Key Points:
- Being able to send off your customer’s orders on time - and accurately - goes a long way to reducing return rates
- By determining how much space you need for your inventory, you won’t end up paying for more space than you actually need
- Easyship works with well-run warehouses around the world to provide business owners with the means to start their fulfillment process on the right foot
As an online store owner, having a reliable warehouse management system is critical for ensuring customer satisfaction. Being able to send off your customer’s orders on time - and accurately - goes a long way to reducing return rates. Luckily, it’s not rocket science, so you can easily go about improving your space to keep your business running smoothly.
Table of Contents
Why Is Good Warehouse Management Important?
It’s practically impossible to overstate just how crucial this is for a good business. That’s because to a large extent, it can significantly impact your business’ finances. Here are a few reasons why you need to know how to organize your storage facility:
- Competitive advantage
- Reduces the number of missed sales opportunities.
- Adequately utilizes space.
- Reduces storage costs.
- Improves service.
- Enhances market share.
- Effectively facilitates purchase economies.
- Increases accuracy in inventory.
- Allows earlier detection of issues.
- Increases the number of satisfied customers.
- Decreases theft and loss.
What Are the Benefits of A Warehouse Management System?
Although the type of process a business owner may adopt for their facility may differ, they always have one thing in common - they are very beneficial. Here are just a few benefits of using an effective system:
- Improved Cash Flow: If your stock isn’t managed efficiently, you may just end up having a whole bunch of stock sitting in storage. Translation - you lose sales and money. With a good system in place, you will always be able to keep track of your inventory and make sure you’re capitalizing on sales opportunities - and keeping that cash coming in.
- Accurate Analytics: With a good management system in place, you will be able to analyze your inventory frequently and accurately, allowing you to figure out which products are selling well. In turn, this can help you make smarter purchasing decisions and stay on top of consumer trends.
- Significantly Lower Costs: This is especially true for retailers who are using an omnichannel strategy. With a good management system in place, you’ll be able to manage all orders across multiple channels without additional expenses.
- Integration of Business: A good warehouse management system is set up to allow integration between all parts of the business. This means orders can be efficiently fulfilled as the sales, finance, and fulfillment departments are all kept abreast of developments. And a speedy delivery process means happy customers.
- Automation of Manual Tasks: When it comes to how to organize a storage facility, automation can be a beautiful thing. Imagine having a system in place where you don’t have to manually handle each aspect of an order for each sale. Smart software will take care of many of these tasks and create a fast fulfillment process.
- Improved Customer Service: With an optimized storage system, the fulfillment process becomes highly efficient, and you will be able to provide accurate information for your customers. This means that you can also provide better customer service.
- Fewer Returns: A good system will ensure that your orders are packed accurately. And, of course, this means your customers are less likely to return their orders.
10 Tips for Better Delivery with Improved Warehouse Management
To make the most of good systems, it’s important to follow warehouse best practices. Some of these include:
1. Determine How Much Space You Need: By determining how much space you need for your inventory, you won’t end up paying for more space than you actually need.
2. Create a Good Layout: No matter how much space you have, it’s important to take the time to plan the flow of activities around the space and design the area to make order fulfillment efficient. The space should be laid out to allow for each order to be created in a single, continuous flow without the need for crossing and backtracking through the space.
3. Opt for a Labeling System: By using good labels in your facility, you can reduce picking time and fulfill orders very quickly.
4. Make a List of Essential Equipment: This is one of the best tips you’ll get for warehouse organization ideas. Creating this list means that you will have all the essential equipment for order fulfillment on hand before you even start shipping orders. This list should include everything from storage equipment and materials to barcoding machines.
5. Automate Repetitive Processes: This can be achieved by investing in useful single-task machines. For example, you can use barcode scanners to streamline picking and improve accuracy in fulfillment.
6. Optimize the Pick Paths: This is especially important if you frequently do bundle offers. You should store bundle items together so they can be picked quickly to fulfill orders.
7. Establish Guidelines: In order to maximize the efficiency of your chosen warehouse management system, it’s important that you create policies for the day-to-day running of the facility. These guidelines should cover workflow, safety procedures, quality control, and order accuracy.
8. Staff Training: Nailing order fulfillment is all about accuracy and speed. Because of this, you should train your staff in the key skills that will help them improve in these areas.
9. Use the Right Software: If you’re just setting up your storage facility, then it’s the perfect time to see which software is right for you. There are many out there, so you need to find one that suits your business’ needs.
10. Define Your KPIs: Another of the most important warehouse organization ideas is to ensure that you have defined your key performance indicators (KPIs). These will help you see if your space is keeping up with demand, or if there is room for improvement.
Improve Customer Satisfaction with Optimized Warehouse Operations and Faster Delivery Times
No retailer wants to miss out on sales opportunities because their storage facility is a mess. That’s why it’s crucial to have an efficient, reliable warehouse management system in place. Easyship works with well-run warehouses around the world to provide business owners with the means to start their fulfillment process on the right foot.
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