The eCommerce industry is booming, and suppliers are trying to get their products in front of as many potential customers as possible. If you’re a supplier (manufacturer, vendor, distributor), that most likely means that you are selling on multiple sales channels, whether it be in traditional brick-and-mortar stores and/or on multiple online retail platforms. The more platforms, the more sales – and the more management challenges: inventory, order management, product uploads, etc.
Integration
From our experience, one of the largest hassles that come with managing your sales on multiple retail platforms is the need for manual input on each unique retail platform. Luckily, there are software solutions out there to help you automate strategies to address these cross-channel challenges. But which software is right for you? Here are some questions to ask yourself when shopping for the right retail management software:
- What kind of products are you selling?
- How much volume do you do?
- How much volume would you like to do?
- How many retailers are you working with?
- How many retailers would you like to work with?
- Can this software accurately and quickly manage my inventory?
- Can this software manage my shipments and fulfillment?
- Can this software help me track performance across channels?
- Can this software help with forecasting and help me keep my products in stock?
Many of the software solutions out there do some of these but not all of them. That’s where Cenports’ proprietary software comes into play. Our software allows you to manage all your sales channels on one centralized dashboard. This takes off the stress of having to interact with all the different retailers you are working with just to get the products into your customers’ hands.
Inventory Management
Another common issue when working with multiple retailers is overselling. Recent ocean freight issues have added a layer of unreliability to inventory flow, which has left many suppliers in danger of over-selling their stock and opening themselves up to poor customer experience and negative product/company ratings. Our software makes sure your inventory counts are up to date so retailers avoid over-committing on selling products that you do not have in hand.
As we know from working in retail for decades, macro issues like supply challenges from COVID-19 closures can pop up at any time. At Cenports, we’re always working on adding features to our software to help our supplier partners get ahead of any potential issues to keep their products online, in stock, and finding their way to happy customers.