Best way to manage inventory & orders?

[singlemalt]

Hi,

We sell exclusively through a Woocommerce website. We have around 1500 sku's. We turnover around £650k

We have been using Linnworks for years. It is used for interfacing with Royal Mail and DPD, generating labels. For producing purchase orders from suppliers based on stock levels and requirements for customer orders.

Is there a simpler way to manage orders and inventory? We feel Linnworks is over complex for our needs.

Could we use quickbooks? Maybe Woocommerce could interface with RM and DPD to generate the labels. I don't know.

Thanks for any help.

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

You need to define what you mean by 'manage orders and inventory'?

I would be surprised if you couldn't manage most of it with plugins.

 

[singlemalt]

You need to define what you mean by 'manage orders and inventory'?

I would be surprised if you couldn't manage most of it with plugins.

Many thanks, I was wondering this about suitable plugins.

To be more specific - allocating available stock to orders, and then processing those orders, generating the required shipping label. Raising purchase orders with suppliers to replenish low stock based on pre-set minimum levels.

 

[MilesWeb]

Could we use quickbooks? Maybe Woocommerce could interface with RM and DPD to generate the labels. I don't know.

WooCommerce seamlessly handles product listings, orders, customer control, and simple reporting. Plugins like WooCommerce Shipping Services or ShipStation also easily integrate with Royal Mail and DPD. It will simplify the way to manage your orders and inventory.

Moreover, to get additional help to control stock levels, set low stock thresholds, and doubtlessly automate buy orders based on pre-defined rules plugins like WooCommerce Product Table Manager or Zoho Inventory can help.

 

[singlemalt]

WooCommerce seamlessly handles product listings, orders, customer control, and simple reporting. Plugins like WooCommerce Shipping Services or ShipStation also easily integrate with Royal Mail and DPD. It will simplify the way to manage your orders and inventory.

Moreover, to get additional help to control stock levels, set low stock thresholds, and doubtlessly automate buy orders based on pre-defined rules plugins like WooCommerce Product Table Manager or Zoho Inventory can help.

Many thanks for that, very helpful

 

[antropy]

We turnover around £650k

And you don't have a developer / agency that you work with who could advise?

Paul.

 

[singlemalt]

And you don't have a developer / agency that you work with who could advise?

Paul.

If you don't mid me saying, I think that's a stupid response.

If you just seek advise of existing advisors, and don't ask anyone else, 95% of this forum would be redundant. Why ask any question here at all, if you can just seek advice from existing advisors.

The answer is yes, but anyone with any level of experience in ecommerce and with developer agencies will confirm, it pays to connect with others who tackle the same challenges.

 

[antropy]

If you don't mid me saying, I think that's a stupid response.

Bit rude.

The answer is yes, but anyone with any level of experience in ecommerce and with developer agencies will confirm, it pays to connect with others who tackle the same challenges.

Have you asked them for their opinion? If so, why haven't you told us what they said? If not, why not?

Paul.

 

[wolfluecker]

Many thanks, I was wondering this about suitable plugins.

To be more specific - allocating available stock to orders, and then processing those orders, generating the required shipping label. Raising purchase orders with suppliers to replenish low stock based on pre-set minimum levels.

We have a similarly sized Woocommerce shop and have been looking at various options for years. Surprisingly difficult to find a good balance of features, compatibility and cost!

If you don't mind running your inventory system within Wordpress, the "ATUM" Inventory Management plugins have worked very well for us. The free version does basic stock management, then there are reasonably priced add-ons for various other features, such as POs, Bill of Materials management etc. It's a low-cost solution and not as sophisticated as something like Linnworks, but it's fairly lightweight on your server and well coded.

I don't think it can automatically raise POs etc. so that may be a dealbreaker for you. But it will notify you of low stock levels and you can set those levels in a fairly fine-grained manner.

For shipping we use ShipStation with their Woocommerce integration. Also works better than many people give it credit for.

 

[singlemalt]

We have a similarly sized Woocommerce shop and have been looking at various options for years. Surprisingly difficult to find a good balance of features, compatibility and cost!

If you don't mind running your inventory system within Wordpress, the "ATUM" Inventory Management plugins have worked very well for us. The free version does basic stock management, then there are reasonably priced add-ons for various other features, such as POs, Bill of Materials management etc. It's a low-cost solution and not as sophisticated as something like Linnworks, but it's fairly lightweight on your server and well coded.

I don't think it can automatically raise POs etc. so that may be a dealbreaker for you. But it will notify you of low stock levels and you can set those levels in a fairly fine-grained manner.

For shipping we use ShipStation with their Woocommerce integration. Also works better than many people give it credit for.

Many thanks for that - I'll certainly have a look at it!

 

[fisicx]

Developers build plugins where there is a likely source of income.

Raising a PO within Wordpress isn’t something many are likely to need hence the lack of suitable plugins.

That being said, it’s not complicated to do. A halfway decent plugin developer could build you something bespoke that could work with multiple suppliers and fully automated with PDF generation and email.

 

[Chouston92]

Hi,

We sell exclusively through a Woocommerce website. We have around 1500 sku's. We turnover around £650k

We have been using Linnworks for years. It is used for interfacing with Royal Mail and DPD, generating labels. For producing purchase orders from suppliers based on stock levels and requirements for customer orders.

Is there a simpler way to manage orders and inventory? We feel Linnworks is over complex for our needs.

Could we use quickbooks? Maybe Woocommerce could interface with RM and DPD to generate the labels. I don't know.

Thanks for any help.

Depending on your order volume Despatch Cloud may be worth taking a look at. The platform (and pricing) is scalable depending on your requirements and we have an option for reduced functionality at a much more accessible price. I'm in the marketing department for the company for full disclosure but may be worth taking a look at.

 

[singlemalt]

Depending on your order volume Despatch Cloud may be worth taking a look at. The platform (and pricing) is scalable depending on your requirements and we have an option for reduced functionality at a much more accessible price. I'm in the marketing department for the company for full disclosure but may be worth taking a look at.

Many thanks, I'll have a look..