Tracking your jewelry inventory can lead to multifaceted problems for manufacturers, retailers, and even wholesalers. If your inventory falls short, you’ll lose sales opportunities. If your inventory is too much, you’ll pay more for handling, storage, and transportation. Fortunately, you can now manage and track even the most complicated inventory movements. And that’s thanks to today’s inventory management software systems.
The jewelry industry has suffered before due to the complexity of tracking jewelry inventory. We’re not talking about ordinary materials here – these are high-value items! Inventory tracking is vital for any business – whether it’s a manufacturer, retailer, or wholesaler. It correlates with production, sales, stocks, re-ordering, and shipping. Because of this, you shouldn’t handle jewelry inventory tracking as if it’s an isolated feature.
Benefits of using an inventory management software system for your jewelry items
Tracking jewelry inventory using excel spreadsheets will never work. This may work for a one-man business, but never for all other types of businesses. I don’t even need to specify the many disadvantages this method has. I’m sure you can already imagine the possible problems you’ll face if you track your inventory this way.
Let’s talk about the benefits you can get if you use an inventory management software system to manage your jewelry inventory.
- Forecasting
- Improving procurement and replenishment processes
- Increasing visibility
- Managing inventory costs
- Managing online sales
- Monitoring production trends and sales
- Optimizing inventory levels
- Reducing inventory losses
- Reducing excessive inventory problems
If you have experienced any problems before while tracking your inventory, then you should know exactly which of these benefits are important to you and why.
Effectively using your inventory management software system
Even if you have the best inventory management software system, if you’re not utilizing it correctly, then you won’t get the maximum benefits. That said, I’ve come up with ways you can effectively use the system to obtain desirable results.
Convert foreign currencies
You will need to convert foreign currencies if you have customers and suppliers in several countries outside the home country where you operate. To help you achieve this, you have to see to it that your inventory management software system can convert foreign currencies from sales orders to your home currency. For example, if the sales orders are in Canadian dollars, your software system should automatically convert them to US dollars.
Multi-currency conversion is especially important when it comes to taxes. After all, you won’t be able to add US dollars and Canadian dollars together, expecting to get an accurate sum. It’ll just turn into a mess.
If you’re looking for an inventory software system for your business, and you operate in different countries, make sure that it can handle multi-currency conversions.
Organize your inventory
Let’s say you have so many pieces of jewelry. It would be extremely challenging to organize them by name, color, description, size, order number, and price. To make this task easier, make sure that your software system can organize your inventory in several ways. You should also have access to a complete list of manufacturer information. From there, you can assign a vendor to a specific product.
This will help you in ways you can’t even imagine, but most especially when it’s time to order more pieces of jewelry. Since you already have the manufacturer information, you don’t need to enter any information anymore. Just select the vendor, and you’re ready to go!
Set the prices
If you want to obtain insights into markup prices for your jewelry pieces, make sure to review your costs and sales. Never let your guard down, and always stay competitive, especially whenever the costs go up or go down. Revisit the prices all the time.
You can also set pricing rules that offer inducements to your customers, such as dollar amount discounts, percentage discounts, and more. Doing this will help your business tremendously, as this will make certain customers buy your items.
Track the trends
As a business owner, you’ll have to gather information. You’ll need answers to various questions, such as which pieces of jewelry are selling the best? Which ones are your top sellers per location? Which ones do clients like the least? Your inventory management software should provide you all the answers to these kinds of questions.
Some pieces may sell better in one location, while others sell better in another. So, if you’re running multiple stores, you can track all the sales and orders in each store. Doing this helps you plan for the needs of each store. The same goes if you’re running multiple warehouses. In case you run into a shortage in one location and an excess inventory in another, you can make a transfer order. This helps you move those pieces from one location to another.
Remember, always be one step ahead to manage your stock levels effectively.
Do you need an inventory management software system for your jewelry items?
Your inventory is the heart of your business, especially as a jewelry store owner. Efficiency is paramount, and anything can happen. Things may not run as smoothly as you planned, and you may find some discrepancies in your inventory. But thankfully, if any inventory problem may arise, you can solve it with an inventory management software system.
Not all jewelry businesses are the same – some require a simple inventory, while others are more complex. But regardless of the inventory type, using an inventory management software system and using it effectively can help save time, energy, and money. I hope I was able to provide valuable information for you and your business. Hopefully, this piece managed to widen your perspective on jewelry inventory management.
