Inventory is often described as “money moving around in a different form” and can be the biggest investment for any ecommerce or retail business. As a merchant you want to protect this investment by having full visibility and control of your inventory. You also want to make sure inventory is accurate at all times, so you always have the right products in the right places to always make the sale and get orders out the door as quickly as possible.
Inventory is always on the move, whether it’s being received from suppliers, moving between retail locations, transferred between storage locations or being shipped to customers. Keeping track of your inventory is essential—it gives you transparency into its movements so stock counts are always accurate, no matter where it is sold or stored. Like inventory, business is not stationary, and neither should be managing inventory.
Here are three reasons why Shopify’s mobile app can untether you from your desk and help you tackle the challenge of being able to manage, monitor, and move one of your biggest investments from wherever you go.
1.Manage your inventory from anywhere
A busy entrepreneur is usually on the go and isn’t always tied to a defined workspace. The Shopify mobile app turns your mobile device into a powerful inventory tool that goes where you go. It connects directly with your back office, so any product updates or inventory adjustments automatically syncs with the rest of Shopify.
You can use the Shopify mobile app to make make changes to your inventory by adjusting quantities, and tracking changes to your inventory on the go. You can provide reasons for adjusting your inventory like “damaged” or “returned”, which aids in reporting accuracy, and helps you to take control of non-sellable inventory due to damage and other reasons. You'll be able to view these inventory changes in the Shopify mobile app under a products adjustment history.
You’ll have the freedom and flexibility to keep control of your inventory no matter where you are. You can keep up, and even improve, productivity, all while increasing your inventory accuracy. You can be on the move, as your inventory moves.
TIP: You and your staff can leverage personal mobile devices to take advantage of Shopify’s mobile inventory features and scale without having to invest in any new mobile inventory systems. You canempower your fulfillment staffto use their mobile device to help you manage, monitor and move inventory.
2.Monitor your inventory so it's always accurate
Managing shipments and receiving and moving inventory can be a tedious task. Sometimes you’ll need to quickly adjust your products, add new inventory items to sell, or simply check your stock levels at your retail locations. The Shopify mobile app provides the portability to manage the products you sell across your stores. You can easily add and view your products and variants, and scan and count your inventory from the places you sell or store it on a regular basis. As new inventory arrives and moves, you can keep an accurate picture of what you have in stock by scanning and counting it right away so it’s synced and up to date in Shopify.
Shopify mobile app now also includes committed and available inventory quantities to provide a more accurate foundation to your inventory management.
Committed inventory describes inventory committed to an order that has not yet been fulfilled so you'll have a more accurate reflection of your inventory count by adding visibility to inventory that has been sold and is on hand, but has been committed to an order.
TIP:Instead of using a laptop or desktop to receive new inventory, you can use the Shopify mobile app to quickly add new products. Snap a photo of the new product and enter all of its details so you can put new products on the shelf more quickly.
3.Move inventory to the right places
Having the right inventory in the right place at the right time is the magic formula for making sales. And although it sounds simple, getting this right is often one of the most difficult problems ininventory management. Not only do you have to physically move the products, you’ve also got to keep track of inventory changes to ensure stock numbers are accurate when you receive them.
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Sometimes inventory is being moved from warehouse locations, between retail locations, or even between different areas of a stockroom. No matter where your stock is starting from or going to, the Shopify mobile app gives you the ability to easily receive transfers you’ve made between locations.
When you’re ready to receive an inventory transfer, you can select Transfers on the mobile app and view all of the transfers you’ve made and are expecting between your locations. You can select a transfer and see the origin and the receiving destinations, as well as the products being transferred. Selecting Receive Inventory will allow you to accept or reject items (in bulk or individually) and automatically update the stock numbers at both locations. This gives you and your staff the freedom to work and move alongside your inventory and optimize the receiving process with mobility.
TIP:When a transfer arrives, you and your staff can use the mobile app to quickly count and receive products into the new location to help streamline the transfer process.
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These tips and tricks will help you supercharge your inventory process by allowing you to move alongside your ever-shifting inventory, so you spend less time running around the back office and more time running your business.
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