What is E-commerce?

E- commerce is the process of selling and buying of products or services using the internet, any kind of commercial transaction that is facilitated through the internet.

The future of E- commerce

In the last years, the growth of E- commerce is quite obvious and the warehouses and distribution centers are confronted in order to innovate and adapt fast.

Are the warehouses able to respond to the evolving of E- commerce?

The rise of E- commerce is leading to tremendous technological and operational changes. Many companies have reworked their business model in order to keep up the client’s requests and remain competitive.

Considering the above mentioned, you have to ensure that your WMS is able to operate at full potential. Other factors like: redesigning the floor plan in the warehouse, reassessment of the labor management tracking, training the staff, rethinking the picking process should be also considered.

How can a WMS help the E-Commerce business?

A WMS helps the Supply Chain by automating the process and creating documents that are easy to trace and check. It is providing access to real-time and accurate data for inventory levels, safety and ABC analysis, shipment and order status, etc.

A WMS pushes the exact inventory information to the market place and shopping carts and in alignment with order information, you can have a clear visibility in order to improve forecasting accuracy and upgrade stock level and you’ll hold the right inventory mix and quantity and minimize your inventory holding cost.

When you have a WMS that connects to your E-commerce store and other sales channels, you avoid overselling.

What may happen without E-commerce Warehouse Management?

It doesn’t matter where you store your inventory, in your own space or a rented one, if you don’t have the proper inventory management system in place you might face some challenges like:

• Losing track of inventory- without having a good inventory management system in place, you might mislay the products and lose the tracking of the location by product and its variation;
• Ship the wrong products- this thing is related with the above situation, because once you don’t have a clear visibility on your inventory and a system directed guidance, it is very possible to pick up the wrong product and this might create an unpleasant experience for the customer;
• Out of stock or overstock- a clever E-commerce is providing you the necessary information in order to keep the proper amount of the inventory on hand; we know that the stock-outs leads to losing the potential online sales and the excess of inventory can lead to extra spending for storage;

Due to the increasing trend of online shopping, you should also consider the management of the storage capacity. The storage management system is part of a WMS, the storage management system ensures that a storage location is recorded and positioned in the right bin in terms of dimensions (width, height, volume, etc.). The space is essential when it comes to storage utilization for a business with high volume rotation and multiple squ’s in place.

In conclusion, a good E-commerce warehouse management for your online business helps you to gain money, while meeting customer expectations.