Backorder Management Strategies for Peak Seasons
Not only in the festive period do we experience peak seasons in online business. Many retailers see a high volume of sales before Christmas or summer, whereas sports vendors get higher demands during sports seasons. This has urged businesses to leverage their backorder management strategies to keep up with expectations. No matter what time the peak season is, the importance is whether you are ready for it. The eCommerce industry is fully competitive, and you need to understand the best backorder management strategies to employ during high seasons. Here are a few tactics that might effectively assist you during peak seasons. Staff training Your staff poses a significant issue for your value chain every day, let alone during the peak seasons. Therefore, you need to prepare your staff for every unexpected situation with sufficient training and cross-trainings. Furthermore, have a distinctive plan for temporary staff so that you don’t waste so much time while still making the best out of your people. Nevertheless, you need to invest quality time to train your staff if you don’t want a negative review on your performance Most eCommerce businesses cross-train full-time associates through all departments, especially those involved with using equipment like forklifts. Review and Revise Sometimes, it is hard to address every order during peak seasons as you will be rushing all over the place. Nevertheless, once the volume decrease, you can review and revise the performance across departments. The goal is to identify your weaknesses to improve in the future. One of the worst situations is being out of stock, especially for hot-selling items. This not only drives your customers away but also devastates your credibility. To avoid this, review your backorder management strategies with your team to point out challenges and how to address them. This will enable you to improve sales later. Evaluate outsourcing Think about your business equipment and facilities, whether there’s sufficient room for more product during the high season. At times, you might need additional storage. One solution is to sell large inbound shipments, increasing warehouse spacing levels. Another option to consider is dropshipping or leasing additional storage for your products. After all, you have to ascertain if you have the necessary equipment to accommodate increased inventory stock. Keep customers updated about order status The delivery time is one of the most important factors affecting customer satisfaction. Therefore, don’t forget to keep an eye on the delivery status during peak seasons. Try to provide as many delivery options as possible, making it more convenient for your customer to purchase in your store. If you’re using multiple distribution centers, analyze the route so that the order would arrive at the fastest pace and the minimized costs. Use automation Managing backorder has never been easy, especially while having tons of orders that need to be fulfilled constantly. Hence a lot of businesses have relied on automation to work on the inventory. Through workflow with predetermined rules, the system will tell you when an item is low on supply. Then you might consider reordering if the demands are still high. This way, you don’t have to keep an eye on the inventory every time. What’s more, you can integrate this backorder system into your currently used workflow automation platform. This combination allows for centralizing your management, saving you the time and efforts to invest in more impactful activities. Conclusion Being out of stock is an absolute nightmare. Strategizing for a peak season for any eCommerce business is essential if you want to retain and improve your revenue. The key is to find out the backorder management strategies that work best for your store.
Integrate Workflow Automation into eCommerce Stores
The eCommerce industry is a thriving one with a worth of over $3.4 billion. This market will continue to grow given current opportunities. A smart way to get a firm grip on such a competition is to integrate workflow automation in your web store. eCommerce websites operate all-round the clock. You can process orders every hour and day of the week without any obstruction. If you are just starting, you can’t acquire the number of staff as large companies have. In this sense, automation can keep your business running when the human resource is tight. Peradventure you don’t know how to integrate workflow automation in your eCommerce store, we will share essential steps to achieve them. What is Workflow Automation? Workflow automation refers to ways of streamlining your business processes. The primary premise is to identify any manual or repetitive task, which can be handled by a software application. You then assign these tasks to the software rather than your employees. Steps to integrate workflow automation Implementing workflow automation software could make or mar your business productivity. However, for most businesses, the issue is how to do it effectively. Well, it is pretty more straightforward than you think. Here is how to get your workflow automation done. 1. Identify repetitive tasks The first step toward workflow automation is identifying repetitive tasks. Look at your business’s current operation and find any bottlenecks in your daily activities that reduce your productivity. You need to deal with these issues by introducing the relevant automation process. 2. Set goals After identifying what reduces your productivity in your business, you can think of ways to improve them. It is important to think through the extent to which you want to improve these things and the subsequent effects they will have on your business. For instance, an employee wastes a lot of time picking stock manually; your objective can be to dispatch 30% more orders daily by automating the process. 3. Find a suitable automation tool The workflow automation tool you choose to integrate should be in line with your goal. For instance, you need an automation solution that will focus on managing stock and order fulfillment when picking a stock. Here, you can analyze and compare various automation tools by checking their features and prices. Furthermore, don’t forget to check their testimonials and customer reviews to know how the app is working for similar businesses. 4. Staff training No matter how effective automation software is, it will be underutilized if the user doesn’t understand its capability. Once you get the software that fits your need, you should invest time, finance, and effort into training workers. At times, some business owners learn how to use it without teaching their workers. You need to train everyone in the firm on how to use it to get the best out of the automation tool. 5. Evaluation There is nothing static in the business world. You need to test and assess the impact of the automation tool. Do you need to find out if the change to an automated system allowed you to achieve your goals? If it didn’t, then you have to find a way to rectify the issue. However, if it does achieve your goal, you can also improve the current system. Integrate Atom8 automation into your website Now you know the importance of workflow automation and how to integrate it. If you’re operating on BigCommere, we have Atom8 Automation as the one and only workflow automation for the platform. The app allows for: Auto-categorize orders (based on value, locations, etc) Auto-segment customer (based on demographics, spending, the total number of order, etc) Auto-tag customers on CRM, email marketing, and delivery platforms Auto-generate reports & lists on Google Sheet Auto-publish products Auto-notify of low-stock items, abandoned cart, or high-value orders Auto-detect and halt high-risk orders In this turbulent time, having the right eCommerce automation tool not only helps you save time and resources but also significantly increases your revenue. Therefore, it’s no waste investing in one.
