Without the right setup, retailers quickly run into problems keeping accurate and available inventory across all sales channels (i. e. multi-channel inventory management.)
This is particularly challenging for online/offline retailers, who usually need to juggle multiple channels and systems (e.g. POS, eCommerce, 3PL, and/or IMS) to manage their retail needs.
If these platforms don't maintain accurate information at all times, operational problems follow — which in turn leads to poor customer experience, increased costs, and overburdened team members.
We've created an in-depth post to help you find the right solution for your multi-channel inventory management needs — whether you're a small, mid-market, or enterprise retailer.
We'll cover topics including:
Note: At Accumula, we built a solution specifically tailored to help you solve all your multi-channel inventory management needs, without adding complexity. If you would like to jump ahead and get started managing inventory across all your channels, book a demo today.
As we mentioned above, retailers with both online stores and brick-and-mortar stores usually need multiple systems running in parallel to manage their retail needs. These include, but are not limited to:
Retailers with some, or all, of these systems in play quickly realize that they are hard to integrate. If done poorly, this can result in two main issues:
Both of these problems lead to lost time and money — along with a terrible customer experience.
If inventory isn’t available, or you’re forced to constantly update your inventory data manually, you're not exposing all of your brands' inventory online and you're missing out on sales.
To solve the multi-channel inventory management issue, many retailers integrate their 3PL or WMS with their eCommerce business. Other retailers choose to use verticalized solutions, such as combining Shopify with Shopify POS. A third option is to use an IMS (inventory management system) and integrate it into your 3PL.
But these don't necessarily result in flawless multi-channel inventory management.
Next, we'll detail each of these potential solutions, and why they fail at helping you manage inventory across multiple channels.
Many 3PL or warehouse systems integrate directly to the online store, forcing all orders to be fulfilled through the warehouse.
The problem with this solution is that it greatly limits your brand's fulfillment capabilities.
You will not be able to offer your customers BOPIS (buy online, pick up in-store) or maximize inventory fulfilling online orders from your store without manual intervention.
This also means your customers won’t be able to easily see what is available in store and you won’t be able to ship from the store due to your fulfillment being siloed in different systems.
Brands like Target fulfilled 95% of their online orders from stores during 2020. Customers now expect this level of service and visibility.
The third solution retailers commonly implement to do multi-channel inventory management is the use of verticalized systems, two examples being Lightspeed's eCommerce and Shopify POS.
Vertically-integrated systems are easy to implement come with some clear limitations. Because they are "all-in-one", certain elements can be less extendable. Some platforms offer limited inventory management without a configurable Safety Stock or limited order management (sometimes no order management at all.)
If a 3PL is directly involved, the problem still isn't solved because, as we mentioned above, most 3PL services are built to download all orders and feed them straight into your warehouse, which makes store fulfillment difficult without manual intervention.
Inventory Management Systems are “single-source of truth” platforms; they integrate with your digital channels and your warehouses to pool all your inventory data together in a dashboard you can use to manage all your inventory needs.
Though IMS might look like the perfect solution, they come with a substantial hidden cost: your entire team needs to learn yet another piece of software.
In an industry like retail, with such high staff turnover, this means you would be forced to constantly train and retrain staff members. And if you choose to train just one person to manage your IMS, you're at risk of that employee leaving, and having to start over from scratch.
Additionally, you’ll be forced to manage your in-store inventory in the IMS only, and import those transactions into other systems, rather than doing it naturally and seamlessly in your POS or ERP.
In other words, inventory management will turn into an additional task — instead of simply having that inventory data distributed automatically across all other platforms.
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What does solve the problem, though, is a distributed truth solution, such as Accumula. |
Below, we'll explain exactly how.
Accumula connects all your chosen retail solutions and distributes truth about inventory and orders in real-time, without any intervention or input on your part.
With Accumula, you don't need to worry about multiple channels anymore, or about inventory being insufficient or incorrect. This helps you avoid lost sales and overselling, which leads to a poor shopping experience for your customers.
All you need to do is add a specific tag to your inventory, and Accumula will continuously distribute those products' data across your different platforms through automation.
Accumula allows you to take advantage of several benefits that would otherwise be out of reach.
For example, you can use real-time inventory data to provide a seamless BOPIS experience for your customers that rivals the big chains — without the added complexity and cost of trying to integrate an order management system (OMS) and an inventory management software (IMS) with your fulfillment solution.
But there are many more benefits you unlock when using Accumula to distribute inventory truth across your retail platforms, including:
Accumula, in short, is a headless solution that works 24/7 to distribute your inventory information across platforms so you can focus on the only channel that matters: your customer.
Today, customer expectations are extremely high, which makes effective multi-channel inventory management more important than ever.
If your inventory data is not completely visible and consistently updated, you won’t be able to capitalize on your site traffic or seamlessly offer BOPIS to your customers. You will be stuck with limited inventory visibility, or using a solution that doesn’t meet your inventory management needs — leading to lost sales and poor customer retention.
With Accumula, you can automate and streamline your inventory management to create an omnichannel customer experience that rivals big stores like Walmart and Target.
Book a demo today to see how Accumula can help you make hidden products available, and keep all your inventory data true and up-to-date across all platforms — using one simple integration.