Why Planning Inventory for Bundles Matters

For ecommerce and DTC (Direct to Consumer) businesses, offering product bundles and kits can be a highly effective strategy to increase sales and average order value (AOV). Bundles help encourage customers to purchase complementary items, providing added convenience while allowing businesses to move more inventory. However, planning inventory for bundles is more complex compared to individual products, as it requires careful coordination to ensure that all items in a bundle are available in the right quantities.

In this blog, we will cover the best practices for inventory planning when it comes to creating bundles and kits, helping you make the most of this sales-boosting strategy.

Understanding Product Bundles and Kits in Ecommerce

Product bundles are groups of related items that are sold together, often at a discounted price. Kits are similar, except they usually include items that are necessary to use together, such as a DIY kit or a grooming kit. Both bundles and kits can help improve AOV and reduce excess inventory, making them a popular strategy for Shopify and other ecommerce platforms.

To understand more about the benefits of bundles for boosting AOV, check out our blog on how to increase AOV with bundles.

Challenges of Planning Inventory for Bundles

While product bundling offers numerous benefits, it also comes with unique challenges, especially when it comes to managing inventory:

• Inventory Complexity: Each bundle contains multiple SKUs, and tracking availability becomes more challenging when managing bundled products.
• Risk of Stockouts: If any item in a bundle is out of stock, the entire bundle cannot be sold, leading to missed sales opportunities.
• Overstock of Slow-Moving Items: Bundling is often used to move slow-moving stock, but poor planning can result in excess inventory if bundles don’t sell as expected.

Tips for Effective Inventory Planning for Bundles

1. Use Inventory-Based Bundling

One effective way to manage bundles is to create inventory-based bundles that align with your current stock levels. This strategy ensures that you’re using existing inventory efficiently and reduces the risk of overstock. By analyzing your current inventory, you can determine which products can be bundled together to boost sales.

This approach is particularly useful for reducing excess inventory and preventing stockouts. Learn more about how inventory-based bundling can help in our inventory-based bundling strategy blog.

2. Implement Real-Time Inventory Tracking

Real-time inventory tracking is critical for ensuring that your bundles are always available for purchase. By integrating a robust inventory management system, you can monitor stock levels of each item in a bundle and ensure they are replenished when needed. This reduces the risk of stockouts and ensures that your bundles remain in stock.

Using a Shopify bundle app can help you keep track of which products are available and automatically adjust the availability of bundles based on stock levels. For the top apps that can help, check out our post on Top 5 Bundle Apps for Shopify.

3. Forecast Demand Accurately for Bundles

Demand forecasting is essential for effectively planning inventory for bundles. When forecasting demand, consider historical sales data for each individual item as well as the bundles they’re included in. This helps you ensure you have sufficient inventory to meet customer demand without overstocking.

For bundles that are seasonal or part of a promotional campaign, it is particularly important to consider past sales trends and current market conditions. Bundles offered during peak times, such as BFCM (Black Friday Cyber Monday), require additional planning to ensure inventory meets the expected demand.

4. Automate Purchase Orders for Bundled Items

Purchase order automation can help streamline inventory management for product bundles. By setting up automated purchase orders, you can ensure that stock levels for individual items in a bundle are maintained without manual intervention. This reduces the risk of human error and helps you keep bundles available.

Automation can make the replenishment process more efficient, especially for ecommerce businesses that manage a wide variety of products. To learn more about automating purchase orders, visit our blog on 6 Steps to Automate Purchase Orders for Ecommerce.

5. Set Inventory Thresholds for Bundle Components

Setting inventory thresholds for each component of a bundle helps ensure that you have enough stock to fulfill bundle orders. Once inventory for any item in a bundle drops below a certain level, an alert can be triggered to reorder that product, ensuring that all items are always available to fulfill bundle orders.

Integrating your inventory management system with your bundle management tool helps streamline this process, ensuring that bundles are always available for customers without overstocking individual components.

6. Align Bundle Promotions with Inventory Levels

Aligning your marketing activities with your inventory levels is crucial when running promotions for bundles. Offering a discount on a bundle that includes a hard-to-replenish item can lead to issues if that item goes out of stock. Instead, plan promotions for bundles based on items that are readily available in your inventory.

For the best strategies to run bundle promotions during peak shopping events, check out our blog on increasing sales with bundling strategy for BFCM.

Best Practices for Bundle Management

• Regular Inventory Audits: Conduct regular inventory audits to ensure that each item required for bundles is available and to identify any potential stock issues before they occur.
• Use a Bundle Management Tool: Consider using a Shopify bundle app to manage inventory for bundled products efficiently. These apps can help you track the availability of each component and update inventory automatically.
• Clear Communication: Clearly communicate bundle availability to customers. If a bundle is temporarily out of stock, provide an estimated restock date or offer an alternative bundle.

Leveraging Bundles to Reduce Overstock

Product bundles can also be used as an effective way to reduce overstock. By bundling slow-moving items with popular products, you can encourage customers to purchase items that may otherwise take longer to sell. This strategy can help clear excess inventory while providing value to customers.

To explore how bundles can help reduce overstock, read our blog on inventory-based bundling strategy.

Planning Inventory for Bundles: A Strategic Approach

Effectively managing inventory for product bundles and kits requires strategic planning and real-time insights. By using inventory-based bundling, automating purchase orders, forecasting demand, and aligning promotions with stock levels, you can ensure that your bundles remain available without risking overstock or stockouts.

Fabrikatör provides advanced tools for bundle management and inventory planning, helping ecommerce businesses create and manage bundles effectively. From automated purchase orders to real-time inventory tracking, Fabrikatör can streamline the entire process, helping you drive sales and maintain optimal stock levels.

Manage eCommerce Inventory Effortlessly with Fabrikatör!

When your eCommerce business is growing, managing inventory can get tricky. Manual solutions like Excel might seem helpful, but they often lead to human errors and take up much time. Calculating Weeks of Supply and other essential inventory formulas can become a real headache. Luckily, you can automatize inventory management with Fabrikatör, making the whole process much easier and error-free!

You don’t need to calculate any inventory formula in Excel anymore. Fabrikatör shares with you all the inventory insight you may need! Fabrikatör supports the growth of your eCommerce store and automatizes its inventory management process by:

📊 Offering actionable insights to make more reliable inventory decisions,

📝 Helping you create purchase orders in seconds,

🚨 Notifications for low stock levels and replenish your stock on time,

📦 Offering backorders for you to manage out-of-stock situations profitably,

📈 Forecast your store's sales and keep inventory levels balanced,

🚚 Improve your shipping strategy and reduce unnecessary costs with Freight Planning!

Would you like to discover more about Fabrikatör in only 30 minutes? See Fabrikatör in action!

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