Keeping Inventories in Sync: Waltzing between Brick and Mortar and Online Storefronts
E-commerce is fast changing the way people deal with their businesses. While a lot of retailers still adhere to old-fashioned brick-and-mortar store fronts, a vast majority of entrepreneurs have gone solely online. On the other hand, brick-and-mortar store owners have put up their own online storefronts to attract more consumers.
If you only have one brick-and-mortar store, a limited amount of goods to sell, keeping both stores in sync should be manageable. When you have more than two brick-and-mortar branches, keeping up with orders and inventories may be difficult.
Ask for help
Whether you’re hiring an entire team to keep all of your stores synchronized, or installing a software which allows you to centralize inventories from a single computer (perhaps, from one of your brick-and-mortar stores), never try to do everything on your own. This will mean that you’ll have to share some of the revenue (in the form of salaries) to your team, but it’s all a part of your growth. An order management software might also be a bit pricy, at least initially, but think of how it could help you manage your stores. It’s always good investment.
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Prioritize support
Online stores are pretty tricky. A bug in the store and the order management software you’re using will always mean lost revenues. While it’s foolish to distrust technology because of little bugs, you shouldn’t totally trust the machines to do the store management for you. When you’re choosing website servers, pick one that has a 24/7 support team. Your brick and mortar stores might be closed at night, but your online stores collect orders from online consumers round-the-clock. If there is a bug, you would want to get help even if it’s the middle of the night.
The same thing goes for your order management software. Look for one that has a credible support team by scouring reviews and ratings online. Unless you plan to lose sleep and do everything on your own, you might also want to hire someone to watch over your online store while you’re resting. The key here is make your physical store work well with your online storefront, and keep your brick-and-mortar staff in the loop with your online efforts.
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