Did you know that the inventory accuracy rate of an average retail store in the US is just 63%? 🤔  As the variety of products increases and the need for efficient time management grows, having real-time insights into your inventory becomes even more critical. Real-time inventory management allows for better decision-making, reduces the risk of stock issues, and optimizes operational efficiency. That’s why, in this article, we will talk about real-time inventory management, its benefits, its importance, and the right tools to achieve it.

What is the Real-time Inventory Management?

Real-time inventory management is the capability of tracking your business’ current stock levels and inventory movements with live data flow. 📦 With this capability, you can manage inventory accurately and make reliable decisions with up-to-date knowledge.

• Why is it important? Over 26.5 million eCommerce sites are operating worldwide today, and competition is higher than ever, especially if you have a growing eCommerce store. Why?

Real-time inventory tracking allows businesses to manage their stock levels accurately and efficiently. Real-time inventory management is like having an inventory assistant who keeps an eye on your inventory levels 24/7. 👀 Picture this: every time a product is sold or restocked, your inventory management assistant updates the inventory numbers in real-time, providing better inventory visibility and giving you accurate and up-to-the-minute information at all times. This powerful tool helps you make informed decisions, prevent stock issues, and provides smooth operations for your business. 🕒 And when you don’t have it? You may be using manual methods like Excel, which takes a lot of time and can lead to errors and inefficiencies in your inventory management operations. 📉

Let’s now continue to understand its importance with real-time inventory management’s key benefits for your eCommerce store.

Key Benefits of Implementing Real-time Inventory Systems

📦 Better Product Availability

Real-time inventory systems significantly enhance product availability with the help of automatic replenishment and demand forecasting.  With accurate tracking and instant updates, eCommerce businesses can maintain better stock levels and avoid both out of stock situations and overstock issues.

• Real-time inventory management systems offer timely replenishment that triggers reorders when stock levels are low. In this way, your eCommerce inventory is replenished on time, and the possibility of being out of stock is eliminated.
• Advanced real-time inventory systems also leverage sales forecasting, which analyzes historical data and market trends to predict future demand. This feature helps you to improve and be more proactive in stock management and minimize stock issues.

📌 Do you need to make better replenishment and demand forecasting for your eCommerce business? Here, you can find the most beneficial solutions we’ve compiled for you 👉 Top 5 Automated Inventory Replenishment Software and Best Inventory Forecasting Shopify Apps.

🛍️ Quick Fulfillment for Customers

You can see the current stock levels of your store across all locations, including warehouses and stores, with real-time inventory management. This capability enables quick and efficient order fulfillment, which leads to increased customer satisfaction.

• When a customer orders, the system can quickly confirm whether the requested items are in stock. If available, the order can be processed immediately without delays caused by manual tools like Excel or inaccuracies in inventory data.
• When accurate stock information is available, businesses can expedite the picking, packing, and shipping processes. This efficiency leads to faster order fulfillment and shorter delivery times for customers.

📈 Enhanced Performance Insights

Real-time inventory management increases inventory visibility and provides clear insights into the operational efficiency of your eCommerce business.

• Advanced data analytics and reports analyze historical data and current trends and provide actionable insights for optimizing inventory management.
• You can better understand the popularity of your products with advanced reports to make decisions for future purchases. With the addition of historical data, you can see the effect of seasonality and other factors on sales.

Well, what tool or solution should you use to have real-time inventory management?

Is It Possible to Use Excel for Real-time Inventory Tracking?

Using Excel for real-time inventory management is like trying to navigate a busy city using a paper map 🗺️ that updates only once a day—it's slow, prone to errors, and doesn't provide timely information needed to make quick decisions in the dynamic eCommerce environment. 🚩

Excel is not feasible because it relies on manual updates and lacks automation. It doesn't provide instant data synchronization or integration with other systems, making it prone to errors and delays. Moreover, Excel lacks essential features such as automatic replenishment, demand forecasting, and advanced reporting capabilities. Should you consider using Excel when there is advanced inventory management software available? You really shouldn't. A growing eCommerce store requires efficient tools to manage larger volumes of inventory and meet increasing demand effectively. Well, but how can you choose the right solution for your store?

How to Choose the Right Real-time Inventory Management Software?

There are plenty of inventory management solutions that you can use, but which ones are the best for ultimate real-time inventory management? Those that have all the essential features. ✨

🔹 Replenishment feature automatizes restocking to keep stock levels optimal and up-to-date and avoid stock issues. For example, Fabrikatör’s replenishment feature follows this process automatically and alerts you when you need to restock your inventory.

🔹 Real-time inventory management is all about having clear inventory visibility. With an efficient real-time inventory management solution like Fabrikatör, you can have access to all real-time details related to your inventory. You can track what’s happening with your stock, monitor the current status of products, and boost your inventory visibility.

🔹 Having the knowledge of the current inventory with all the details is amazing, but could it be efficient enough if you cannot use it in the future? You can turn past data knowledge into future opportunities with detailed inventory forecasting. Fabrikatör is an advanced inventory management software that can do this for you.

🔹 Analyzing past and current inventory demand is only possible with advanced data analytics and reports. Fabrikatör is a solution that eliminates human errors, provides uninterrupted real-time inventory information, and helps you use this data for detailed analysis and planning purposes.

🔹 Creating purchase orders quickly is an important component of an efficient real-time inventory. This feature in Fabrikatör uses real-time inventory data to speed up the procurement process. By monitoring stock levels and real-time demand trends, Fabrikatör automatically creates purchase orders as soon as inventory needs to be restocked. This way, businesses can quickly restock to meet customer demand without any delays, keeping inventory management efficient.

With all these essential features in mind, Fabrikatör is the top choice for seamless real-time inventory management.

Enhance Your Inventory Management with Fabrikatör's Real-Time Capabilities!

Are you tired of the inefficiencies of managing your inventory with Excel or other outdated methods? Here is the easy, efficient, and profitable way of real-time inventory management: Fabrikatör. ✨

You can benefit from real-time inventory management right away to manage your inventory more efficiently and have greater benefits. 🚀 From purchase order management to accepting backorders… Fabrikatör offers a comprehensive solution for every step of your eCommerce store operation. Want to see how all these features seamlessly integrate and work for your business

👉 Schedule a 30-minute meeting to see Fabrikatör in action!