How WMS and sales work together

A good warehouse can make you money and protect against unnecessary costs, but only when you’ve got a smart WMS.

It can feel a little counterintuitive because your customer likely will never see or think about your warehouse. However, that’s where the products they want live and are sent from, playing a role in your brand’s perceived quality and reliability.

Sales can lean on the warehouse for support, too, when your team looks at the data available from a WMS. Let’s explore just a few ways that a quality WMS not only supports your sales efforts but can make them stronger.

Channel availability and stock-outs

The world is moving to ecommerce, and a WMS offers a significant benefit because it can provide real-time inventory data. This allows you to advertise and sell only the products you have on hand. No more stock-outs or backorders.

At the same time, your WMS can automatically create alerts when inventory is low — some can even automatically reorder when products hit a predetermined level — so that you always have a best-seller on hand.

If your business uses specific channels for its sales, look for related WMS capabilities. It’s easy to find integration for most ecommerce tools, but some support new APIs that can ensure your advertising on channels like Instagram are always displaying in-stock goods.

Fulfillment and customer service

Customer satisfaction plays a significant role in repeat business. We all know it’s significantly cheaper to advertise and market to existing customers for a repeat sale than it is to go out and acquire brand new customers.

The warehouse can be a great place for quality customer service when it gets orders out accurately and on-time. Fast fulfillment is still a competitive advantage for many, but customers are also less forgiving when it comes to slow delivery or mistakes on your part.

A WMS can introduce multiple checks into your pick and pack process, ensuring accuracy and speeding up the process. Plus, your warehouse tools can automatically select the most affordable carrier who still gets packages to customers at the right time.

Deals, kits, and brains

Your WMS is a treasure-trove of data because it can teach you the full cost of a product. The thing to think about in this instance is what isn’t selling for you.

What is just sitting on your shelves and eating into your bottom line with recurring storage costs?

With your warehouse analytics, you can determine the cost each month and uncover how long it takes for a product to sit on the shelf and cost you more than you make on a sale. The metrics from your WMS can also help you avoid future pains when you’re tracking sales and revenue relative to warehouse costs.

When you find something that no longer helps, consider offering it as a freebie or packaging it with more commonly purchased materials to move inventory and recoup what you can from the investment. A good WMS will make it easy to offer deals or kit items together by simplifying the new SKU process, allowing you to get poor performers out the door faster.