eCommerce Storage Tips: 7 Best Strategies to Boost Your Profit

eCommerce exhibited a decade of growth in the first quarter of 2020. That rightly said why the eCommerce industry is one of the fastest-growing sectors. However, running an e-commerce business in a virtual world is not enough; you need to manage your inventories too.

With the increasing demand from e-commerce businesses, you need to ensure that your goods are stored in the right condition and can be delivered quickly. Hence, managing inventories effectively can help you to achieve customer demands and match their expectations.

As a result, eCommerce business owners can rest assured that they are accelerating their distribution supply chain without compromising customer satisfaction.

Through this blog, you will learn how to enhance and streamline your eCommerce storage for increasing your profits.

What is eCommerce Warehousing? 

It is the storage of physical goods before shipping to customers. eCommerce is a secure and safe process to ensure that the products are stored safely before being sold and dispatched to the customers.

eCommerce warehousing involves tracking the products when it arrives at the warehouse and checking the quantity and quality of the stored product. It’s an essential part of logistic operations and requires different resources to manage the overall operations effectively.

You can use different inventory storage ideas that can maximize the use of eCommerce storage and achieve its desired potential.

7 Ways to Maximize Benefits from eCommerce Storage

1. Invest in the right technology

Integrate the best technology to manage a range of warehousing strategies to ensure it delivers the best-desired results for your eCommerce business. A successful eCommerce business workflow is incomplete without proper route planning or delivery software to help you manage the operations.

You can skip tracking the inventories using an Excel sheet and automate repetitive tasks that can cause delivery delays and human errors. 

Upper Route Planner can manage delivery operations and dispatch your delivery drivers to the desired customer locations. You can get centralized inventory control and ensure you can achieve the maximum potential to help you stand out.

Even if you use tricks of inventory storage, focusing on the right technology and upgrading your tech stack is important for your eCommerce business growth. Different inventory management software can help you create real-time reports that can assist you in making better business decisions.

Some inventory software can also generate and automate the purchase order processing and be aware of the stock drop in the eCommerce warehouse. Choosing professional software for your eCommerce storage management can streamline your business operation, get more accurate results, and deliver excellent customer experiences.

You can also reduce eCommerce storage costs and save money on wholesale warehousing by choosing the right technology for logistics and transportation work.

Slight improvements in your existing eCommerce warehouse management can help you manage your storage costs, effectively manage storage space, and handle multiple warehouse locations with finesse.

2. Effective product selections

You can use different software to minimize your storage needs and perform quality product analysis for better outcomes. Focus on a range of products that are hot selling and which are not. Tailor down the product range and optimize your product warehousing.

For example, if you run an appeals business, you can eliminate a few clothing line sizes that don’t sell. You can also remove a few colors and patterns that the customers don’t like to purchase.

These effective product selections and optimization techniques can help you achieve a better business outcome, minimize your operational costs, and smoothen your eCommerce warehousing management.

Analyzing customer appeal is essential to running a sustainable eCommerce business and achieving better warehousing results. Selling items that don’t even go out of stock once hurts your eCommerce business, eats your warehousing space, and increases operational expenses. 

But if you are into selling expensive items, you can ignore the factor of focusing on the bulk sales volume. Only a few can help you achieve equal profits and revenue compared to bulk sales in the small or mid-segment.

3. Multiple warehousing locations

A single warehouse has a minimum storage space, and if you want to scale your business operations, you must expand your storage unit and choose better eCommerce storage solutions.

Increase your warehousing locations and grow your eCommerce business by storing more products. You require less space in multiple warehouse locations to place more products.

You can also lease a smaller warehouse at a specific location instead of purchasing a full warehouse space, which can help you reduce the inventory costs of an eCommerce warehouse and boost your expansion process.

Multiple warehouses reduce the time of arrival at a specific location and offer one-day deliveries at different localities where you have a dedicated warehouse. You can use data to open a new warehouse that can help you minimize operational costs and increase the efficiency of your delivery process.

Analyze from which location customers are ordering more frequently; it can optimize your eCommerce delivery process and help you stand out from other online businesses.

4. Outsourcing

You can choose to outsource to a professional storage company that can handle your outgoing products and assists you in the smooth delivery process.

The cost of outsourcing your fulfillment might sound expensive, but it can help save money as a third-party logistics service provider handles the cost of inventory storage. You can choose between two business models for outsourcing logistics and warehousing. Choose a precise inventory model that suits your business approach the best.

Dropshipping

The dropshipping model can be great for your business if you don’t want to store products and directly sell the products from the factory to the customers. It can increase the delivery time but save a lot of money to avoid creating a warehouse space.

As an entrepreneur for a new startup, you can start with drop shipping, and start the business with minimal investment, no inventory management, and no risk of buying or selling products.

You can bridge the gap between the product manufacturer and the customer base to earn decent profits. The manufacturer can handle the eCommerce storage, and you can offer a great discount because of the reduced operational costs.

You don’t need to integrate a warehouse management system; just utilize your website to become certified eCommerce merchants.

Using a third-party logistics company

The second option is using a professional third-party logistics company to handle the business storage and fulfillment capabilities of the orders. You need to source the products and store them in the fulfillment company’s warehouse, which can streamline your eCommerce storage needs.

You must pay specific fees to the third-party logistics company for picking, storing, and packing the product, which can increase the overall product and shipping costs compared to the dropshipping method. 

But can minimize the delivery time by fast shipping the products to the destination from the fulfillment center.

You don’t have to manage the storage or fulfillment costs and can use extra storage space from the logistics company based on the scale of your business operation. The more space you use, the more you must pay.

5. Reduce failure and spoilage risks

Keep your products free from breakage or spoilage that can increase your expenses and shrink your profits. Ensuring the warehouse is properly insulated can help increase the product’s shelf life and keep it safe from external effects.

Also, focusing on disposing of your products early before the expiry date can minimize business losses and offer great discounts to your happy customers.

For example, if you have products with an expiry date, you must integrate a professional system that helps you track the expiry dates and avoid business losses.

Choose a first-in, first-out approach that can deliver the products that came in first in your warehouse space.

If somehow there are outdated or unsalable products, your warehouse management team should remove them immediately and avoid the deliveries of such products that can hinder the brand image and deliver a poor customer experience.

Manage your store inventory and ensure that your team is trained and experienced in handling the spoilage and expiration of a product.

6. Be organized with self-storage units

Ensure that your secure warehouse space is organized and aids your online business in fulfilling customer requests effectively. Focus on active time management, accurate processing of customer orders, and foolproof overall inventory management tools.

An organized flow can help you increase business efficiency and implement a successful business model for cost savings and more profits. Your team should keep different types of products separately and in an organized manner so that the transportation of the products can be smooth and effective.

7. Easy transportation 

Ensure that the transportation is directly connected with your warehousing unit. Easy transportation can process the deliveries faster and minimize the efforts put in by your team.

Use the right vehicles to handle the load of the deliveries and hire the best resources to assist you in the delivery process.

You should also strengthen your delivery workflow by integrating professional delivery route optimization and planning software to help you automate the process and remove inefficiencies.

Upper Route Planner can Streamline Your eCommerce Deliveries 

Upper Route Planner is a leading route optimization and planning software that can help you bridge your logistics and transportation operations and streamline the workflow.

You can check the delivery process and automate the scheduling, dispatching, and invoicing. The delivery drivers can take digital proof of delivery records that you can access anytime.

The software helps handle multiple delivery addresses and saves 90% of the route planning and scheduling time. The smooth interface increases your workforce’s efficiency and assists them with different software access features within a few clicks.

Access the 7-day FREE trial to manage your eCommerce storage and delivery operations.

Takeaway

As previously stated, eCommerce inventories are vital in handling back-end operations. Moreover,  customer demands drive eCommerce and there is no way to meet all their needs. Hence, it requires you to follow the warehousing tips for business to provide the best possible service and boost your growth.

But when it comes to delivery operations, you can rely on amazing software like Upper. It greatly boosts the quality and efficiency of our deliveries by providing perfectly planned routes in less than a minute. Without Upper providing precise and effective solutions, a business may not reach the apex of its course.

To gain a competitive edge for your eCommerce firm, schedule a demo with Upper Route Planner right away.