The world of online selling has experienced exponential growth in the last ten years and, by all accounts, shows no signs of slowing down.
Advances in storage and shipping technology allow e-commerce merchants to sell more products to customers than ever before.
That’s the good news.
The bad news—actually, it’s not bad news, but more of an ongoing challenge—is that the ability to sell many products creates many inventory management problems.
Even the relatively simple task of hiring warehouse staff has become much more complex. Previously, it was relatively easy for a merchant to hire and train a new warehouse worker.
Now, in working with our clients, Sellercloud has found that it takes an average of 120 hours to fully train a new member of the warehouse staff.
Multiply that by five, ten, or even more staff members, and you have a recipe for disaster. Turnover is also an ongoing factor in this equation.
Meanwhile, the number of warehouses used by e-commerce merchants is only expected to grow in the coming years, putting even more pressure on sellers to find effective solutions to their warehouse management needs.
One of the chief concerns we hear from Sellercloud customers is the difficulty of keeping up with their inventory management.
Yet, we have been unable to find an off-the-shelf product to solve this problem.
Until now.
Based on hundreds and perhaps thousands of hours of research, feedback, and field testing, Sellercloud has developed a downloadable app called Skustack, a game-changer in inventory management.
What Is Skustack?
Skustack is a simple hand-held device that allows e-merchants to track inventory precisely at every stage of a product’s movement.
Warehouse staff can quickly and efficiently log all inventory changes. The changes are then synchronized in real-time with Sellercloud’s inventory management software in the back office.
Is Skustack for you? An easy test is to see if you can keep track of your inventory in your head. Once your inventory grows beyond that point, Sellercloud recommends that you consider this software for your business.
To give you a sense of how disruptive this technology is, consider how difficult it is for sellers to obtain real data on their inventory.
Until Skustack, if a seller wanted to get a handle on his inventory, he would literally have to shut down for a day and call in the entire staff—from the CEO to the secretary—for an inventory check.
Before Skustack, WMS (warehouse management system) software could only tell sellers how much inventory was in a warehouse. It could not track inventory down to the bin level, including multiple locations.
What Are the Benefits of Skustack?
With Skustack, sellers can be constantly updated regarding inventory and product movement. This is something that has never been available before.
In addition, Skustack offers several other benefits for online sellers, including the ability to:
- Create a list of products in any specific bin.
- Track by serial number.
- Track a list of bins holding a specific product.
- Compile a PickList for open orders needing to be picked and shipped.
- Provide PutAway Lists.
- Receive Purchase Orders.
- Perform Warehouse-to-Warehouse and Sku-to-Sku transfers.
- Flag problem items on the PickList, PO, etc.
- See a list of all open flags and manage them accordingly.
Beyond its mirco-tracking abilities, Skustack is an easily downloadable Android app. This makes it perfect for millennial workers with a deep knowledge of smartphone applications and how to use them.
This means that virtually anyone on staff can become an inventory manager simply by carrying this device.
It also greatly reduces the time required to get a new hire up to speed. Until now, many online sellers were somewhat trapped by the ‘indispensable guy syndrome.’
This is a common problem online sellers face when accurate knowledge about inventory is limited to one or a few people. As long as the indispensable guy is present, the business can run smoothly.
However, if that person calls in sick or quits, the whole inventory system could grind to a halt until someone new can be trained.
Skustack eliminates this concern by making it easy to have a team of knowledgeable staff at your fingertips.
Skustack Matches Available Inventory with Physical Inventory
A third unique feature Skustack offers is the ability to match available inventory with physical inventory.
For example, a seller may have ten units on the shelf, but only five might be available for sale. Some may be ready to ship, while others may have been set aside for FBA (Fulfillment By Amazon).
With Skustack, as the product is picked up and shipped, the system automatically adjusts the physical inventory, so you know exactly how much inventory is available for sale.
Finally, Skustack is designed to fit FBA requirements. The benefit is that our sellers often tell us that FBA has a very low mistake tolerance. As such, for anyone doing significant volume on Amazon, Skustack is a vital part of your business.
Request a Skustack demo today.
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