What Is Stock Control?
Stock control is a process used by companies to oversee and manage the ordering, storing, and usage of inventory. In terms of wholesale companies, it is referred to as wholesale distribution inventory control.
Wholesale distribution inventory control is important for several reasons. First and foremost, it helps businesses optimise their stock levels, ensuring that they have enough inventory to meet customer demand without overstocking and tying up valuable capital or understocking on key items and losing growth opportunities. Effective control also minimises the risk of product obsolescence and spoilage, preserving profitability.
By providing real-time insights into inventory levels and trends, it empowers businesses to make informed decisions, streamline operations, and ultimately improve customer satisfaction and protect bottom-line profit.
In a competitive market, efficient wholesale distribution inventory control is essential for maintaining a competitive edge to sell more and reduce costs to achieve profitable long-term success.
Empowering Sales Representatives
Inventory and stock control play a pivotal role in supporting sales agents and their success in several ways. Firstly, it ensures that sales representatives have accurate and up-to-date information about product availability. This enables them to provide customers with real-time information and make promises they can fulfil, enhancing trust and customer satisfaction.
Secondly, efficient inventory management helps sales representatives avoid overselling out-of-stock or discontinued items, preventing potential disappointments and customer dissatisfaction. It also assists in identifying slow-moving or obsolete products, allowing sales representatives to focus their efforts on promoting items that are readily available and in demand.
Additionally, inventory control can streamline the order fulfilment process, making it easier for sales representatives to place orders, track shipments, and manage customer expectations effectively.
Ultimately, by providing sales representatives with the tools and information they need to serve customers efficiently, inventory control contributes to increased sales, improved customer relationships, and overall business success.
Empowering Retailers and Dealers
Inventory visibility is a critical asset for retail buyers when placing orders. Brandscope’s ability to provide real-time access to detailed information about a company’s stock levels, for now, and in the future, empowers buyers to make more informed and strategic purchasing decisions.
Buyers can assess the availability of products, monitor trends in stock levels, and gain insights into the timing of restocking. This information allows them to optimise order quantities, ensuring they neither overstock nor understock, which can result in cost savings and a reduction in carrying costs.
Moreover, buyers can identify which products are in high demand or low supply, enabling them to prioritise their purchasing efforts and negotiate better terms with suppliers.
Overall, inventory visibility enhances the efficiency and accuracy of the procurement process, leading to smarter buying decisions and improved supply chain management.
Brandscope's Essential Features for Streamlined Inventory Control and Stock Management
Live inventory visibility
Inventory can be a bottom-line killer!
Too much of the wrong stuff and you face the unenviable situation of having to clear at aggressive prices which congests your market and erodes brand equity. Not enough of the right stuff and you miss an invaluable opportunity to stamp your brand’s presence in-store and maximise valuable floor space and refill sales.
If your business model is pre-book orientated and placing “blind” early season manufacturing orders is just part of the game, then Brandscope can deliver greater accuracy with order placing and protect your inventory position for the future season.
Demand capture
As wholesale industry experts, we came up with a powerful function that automatically opens a product up for future delivery months that align with your supply lead times.
In essence, our system intelligently captures demand to assist with your forecasting and PO coordination. As orders are placed in these automated future months, Brandscope will notify the relevant brand department so you can take the appropriate action to manage your supply. This feature is super powerful for disrupted supply chains when you’re really not sure when products are going to arrive and backorders are your only safety net.
Stock models
Stock modelling is one feature our team is super proud of! Brands can collaborate with retailers to create stock models for concept areas, floor stands, and counter stands, and then automatically refill against these models to maintain your inventory of key styles on the retail floor.
Items can also be quickly added to or deducted from models to manage new product releases and obsolescence for singular or multiple retailers across multiple categories.
It’s a great way to get everyone on the same page and help your sales team and retailers to consistently focus on replenishing best-selling stock which drives everyone’s sales income and profit (and makes everyone happier!).
Barcode scanning
Why manually count stock when you can whip around a store in minutes using the barcode scanner to record floor-level inventory?
Brandscope’s barcode scanning feature integrates seamlessly into the Stock Model function to streamline the refilling process against an agreed inventory level or just adds items straight to a shopping cart for later ordering. Whether you’re a Sales representative or a Retailer, the barcode inventory scanners make short work of an in-store stocktake making inventory replenishment a breeze.
Superfill… EDI for retailers and dealers
This is the standout feature of Brandscope which semi-automates the in-store refilling process. In essence, EDI is for independent retailers and dealers. Supermarkets never run out of essentials like milk or bread because these products are automatically refilled via Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). Why not implement a similar process for independent retailers and dealers?
Implementing such a technology with independent retailers is akin to “herding cats” due to the vast array of POS systems in the wholesale marketplace that need integration. Our experts have come up with an ingenious mapping tool that allows your retailers to map their inventory reports to brand stock models and automate the generation of refill inventory orders. Brandscope’s Customer Service team also works with your retailers and dealers to set up the mapping, streaming the process even further.
Boom – a steady flow of replenished stock to ensure opportunities on key styles are rarely missed! All the brand needs to do is keep the stock models accurate and keep up the supply.
Looking to Reduce Costs? Brandscope Can Help with Stock Control
Brandscope is a truly effective B2B wholesale e-commerce platform that helps businesses to sell smart, sell easy, and sell more.
Brandscope offers powerful tools to better manage inventory and stock control which directly reduces costs and positively impacts the bottom line. We empower the relationship between the supplier, sales representative, and retailer or dealer to do better business.
Learn more about how it works and how to use Brandscope to reduce costs. Or book a free demo online.
