Are you struggling to tie together all the different parts of your eCommerce business’s inventory? If the answer is “yes,” then you’re not alone. Inventory management is crucial to retail success, and yet, 43% of small businesses still track it manually, or they don’t track it at all.
And, it’s not just small retailers who have problems with inventory. We tend to see this problem pop up quite often when we recommend to our merchants to push for more promotions and offers - sometimes logistics and inventory issues slow down marketing, merchandising, and promotional teams that are looking to grow the bottom line.
A study by IHL highlights three areas where global retailers lose massive amounts of money due to inventory issues.
- $642.6 Billion in preventable returns
- $634.1 Billion in out-of-stocks
- $471.9 Billion in overstocks
The fact is that every dollar lost in these statistics is avoidable by using a proper inventory management system.
Whether you’re a mom-and-pop shop manually tracking inventory or upgrading a multi-channel enterprise eCommerce juggernaut, you need the right inventory management system fit for your unique business needs.
The Challenges of Managing Inventory
Nowadays, most online retailers must track their inventory across multiple locations, manufacturers, warehouses, logistics, delivery companies, and outlets. It’s hard enough to manage your online store, let alone listings on Amazon, eBay, and a physical location.
Fortunately, there is a new technology that can unify all these elements and processes of the supply chain into one platform.
In this post, we’re going to look at Stitch Labs, one of the biggest players in inventory management. The information here should help you to determine if their online solution is a fit for your company. Controlling inventory is essential to marketing strategy.
Stitch Labs Inventory Management Software
This San Francisco-based company specializes in inventory management for high-growth, multi-channel brands. Their experts designed the software to allow users to have complete control, insight, and flexibility into managing inventory and orders for rapidly growing businesses. Stitch Labs helps brands grow and expand their business in a scalable manner through centralizing and automating time-consuming manual processes so that brands can focus on what matters most: creating a unique and exceptional customer experience.
Some of the features of Stitch Labs include:
- Inventory management software that is easy to use and adapt.
- A robust system that handles high-volume orders across multiple channels.
- Manages all inventory and order processes in one place.
- Flexible fulfillment workflows to support unique business needs.
- Customized solutions specifically for your business.
- Real-time reporting for improved visibility and planning.
- Syncing of inventory, reporting, and transactions from demand to fulfillment.
Using Stitch, retailers save time and gain the visibility and control they need to make better decisions to grow their businesses.
Scalable Order Management
One of the advantages of using Stitch Labs is the scalable order management platform. To meet customer demands and reduce shipping costs, Stitch Labs automates fulfillment and shipping workflows.
In particular, you can:
- Manage all sales channels in one, centralized location.
- Update listings and run promotions from one dashboard.
- Sync stock across sales channels, warehouses, and fulfillment centers for real-time stock updates.
- Implement unique routing logic to fulfill orders from different locations
From a single platform, you can create custom order-routing, partial shipments, and overflow routing order splitting. It decides the optimal solutions based on product availability, order location, priority warehouses to save on delivery time and shipping costs.
Automation Improves Accuracy and Saves Cash
Managing inventory through spreadsheets is time-consuming and error-ridden. Your multi-channel business needs a system that can accurately and reliably track eCommerce fulfillment solutions and inventory across your channels to provide better insight and control over your growth.
Their software can react to changing demands by automating purchase order creation. The system automatically calculates re-order points and creates purchase orders based on real-time calculations of sales velocity, supplier lead time, and par levels.
Stitch Labs offers some features in this regard:
- Automatic low-stock alerts and purchase order generation.
- Integrates with accounting software.
- Automatic stock takes, logs, and transfers.
- Automates fulfillment from order generation to shipping.
- Sends automatic shipment notifications to customers, warehouses, and fulfillment centers.
Better accuracy of ordering means higher profits due to less cash tied up in stock.
Better Business Decisions and Planning
Having a clear, data-driven picture is vital for eCommerce retailers. You can manage everything from a single comprehensive analytics dashboard. It draws data from a number of sources.
On the analytics front, Stitch Labs provides:
- Sales, revenue, and inventory stats.
- Sales velocity and forecasting reports.
- Channel-specific reporting.
- The ability to filter data using customization variables.
With reports segmented by product and channel, you’ll have all the information you need to plan for sales and leverage just-in-time inventory techniques to increase profits.
Unify Your Operations Through Multiple Integrations
It is very common for eCommerce businesses to use third-party tools. As a robust and integrated inventory and order management solution, Stitch Lab integrates with many of the industry’s leading tools to allow businesses to build out their own, unique technology stack.
Here are some of their most essential integrations:
- Accounting software - Quickbooks, Xero, and inDinero
- Marketplaces - Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and more
- eCommerce platforms - Shopify, Shopify Plus, BigCommerce, Lightspeed, Magento, WooCommerce, Zoe
- Electronic data interchange (EDI) - SPS Commerce
- Shipping and fulfillment - EasyPost, ShippingEasy, and ShipStation
- Third-Party Logistics - AMS, Bergen, DCL, FedEx, Amazon Fulfillment, IFS 360, Newgistics, NRI, Ruby Has, ShipBob, Shipvine, Shipwire, UDS, Whiplash
As the ecosystem and business evolve, they use various specialty tools and plug-in features to make your business work efficiently.
Should You Go with Stitch Labs?
With Stitch Labs, you won’t end up overpaying for a robust solution with features that your business doesn’t need.
Stitch Labs is suitable for any size of multi-channel e-commerce retailer requiring inventory management as an integral part of their marketing management solutions. It is recommended for companies experiencing continuous inventory problems or rapid expansion. If you’re looking for software that brings elements of automation, unified inventory management, and in-depth analytics to your operation, then Stitch Labs is ideal.
