Multi-Warehouse Inventory Management Best Practices

Sally James
3 min readJan 7, 2021

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Efficient inventory management ensures a successful and profitable business. But when a business locates its inventory in multiple storage locations handling it is not an easy task. Business expands its reach and set up warehouses on a different location to increase revenue. It is called a Multi-warehouse management system. A multi-warehouse consists of a variable quantity of stocks of different products. Due to a large variety of products multi-warehouse system is hard to manage for the business owners.

A warehouse manager should have a piece of good knowledge about multi-warehouse management so that he will be able to make better decisions, create better systems, and improve organizational effectiveness.

Fixed tracking and movable tracking

To implement the best practices of multi-warehouses there is a need to understand these two terms. Fixed tracking is the tracking of manufactured goods in the warehouse that arrives on the day of dispatching. To track the location of the products equipment such as barcodes and tags are utilized. Moveable tracking is the tracking of the number of each product, its movement in inventory, restocking, and excess quantity. Investing in the stock of your inventory helps you save and earn a lot more in the future. Including both fixed and moveable tracking is necessary for an efficient and professional inventory tracking system.

Monitor the stock of hot selling Product

The best-selling products of your brand must be stored in sufficient quantity so it never goes out of stock. So it is necessary to monitor their incoming and outgoing stock in the warehouse. As it is the most profitable stock managers must always keep a check on it. A list of best-selling products should be always at hand with their available quantity so that these products always remain in stock. The out-of-stock situation of these products can damage business reputation and revenue generation. Make sure to monitor the stocks of hot selling products digitally. This will help you to conduct accurate practices for stock monitoring.

Do not store unnecessary products

Not every product has a high sales ratio. Warehouses are filled with perishable items that are not get sold easily. Remember that you do not have to stock all kinds of products in your warehouse. The best approach is to segregate best sellers, low-sellers, and dead stock to easily keep track of. Stock best-selling ones, keep optimized stock of low-selling ones, and get rid of dead stock. This will help you to smartly store the products in warehouses.

Store Products according to Geographical preferences

If you have multiple warehouses at different locations try to sort out stock in them according to the preference of consumers in that vicinity. For example, keep your swimwear in the warehouse nearest to the location with water bodies such as lakes and beaches. This will help in saving time and cost of shipment for the orders.

Continuously upgrade the data in the software

This is one of the most important steps that is needed to follow with great care. Ensure that inventory data is regularly updated without any delays and errors. Purchasing, Stock Sales, and warehouse systems should be put in sync. For dealing with a multi-warehouse business utilize a POS system with a robust and centralized multi-warehouse inventory management software. This software facilitates real-time data update across multiple warehouses.

Balance the Demand Supply

Balance the stock levels according to the demand. The variable stock levels allow maximizing the space at the warehouses. Having a balanced demand-supply allows instant fulfillment of orders and makes multi-warehouse an excellent practice.

Final Thoughts

These tips will help you out in multi-warehouse management. It is convenient to keep a good record of everything your business purchase and everything its sale. Transparent warehouse management will help to keep track of the business cash flow and keep your mind at ease.

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