In many ways, your success is confirmed when you begin to operate flourishing stores out of two or more locations. Along with the triumph, however, come new challenges.
Most notably, it is important to identify the best practices involved in making the most efficient and cost-effective use of your collection of products. Doing so ensures that merchandise is available where it is needed, supporting your business as it grows and changes.
Challenges of multi-location inventory management
Wrangling numerous items and ensuring that everything is available to your clients, regardless of where they want to make their purchases, can pose difficulties for even the most organized manager. Keeping your finger on the pulse of product counts becomes exponentially harder if you are selling out of more than one site.
This is especially true because similar products tend to come from the same supplier. As a result, a mistake in one location can be disastrously multiplied into similar errors throughout your footprint.
If you carry a wide selection of products, chances are good that they come from a number of suppliers. Operating from more than one location means that you will need to coordinate new shipping routes to ensure that items arrive when and where they are needed.
Consequently, you may also realize that you need to delegate staff tasks in a new way.
You’ve likely already begun working with a company that provides merchant services for franchises. This helps ensure smooth payment processing and consistent business operations across all your store locations.
While this is an essential start, it will come to nothing without excellent communication among stakeholders throughout your footprint. Only when you have overcome this challenge can you ensure solid sales for all of your sites.
Finally, it can be daunting to figure out how best to allocate the right quantity of inventory to each location. Inevitably, sales will vary from one to the other according to numerous factors, including environment, cultural idiosyncrasies, location, and other variables.
Overcoming the challenges
It is possible to take control of your multi-location inventory issues simply by putting a few best practices in place at all of your sites. Begin by investing in inventory management tools.
Leverage a centralized inventory management tool
It is possible to take control of your multi-location inventory issues simply by putting a few best practices in place at all of your sites.
Begin by investing in inventory management tools, which are most likely already contained in your point of sale system. These tools allow you to register items as they arrive in your warehouses and monitor each piece of merchandise throughout its journey.
Armed with this intelligence, you are easily able to monitor quantities, configuring your system to let you know when you have reached a threshold that signals the need to reorder.
Streamline invoicing and supplier communication
This software can assist with other vital tasks, including creating and tracking invoices as well as communicating with your suppliers.
In no time at all, your inventory management tools will quickly become an indispensable partner that makes virtually every aspect of product management more accurate and efficient.
Establish a safety stock cushion
Your software is a whiz at tasks such as allocation management, and more specifically, it allows you to determine an accurate cushion of so-called safety stock. With this in place, you will not be caught short if there is an unexpected surge in sales.
Additionally, the system can be configured with product-specific order points that, when achieved, signal you to contact your supplier for the next batch.
Utilize reporting for granular demand forecasting
It is important to utilize your point of sale system’s reporting features to give you the specific details you need to make granular demand forecasts for each of your stores.
Knowing exactly what is being sold in every store does more than just help you to order intelligently; it also gives you a way to determine how tasks should best be delegated to your employees.
Prioritize training and foster clear communication
Finally, it is essential to provide thorough training and foster excellent communication among everyone involved. Set the stage by ensuring that all players—suppliers, the central office, location managers, and carriers—are given a set of protocols and channels.
They will use these to talk to each other on a regular basis, ensuring that everyone is aware in real-time of successes, changes, and challenges. Bolster these ongoing dialogues with thorough training for everyone involved to ensure all stakeholders understand your systems and know what to do should questions or challenges arise.
Juggling inventory across two or more stores is one of the many issues that you will face as your business grows beyond its initial single location.
However, by using inventory management tools and following a few best practices, you can keep your most in-demand products in stock. This helps maintain steady supply lines and ensures a consistent flow of revenue.
North is a leading financial technology company that builds innovative, frictionless end-to-end payment solutions designed to simplify and grow businesses of all sizes. From the front door, to the back office, the developer world, and partnerships that expand the payments landscape, North offers proactive, comprehensive merchant services, in-house processing, and more.
