- Original Poster
- #1
I run a growing business and as we add more products to our catalogue and involve more suppliers, stock management is getting really difficult. We have a lot of colour variations with our products, so lots of SKUs, and trying to ensure we are always fully stocked in all SKUs is a challenge.
Additionally we sell on Amazon FBA and have two warehouse locations (UK and Germany). So we need to maintain stock in Amazon UK, Amazon DE, Warehouse UK and Warehouse DE. We need to also make sure we are ordering the correct amounts from suppliers, accounting for lead times, shipping times, sales during that period and future sales expected after that period.
We don't have great estimates for sales either as just looking at historic data doesn't give the full picture, as to date we've often been out of stock of colours for extended periods, so historic sales could be undervalued depending on whether the item was out of stock or not.
I often end up overstocked because I don't want to be out of stock. This is an annoying cashflow issue and would prefer to run a tighter ship.
How do you navigate these issues? Is there a consultant I could find to help me - what would I search? Is there software to employ here?
Additionally we sell on Amazon FBA and have two warehouse locations (UK and Germany). So we need to maintain stock in Amazon UK, Amazon DE, Warehouse UK and Warehouse DE. We need to also make sure we are ordering the correct amounts from suppliers, accounting for lead times, shipping times, sales during that period and future sales expected after that period.
We don't have great estimates for sales either as just looking at historic data doesn't give the full picture, as to date we've often been out of stock of colours for extended periods, so historic sales could be undervalued depending on whether the item was out of stock or not.
I often end up overstocked because I don't want to be out of stock. This is an annoying cashflow issue and would prefer to run a tighter ship.
How do you navigate these issues? Is there a consultant I could find to help me - what would I search? Is there software to employ here?
