DEAR Inventory is an online inventory app for small and medium businesses. While it can be used by just about any business that wants to manage their inventory more easily than they did with spreadsheets, it is especially geared toward retail and wholesale businesses. In this article we’ll compare this online inventory app to DataQlick and see how it stands.
Integration and Features
DEAR Inventory integrates with Shopify and QuickBooks Online like DataQlick, but it doesn’t appear to work with Vend point of sale systems. In terms of features, it offers the usual features you’d expect from an online inventory app, covering the full inventory management cycle.
Unlike DataQlick, however, DEAR Inventory doesn’t offer the same in-depth yet easy to use sales forecasting and analysis tools with charts and graphs. The lack of these features is especially noticeable if you want to be able to quickly switch between inventory management and sales forecasting tabs within the same app.
Interface
The user interface DEAR inventory features don’t look too bad, and the whole user experience is quite good. However, getting used to this online inventory app and discovering all its features entails a learning curve that’s a bit steeper than that of DataQlick. This is largely because DataQlick features a simple, distraction-free tab navigation with well organized action buttons and windows.
Pricing
DEAR Inventory subscription starts at $50 a month for a single user and increases with $25 a month for each new extra user. That’s decent for a cloud-based inventory management app considering that the subscription includes all features, but the lack of a free subscription such as DataQlick offers can be a big drawback for very small businesses.
DataQlick offers a Free Forever plan for X-Small Businesses, with vendor management and limited sales analysis included. Moreover, DataQlick offers two more paid subscriptions which are cheaper than DEAR Inventory’s, Venture at $15 a month and Business at $35 a month, both of which come with support for unlimited users.
The Bottom Line
At the end of the day, DEAR Inventory is a capable inventory tool, but if you want sales forecasting integrated into your inventory management, and price also happens to be a key consideration for you, you may want to try another online inventory app, such as DataQlick, which has good sales analysis features and is more affordable overall. More than an inventory manager, DataQlick is a potent sales forecasting inventory tool that can help your business prosper.
