Inventory management is one of the key components contributing to the success of any small retail business. It may come as no surprise to learn that the process is even more important to businesses that operate in more than one location.
Operating more than one retail store is tricky because you can’t be in more than one place at the same time. Using a cloud-based inventory management software will help you dramatically reduce time and stress involved in running multiple retail stores.
A cloud-based inventory management software allows stock to be counted, sales to be documented and the current financial position to be calculated. This allows a business owner to indentify the following:
- Which stores are low on particular inventory items
- Which stores are succeeding in selling more
- Which stores need to be improved
- Which products are selling well and which stores are responsible for selling these products
- Which products aren’t selling well and which stores aren’t they selling well in
Not only does this information become available to the business owner, but also it becomes available compiled together in one single location. If that location is on the cloud, it can be accessed at any time and from any place with an Internet connection. This allows busy business owners to manage their inventory ‘on the go’ and allows them to make intelligent business decisions that would take hours (if not days) if this data were to be collected manually.
Both DataQlick and Quickbooks Inventory App allow the user to do just this. Both offer varying degrees of control but there is no doubt that either of them would be of huge benefit to anyone running multiple retail stores. Implementing inventory management is a step any business could take in order to increase understanding and knowledge of their own business and increase its effectiveness, too.
