on sales, while having too much inventory means you could be left with outdated stock you can’t sell.
What are the benefits of an e-commerce warehouse management system?
The key benefits of an e-commerce warehouse management system are:
Better inventory management
With an e-commerce WMS, you can manage inventory in real-time, tracking up-to-date data on orders, shipments, and inventory. This not only improves accuracy but also cuts costs and improves the customer experience.
Reduced costs
Although there is a cost involved in implementing an e-commerce WMS, an effective system will reduce the overall cost of operations. How? By automating processes, minimising errors, and improving productivity, as well as saving warehouse space.
Improved accuracy
An e-commerce WMS will help identify and correct errors before they have the chance to occur – saving you time and money further down the line.
At Optima, we provide powerful e-commerce warehouse management systems to make your e-commerce business more efficient and more profitable. To find out more, please get in touch.
