Rising competition and thin margins are forcing small businesses involved in multi-channel selling to better equip themselves with efficient Multi-Channel Inventory Management Software. Multi-channel selling involves platforms like eBay, Amazon, Shopify, and countless other online stores. A good start to achieving inventory management efficiency is by managing lead time.

What Is The Lead Time?

Lead time is defined as the amount of time it takes for any process to complete. In a typical business, there are multiple lead times involved from the point of initiation to the point of consumption for any product or service.

Let’s take the example of ordering raw materials, depending on how far your supplier is, the time it takes for the material to be delivered can be considered as the delivery lead time. So, if it is delivered in 3 days, then we can say that the lead time for delivery is 3 days.

Lead time can be tracked for many more processes as well, like, lead time for taking orders, communicating with suppliers, or even the time it takes to share data within your organization. It is therefore vital for any business to optimize its lead times as much as possible to increase operational efficiency.

What is an ERP?

An Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system makes it easier to get an overview of your entire business through a single portal. It contains all the necessary information like the supplier data, inventory levels, current orders, deliveries, and financials etc. It functions as a centralized hub, everything from pricing, logistics, and sales to customer details and feedback are all linked to one system.

How Multi-Channel Inventory Management Software Can Reduce Your Lead Time

Here are some of the ways by which a small business can reduce its lead time and improve efficiency with an inventory management software solution.

I – Efficient Order Management

Small routine tasks can take up a lot of time when handling orders in repetition. In addition to that, human error also becomes more common. When taking orders, entering customer data can be troublesome, especially when you are dealing with large volumes, even a slight error in typing the address or quantity can result in huge losses and customer dissatisfaction. To overcome this, ERP systems help make the routine task of taking orders simplified by reducing the number of steps involved, in most cases the customer data will already be stored into the system and can be retrieved easily. Furthermore, the orders once fed into the system can update inventory levels through barcode or QR code scanning, this will almost eliminate the need for routine stock audits.

II – Collaboration With Suppliers

ERP systems make it easier to visualize the state of your entire business, and most importantly your inventory levels. An efficient ERP system updates the position of stock levels instantly when a sale is made. This helps in high accuracy assessment of demand which can be shared with suppliers. The suppliers can then fulfill stock replenishment requests according the demand forecasts shared by the business. As a result, the business will be minimizing any delays in delivery from the supplier’s side.

III – Cross-platform Synchronization

Within an ERP, all online marketplaces are integrated on your system. This means that you do not have to keep track of sales orders and customer data on each individual platform. Everything is being shared to a single point-of-contact, which makes operations cost effective and less time consuming because manually tracking orders on each website is not needed.

How ERP Gold’s Inventory Management Solution can help Multi-Channel Sellers

ERP Gold provides multi-channel businesses with a cloud-based ERP solution that is specifically designed to fulfill their needs.

• Our Multi-Channel Inventory Management Software offers the following benefits:
•       Cross-Platform Integration: Connect to online marketplaces and E-commerce platforms instantly
•       Faster & Easier Data Syndication: Minimize the need for manual data entry
•       Customized Reports: Generate reports for each product listing separately with customizable datasets.
•       Data Integration: Eliminate data duplication and redundancy by syncing everything on one platform
•       Cloud-Based: ERP Gold’s Multi-Channel Inventory Management Software works on the SaaS (Software As A Service) architecture which allows data access through the web through an SSL secure connection.

ERP Gold is here to help you with all your inventory management and control issues!  Click HERE to read more about how we can help, call us at 888.334.4472 for a free consultation.  If you want us to call you, fill out our contact form HERE. Or click HERE to schedule a free consultation or demonstration of how we can help you.