You’ve finally got your hands on some product. Amazon inventory management is vital to keep your sales and control on top. However, it’s been sitting around in the warehouse for a while, and you want to ensure it’s in tip-top condition before it goes out into the world. This guide will help you navigate this process to minimize potential problems!
Why is inventory management critical?
Inventory management is the process of monitoring and controlling the level of inventory in your business. You must first find a technique to monitor how much stock you have, where it is, and if it’s selling or not. This is important because it helps you decide better what products to store, how many to order, and when to sell them.
Inventory management is also referred to as “stock control,” which is why they are interchangeable. The more you know about your inventory, the more likely you are to be successful at managing it effectively.
How to Manage your Amazon Inventory
Amazon inventory management is a crucial part of running any business. But first, you need to know where your products are and what’s happening in the market.
Here are some valuable suggestions for managing your inventory and staying on top of things:
1. Log into Seller Central, Amazon’s main dashboard for sellers. You’ll see your products, including their status, price, and sales history. You can also get information on how many units of each item have been sold or shipped.
2. Click on the “Sold” tab in Seller Central to see who purchased items from you, when they did so, and at what price they paid. You can then contact these customers directly if necessary — it’s essential that they’re happy with their purchase!
3. Track every order you receive through Amazon’s Seller Central page by creating an order status report. This will tell you precisely what happened with each sale, whether it was fulfilled, returned, or refunded (and why), and who purchased it from you (their email address).
Benefits of managing Amazon inventory
If you have an extensive Amazon inventory, it is only natural to want to get a handle on it and make sure that you are getting the most out of your business. There are many benefits of managing Amazon inventory, including:
- You will know precisely what is available and what is not: This allows you to manage your inventory better and track what has sold and what items are still available. In addition, your inventory control system can sell products you have not yet purchased. For example, if you have a lot of books in stock and they are selling well, but no new orders are coming in for them, it may be time to pull those books from your shelves and put them up for sale elsewhere.
- Good customer service: You can better manage customer service operations by clearly showing how much inventory is available at any time. This estimates the time customers need to receive their orders once they place them online.
Analogies to manage your inventory on Amazon
Some techniques help to manage your inventory on Amazon.
- SKU (Stock Keeping Unit) number. Amazon collects a unique identifier for each item. You can find this information on product details pages or through search results for products that have been sold in recent months;
- Description — The description helps customers understand what they’re buying and how much they’ll pay for it;
- Condition — Describes whether an item has been used or worn out;
- Quantity — An estimate of how many units will be purchased at one time;
- Units (Weight) & Units (Dimensions). These come into play when calculating shipping costs—you need both dimensions and weight so that carriers know how many boxes/bags/etcetera will fit inside your package without overloading them!
SKU
SKU stands for Stock Keeping Unit. It’s the unique identifier for a product that Amazon uses when you list it on your account and send orders to fulfillment centers.
Your SKU is also used to identify each product in a shipment and ensure that everything is accurate and complete. So no one gets stuck with an incorrect order or missing items because they don’t have enough information about what they’re supposed to be shipping out with.
Description
When describing a product, you should provide as much information as possible. This includes:
- The main features of your product and any other relevant information (like size or color)
- Any special features that make it unique from other similar products
Condition
Condition, condition, and condition. There are a few crucial points to keep in mind about your product’s condition:
- The situation should be accurately described. This means you must include specific details in the listing description and photos. For example, if you’re selling an older book with pages falling out, don’t just say “book” or “used” (and how many times).
- The item’s condition should be consistent across all listings for that exact product type (i.e., books) on amazon so that buyers can easily compare products if they’re looking for similar items from different sellers.
Quantity
- How much inventory do you have? You can find this out using the Amazon Inventory Tool, which is available on their website.
- Counting your inventory will help you ensure that there aren’t any shortages or overages and that all your products are accounted for.
- If you have too many items in stock (or even if they aren’t selling well), it may make sense to sell some of them off before they expire.
Units (Weight)
If you’re interested in calculating total shipping costs (including both postage and packaging), divide your total weight by 100 to approximate how much it will cost for your items to ship from Amazon fulfillment centers worldwide!
Units (Dimensions)
- The ideal scenario is if you have an understanding of each product.
- Ensure you have the correct dimensions entered into your inventory management system.
- Make sure you have the appropriate units of measurement in place so that Amazon can calculate an accurate price for your products.
Follow these tips for an effortless inventory check.
- Create a spreadsheet with all of your inventory items. This will help you track quantities, quantities changes, and any other relevant information. You may need to create separate spreadsheets for each warehouse if you have multiple warehouses. This is also helpful for Amazon optimization services.
- Keep track of inventory changes, weight, and dimensions for each item on this spreadsheet by entering them into columns or rows where appropriate (e.g., “Quantity”). You could also use conditional formatting so that specific cells are highlighted only when certain conditions apply (e.g., if I added 100 more units from one warehouse into another).
Conclusion:
In conclusion, full-service Amazon management is a must. You need to know your inventory, the demand, and how much you can sell in a specific timeframe. If you don’t know these things, you’re leaving money on the table by not taking advantage of potential sales opportunities.
An excellent way to keep track of these things is to use a spreadsheet or another program that enables you to enter details about your inventory and sales. Some people prefer using spreadsheets because it’s easy to enter data without thinking about what they’re doing. Others prefer using programs like Quick books because they’re more advanced and allow more control over their accounting records (e.g., tracking customer purchases).
