Our Strategies For Managing Inventory During Peak Season
We broke the festive silence last week with the first of our peak-season themed blogs. You may be wondering why the sudden flurry of festivities has graced our blog? Well, simply put: peak prep begins now for e-commerce businesses, and trust us when we say we learnt the hard way by leaving preparations to the last minute when we were building our own e-commerce business, Silver Mushroom, many years ago.
As much as it's lucrative, the peak period is equally challenging when it comes to managing inventory. At CK Fulfilment, we've curated a comprehensive strategy to help our clients tackle these challenges head-on with as little stress as possible. There are three key elements we look at in order to maintain smooth operations during the peak season:
The "Under 5's" Pick Check
Emotions often run high for Christmas shoppers, and no amount of mince pies or mulled wine can ease the blow of a missing parcel containing that gift for Granny.
With the increase in volume comes a level of vulnerability. It becomes easier for small errors to creep in. Stock that doesn’t have 100’s of units may highlight quantity errors, when things start to move quickly. Around this time of year we carry out something called the ‘Under 5’s Pick Check’, which does exactly what it says on the tin. For all stock locations that have five items or fewer we carry out a meticulous stock check.
This pick check ensures that your stock count physically matches the system’s data and eliminates any discrepancies at a micro-level., thus ensuring smoother order processing and a minimised chance of pick-related errors, giving you peace of mind.
It's our way of dotting the i's and crossing the t's, making sure that after months of movement, the stock really is where it says it is.
2. Forced Replenishment of All Bins
At a time when tensions are running high, one of the quickest ways to let your customers down is by running behind schedule. When an item is popular, it moves quickly, and before you know it, it's location is empty. This has a knock on effect to the picker who then cannot fulfil that order until a replenishment has taken place, thus delaying that order, resulting in a p***ed off customer. We look over our clients sales data to pre-empt these exceptionally fast moving lines and ensure that there's always plenty stock ready and waiting for picking.
This proactive approach minimises the risk of 'out of stock' situations and ensures that the order processing doesn't hit a snag due to stock shortages. Just another incredibly simple trick that can have a huge impact at peak.
3. Temporary Locations for Stock Overflow
The majority of business owners tend to stock up ahead of peak season, to ensure they have best sellers on the shelves and ready to go. Whilst this is great from a sales perspective, it can pose some challenges from a logistical stance.
At CK we offer the ultimate flexible solution, we ensure all clients have access to temporary warehouse locations so they can have that back up stock on site ready to be scanned into their pick face locations.
As the volume of stock increases, we can open up these temporary storage spaces to accommodate the influx. This allows our clients to scale up smoothly without the added stress of finding new storage solutions or the hefty investment in a bigger storage building. These temporary locations are integrated into our inventory management system to ensure swift access and accurate stock counts.
We’re not claiming to offer you a stress-free Christmas, but we are promising to take care of your logistical and operational headaches so that you can focus on maximising the opportunities that come along with peak season. We truly believe that with the right strategies in place our clients don’t just survive peak but thrive!
If you are interested in knowing more about our seamless service then get in touch via the form below or give us a call on 01772 356673, there’s still time to partner with us before the peak season.