Warehouse Inventory Management: Processes, Challenges, and Best Practices 

Warehouse inventory management is a process for tracking, arranging, and maximising all goods that come in and leave your warehouse. It’s what ensures you have the right products on hand when your customers need them most. 

But how are these terms different? 

Warehouse management 

Warehouse management gives you access to storage. That’s everything that happens backstage: 

• Receiving shipments 
• Determining where every single item in your inventory should go 
• Ensuring that each order is picked, packed, and sent out 

An ecommerce store that juggles thousands of different products every day will use warehouse management to scan everything, store it, and ensure it can be picked fast. This is how you avoid the nightmare of new trainers winding up in an order for the wrong person. 

Inventory management 

Inventory management is both the crystal ball and safety net for your business. It tells you what you have, what you’ll need, and when you’ll need it, so you never run out of bestsellers or end up with items no one wants to buy.  

This entails tracking stock levels, forecasting demand, and reordering items at the right time. A trendy clothing shop will use inventory management software to monitor every style and size. When skinny jeans begin to fly off the shelves, the system highlights this as a trending product to be reordered. 

Warehouse inventory management 

Warehouse inventory management is, in many ways, the best of both. It’s the balance of keeping on top of every product under your roof, making sure nothing is lost, mislaid, or forgotten.  

Take this scenario:  

A third-party logistics provider stores stock for several brands in the same warehouse. With the right warehouse inventory management in place, they can get instant updates, automate picking and packing, and know the exact status of every single item. Without the need for spreadsheets, manual checks, or 3 A.M. phone calls. 

This all sounds like a dream, right? 

But the warehouse inventory management process comes with its own set of unique challenges:  

It can be difficult to maintain an accurate inventory 

Errors in counting, items left in the wrong place, or records that aren’t up to date can disrupt operations. When inventory data isn’t consistent with what is on the shelves, it results in lost sales, overstocking, and staff frustration as they rush to find the missing goods.  

Space utilisation gets tough to manage 

Your warehouse staff might struggle with finding the best way to use the available space. Inefficient designs or poor storage practices result in wasted square footage and congested areas in which no one can pick and pack in time. 

You might deal with overstocking or stockouts 

Overstocking ties up valuable money and the warehouse, while stockouts can delay shipments and upset customers. 

Processes can be (too) manual 

Relying on paper logs or manual spreadsheets is indeed a recipe for error. Manually operated systems reduce productivity, increase error risk, and make it challenging to expand your business. 

Every process is a critical link in the supply chain and your warehouse inventory management system should work well for each of the following steps: 

• Receiving: The get-go of a warehouse process starts with receiving, including checking in the incoming shipments, ensuring the right item and quantity arrive, and inspecting the product’s physical state. 
• Putaway: The products are then sent to the warehouse depending on their designations. A product that can be stored on top of one another can be stored vertically to save some space. Switching over, products with a rapid turnaround should be easily accessed by the warehouse picker. 
• Storage: Products in storage should be easy to locate and sorted according to product size or demand, so handlers don’t break anything. 
• Inventory tracking and control: This step of warehouse inventory management involves keeping track of every product which has entered the inventory and documenting it accurately. 
• Picking: Pickers locate and retrieve the right item from storage. 
• Packing: Picked items are packed and ready to be shipped with appropriate packaging. 
• Shipping: The product is labelled, documented, and monitored via carriers so it reaches customers on time. 
• Returns: Returned items are inspected and either restocked or thrown away. 

All of these processes come with plenty of advantages, notably: 

You’ll lower your costs 

Smarter inventory holdings save your revenue while reducing understocking, overstocking, and inventory shrinkage. Manufacturers anticipate reducing inventories by around 1.6% over the next year as they adopt a proactive strategy, releasing cash and reducing waste. 

You’ll speed up and improve the accuracy of order fulfilment 

Accurate order picking, packing, and delivery schedules when inventory is organised and up to date. The average inventory turnover across sectors in 2024 is estimated to be 8.5.  

Top-tier retailers’ best-in-class sales generate even higher sales turnover thanks to fast, accurate order fulfilment. This means less delay, fewer refunds, and happier clients who receive exactly what they want. 

You’ll make better decisions 

Warehouse management systems offer entrepreneurs access to real-time analytics and insights, allowing them to grasp requirement profile trends for their products and make more informed purchasing decisions.  

In 2024, the worldwide warehouse management system marketplace is set to exceed $3 billion. The demand for data-driven warehouse operations is to blame. With better data, you may predict need, perfect stock levels, and outperform your rivals in all areas. 

We’ll let you in on a couple of warehouse inventory management system secrets our customers use to improve their practice: 

Try to minimise manual input  

Automate anything and everything to eliminate human error and increase your throughput. Barcode scanners, RFID tags, warehouse drones, and inventory management software allow you to track and manage your stock in real time, without your team having to add data manually. 

Implement cycle counting 

Instead of shutting down the business to take a full day off just for inventory, count sections of it regularly. Even more so, you should prioritise that for your high-value items. Cycle counting allows you to detect discrepancies early, keep accurate records, and avoid unpleasant surprises during annual audits. 

Switch up your warehouse layout  

With a smart layout, you save time at every step of the way. Keep your popular or fast-moving products close to your packing stations. Make use of vertical space and make sure to label everything for easier picking and restocking. 

Here’s how DHL takes a similar approach to create smart warehouses: 

Use the ABC analysis method 

Sort your products into categories (i.e. A, B, and C) based on value or turnover rate. Prioritise A-items for attention and resources, give B-items less attention, and manage C-items with even less.  

Rely on demand forecasting for decision making 

Analyse past data (accounting for seasonal trends and variations) to predict what you’ll need and when. Proper prediction prevents overselling and overstocking, making sure you always have something to offer. 

Monitor expiration dates with an ongoing process 

Make sure you move or promote your items before they expire or go bad with a solid plan for regular checks. This will prevent waste and keep your stock fresh. 

In the following scenario, we’ll take a regular mid-sized ecommerce company that struggles with frequent stock discrepancies, slow order fulfilment, and high labour costs.  

This is what daily operations could look like for them once the organisation decides to implement a warehouse inventory management system: 

Customising your warehouse management software setup 

The warehouse inventory software provider should help customise the tool and work with your company to map warehouse processes, including receiving, quality checks, putaway, and the user’s picking methods.  

Ensuring everyone gets full, real-time visibility into stock levels 

You’ll record all inventory movements using barcode scanning and RFID, offering real-time updates of stock levels in the system on the client’s portal.  

This way, warehouse staff can always see how many items are in stock, where the products are, and if stock discrepancies are an issue. That’s perfect for eliminating stockouts. 

Improving picking routes 

When a client places an order, your warehouse management system generates a picking list that shows the warehouse staff the most direct route to take to pick the different items. The system shortens the picking time so your staff won’t feel tired and make errors in determining routes.  

Sending stock replenishment alerts 

Automatic alerts for re-orders should trigger automatic reorders in your system. Whenever a product falls below the reorder level, your management team will get a notification or email. This way, they’ll always be ready to manage resources and prevent overstocking.  

Integrating the software with other third-party apps 

Primarily, you’ll want to prioritise integrations with your ERP and order management system. This offers a direct flow of data from the sales and invoicing to where the product is ready to ship to the client.  

No more cases of sporadic manual data entry. Instead, you’ll give users the exact time they need to serve customers rather than handle basic or recurrent tasks such as invoice creation.  

Assisting with continuous process improvements 

Daily or weekly reports help you improve the way you manage inventory even in unexpected or critical scenarios. Most systems will let you find your most profitable product lines and monitor trends (such as delivery spikes) to proactively manage resourcing in the future.

Mintsoft will transfer your warehouse inventory management to its proprietary cloud-based platform. This way, you can bring your stock management process online in real-time for all your warehouses.  

Our just-in-time fulfilment system automates a lot of the “boring” tasks like receiving goods and shipping orders.  

That’s fewer mistakes, faster order processing, and more time for the team to grow the business than putting out fires. 

Mintsoft lets you pool orders from all of your sales channels in one place, control smart workflows for picking and packing and seamlessly connect with over 150 couriers and ecommerce platforms.  

The software also gives users powerful reporting tools, automatic stock alerts, barcode scanning and more features to keep inventory neat and tidy for 3PLs or retailers: 

• Automatic order management and batch processing 
• Mobile picking and barcode scanning for accuracy and speed 
• Smart space and location management 
• Advanced reporting, analytics and online sales channels 
• Automatic replenishment of orders when stock is low 
• Client portal access and easy product return processing 
• And more! 

Ready to simplify your warehouse operations? Book a free personalised Mintsoft demo!