Retail Technology Tip #2 From Storis: Gain Control Of Your Inventory In 2016

Furniture World News Desk on 11/30/2015

Inventory is one of a furniture retailer’s most valuable assets, making proper inventory management a crucial factor in their success. Yet according to our research well over 1/3 of home furnishings retailers are not using any type of software system for inventory control.

While many retailers believe that their manual inventory management processes are working for them, what you don’t know CAN in fact hurt your business. For example, we've found that adopting a leading edge Point of Sale system can help retailers break the record on inventory turns! For example, we have clients crushing the inventory standard of 7x annually with 20 turns. So now the question you must be asking is HOW?

A strategic understanding of your inventory comes from integrating sales data, purchasing history, and supply chain information. A leading software solution uses real-time inventory management tools to reduce on-hand inventory and cost of goods. There are a number of features that technology can provide that simply can’t be reproduced manually. Below we’d like to share 4 of our client’s favorite inventory management tools.

1. Inventory Data Management: A strong software system is able to tell you important inventory information, such as quantities, locations, average cost, selling prices and more. The system keeps this information refreshed in real-time based on the data collected in your software. Leading technology can consolidate information across multiple stores, warehouses, and selling platforms like eCommerce and mobile.

2. Demand Forecasting: Do you want to keep tabs on what products are selling versus the ones that don’t even get a second glance on the sales floor? Inventory merchandising tools can identify trends you can capitalize on. Understand how your customers’ shopping trends correlate with your supply chain including vendor lead times to plan an optimized buying cycle.

3. Automated Replenishment: A great software solution will never let you miss the opportunity for a sale. You can streamline fulfillment by utilizing reports to alert your attention to time sensitive backorder needs. By staying on top of backorder needs, you can increase sales by up to 10% according to RetailEconomics. You can even auto-generate purchase orders for approval reducing manual administrative tasks.

4. Barcode Cycle Counting: Along with theft, administrative errors, and supplier fraud, the latest Global Retail Theft Barometer study reported $42 billion of lost inventory in the United States alone. For some retailers, shrink is a major issue impacting profitability, but counting your inventory manually can take days to complete. With the automation of regular Cycle Counts, you can use barcoding technology to complete the process in significantly less time and with much more accuracy. In fact, we have clients reporting 99% inventory accuracy thanks to these best practices.

The way you manage your inventory is important to your success, and software can help! Real-time capabilities, save your business time, eliminate error and provide more accurate data which you can act on to make great decisions for your business. Inventory is the core of any retail operation making an intuitive software not only helpful, but necessary.

About STORIS: Founded in 1989, STORIS continues to be the leading provider of Retail Software Solutions and Services to Big Ticket retailers of ALL sizes. Over 350 Clients utilize STORIS’ single ERP solution including point of sale, mobile processing, supply chain management, customer care, accounting, ecommerce solutions, business intelligence and more. For additional information, visit http://www.storis.com

Technology Tips From Storis

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