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One of the areas where many e-commerce sites falter is inventory management. Inaccurate or faulty inventory management can lead to many pitfalls for any business, a few of which include poor customer service due to inefficient management, an inability to forecast sales and carrying too little or too much inventory, in other words, mismanagement of capital.
The main principle behind effective inventory management is quite simple: an e-commerce site should carry enough stock to satisfy demand but not too much because this leads to inefficient use of capital.
It is impossible and time-consuming to manually enter and track inventory in today’s competitive market place and only relying on an archaic desktop system to manage your inventory is unreliable. Technology firms have come up with an easy-to-use solution in the form of enterprise mobility solutions. These applications help with inventory management in a way that was simply not possible several decades ago.
According to research conducted in 2013, in the United States inventory, accounts receivables and accounts payable together added up to US $1.1 trillion in cash, a figure that is equivalent to 7% of the country’s GDP. Inventory management can be a complicated task if you are selling in large volumes and across multiple locations.
How Do Enterprise Mobile Application Systems Help with Inventory?
One of the ways in which inventory management can help your business is that it allows you to provide a better customer experience. Customers can check how many of their favorite products are in stock, either online or in a brick-and-mortar store.
With advances in technology, e-commerce has experienced greater mobility with regards to inventory management. Managing and tracking goods has never been easier. Being physically present in the warehouse is no longer a pre-requisite for inventory management thanks to mobile applications that provide real-time data updates. This also makes is easy to keep all warehouse staff aware of the status of stock at any time.
Inventory management software makes it effortless to know when you are overstocking or maybe not stocking enough of a best-selling item. Future mistakes of this kind can be avoided using a mobile enterprise application platform.
Further Advantages of MEA Systems
Using a mobile enterprise application system to manage inventory has several advantages when compared to a hardware system:
1. Easy upgrade
One major advantage of a mobile app to manage inventory is that when any advances in technology are made, a mobile app can simply be upgraded whereas with a hardware system you would need to purchase new technology. Maintenance can also be completed quickly thanks to mobile applications being cloud-based.
2.Faster
Anything other than a mobile inventory management system will be time-consuming. It will also bring the added complication of finding a system which is compatible with all the hardware and devices that are currently being used.
3. Ease of Access
Since most employees today will have a smartphone already, installing an inventory management system is much easier and allows the workers instant access to the system from anywhere. If the e-commerce vendor has multiple warehouses which are in different locations, a mobile stock-tracking device is invaluable for those in charge of managing the warehouse.
4. Cost effective
Smaller businesses may not be able to afford expensive inventory management software systems and a mobile enterprise application platform may be a lot more cost-effective when it comes to managing stock digitally.
5. Compatibility
A mobile enterprise application platform is more likely to support different types of mobile devices and operating systems including Windows, iOS, Blackberry, and Android. In addition to different types of mobile devices, a mobile enterprise application platform can also integrate various devices such as credit card readers, printers, and scanners.
6. Local and Remote
A mobile inventory management system can track inventory while it is being transported between various locations, as it enters a warehouse from any other location and can also track items as they are shipped from a warehouse. It is also possible to track inventory located in multiple locations such as a warehouse, service van and the customer’s location.
7.No errors
With an automated process of counting stock, the margin for error is eliminated.
Final Thoughts
A business needs to have control over its inventory and from anywhere. As it is next to impossible to manually control your inventory, a mobile enterprise application platform (MEAP) is the answer to conveniently enter data and search from anywhere using almost any device. When your inventory is constantly changing, it is important to know exactly what’s happening, especially if you can’t always be present in the warehouse. A mobile enterprise application platform is far more affordable than its predecessors: costly inventory-management software. Adapting with new technology will ensure the success of growing e-commerce vendors.
