The holiday rush is upon us, and all is well. It’s the most wonderful time of the year…right? Well, yes…but if you’re in an inventory-based business, the Holiday Rush can also be the most stressful time of the year. Sure, registers are ringing, customers are calling and lining up outside your door, and sales are through the roof. Assuming, that is, that everything is going well.
But what could go wrong during the season that many businesses count on to help them achieve profitability for the year? Here are some of the most common problems experienced by businesses without a modern, up-to-date inventory management system:
- Your buyers underestimated the popularity of an item that is flying off the shelves, and you run out two weeks before Christmas, leaving thousands of dollars of profit lying on those empty shelves.
- Inventory updates are lagging behind sales, so you have to tell an angry customer that the item you promised would be there in time for holiday festivities – that one item that the customer’s child says the holiday will be ruined without – is actually out of stock. And you have no idea when it’ll be replenished.
- With the sales cycle moving at warp speed, Accounting can’t keep up. So you have no idea how much money you have (or whether you’ll be able to hand out holiday bonuses).
- Those seasonal workers you hired for the holiday rush aren’t being very productive. They’re trying, but they’re having a hard time figuring out all of those manual processes and “temporary” patches you’ve cobbled together over the years.
- Your administrative staff is spending way too much time tracking shipments for anxious customers.
Oh…and your family is mad at you for spending too much time at work and not enough time at home during the holidays. You keep promising that it will get better next year, but for things to change you’ll need extra support in the form of a cutting-edge inventory management system. Take a peek into Christmas Future and imagine what things could look like at this time next year with QStock’s Inventory Management solution.
- As soon as an order is placed, the dominoes start to fall (in a good way!): Inventory quantities are adjusted, the supplier and the most appropriate shipper are notified, and the customer receives an automatically-generated email confirming the purchase and providing tracking information.
- Behind-the-scenes analytics of inventory levels and sales data lets you get ahead of the trends, ordering more inventory before workers notice (or have time to react to) a problem.
- QStock Inventory integrates seamlessly with Intacct and QuickBooks, ensuring that there will be no need for Accounting to play catchup and guaranteeing that you’ll always know where you stand financially.
- Drop Shipping integration lets you route sales directly from the supplier to the customer, freeing up both capacity and labor at your warehouse.
- Even the most recent hires can monitor inventory levels and locate stock.
- Automated task assignment and communication frees management from the details, allowing them to focus on the overall efficiency of the operation.
- Immediate, up-to-date visibility into inventory levels eliminates the need for time-consuming cycle counts (not to mention the potential for human error).
- Customer service employees can shift their efforts from tracking shipments and confirming deliveries to answering questions and solving problems. They’ll also be able to tell customers when out-of-stock products will be replenished.
- Access to better data can provide over 99% order accuracy.
With QStock Inventory solutions, next year’s holiday rush really can be stress-free. Call QStock Inventory today so that you can start the new year off right with a state-of-the-art inventory management system, and be up to speed in plenty of time for the 2016 holiday season. Make 2016 the year of 100% customer satisfaction – while also keeping your blood pressure down and your family happy.
