Warehouse Management Software Benefits and Examples

In this post, we’ll go over the benefits of using a warehouse management software or a similar system for extended warehouse management. We’ll show you different features of different Amazon warehousing and WMS software solutions so you can choose the one that works best for you.

Accurate Inventory Tracking

Inventory management has a lot of moving parts. Monitoring where everything is, where everything goes, and handling the sheer number of items and the corresponding item information can be quite the challenge. You want to make sure everything is always in stock so that customers with the desire to purchase each product won’t be met with disappointment at seeing a “Product Unavailable” tag. On the other hand, you also don’t want to overstock items and not have the ability to sell them as quickly as needed. This is especially true with items that can expire or lose value by sitting on a warehouse shelf.

If done manually, the process of balancing your stock to meet demand and maintaining an accurate record of these items can become quite difficult to keep up with. For larger companies or companies that handle a ton of merchandise, WMS (warehouse management system) software is a game changer. These systems can prevent you from experiencing inventory shrinkage, which tots up to a $61.7 billion loss for businesses every year.

Warehouse management software can prevent accounting errors from showing more inventory than actually exists. WMS software shows real-time product stock information and tracks product movement effortlessly through barcode scanning. You’ll know whenever a product is taken off the warehouse shelves for an order, scheduled to be put back after return verification and item checking, and how much product is added from a new shipment to the warehouse.

Business Planning

Warehouse software provides you with a lot of other useful information, too. You can see which states you ship to most, which can help you adjust purchase orders and shipping costs. Managing order allocation to warehouses that stock your products internationally also becomes much simpler. When you have different pricing and shipping values, WMS software makes it easy to understand your average cart values and other metrics.

When you know exactly how many days are left until a SKU is out of stock, you can very easily determine when you need to place a new order with your supplier. When this information is available to you at a glance, at any time you want it, you never have to miss a beat. When you can see this information over the entire life of your business using the warehouse management software, you can also very easily plan replenishment on a schedule. You might want to look at your historical stock levels, too, so you can make a better business plan for the next quarter and year. This is especially valuable when the Q4 buying season draws near.

Streamlined Logistics

These days, people no longer consider same-week shipping as fast. The bar has been raised so high to the point that a whopping majority of consumers would say either same-day or next-day shipping is the speed standard. If you want to be considered top in order delivery speed, you need to get customers their products within that 24 hour window.

The great thing about warehouse management software is that it can give precise shipping time estimations. This is great news for consumers who no longer have to wonder when their package will be shipped or arrive. With warehouse software, you can also see immediately if any orders have not yet been delivered, so you can follow up with your courier partners to solve the problem before your customers even have a chance to complain.

Order Efficiency

You can seamlessly integrate WMS software with whatever online selling platform you operate on. Keeping your product stock accurate and up-to-date in real-time means less inventory error. This means you can fulfil orders more efficiently and avoid situations where customers order items that aren’t available.  You can save up to 10% with a WMS simply because it can help you avoid items going out of stock or overstocking.

Lower Costs

Some might be hesitant to adopt a WMS because they can be pricey. However, if you consider how much resources are allocated to manual inventory checking, re-checking, counting, and repacking, it is actually less expensive in the long run. Because a WMS is mostly automated, you are saving a lot of time and employee labour that can be used elsewhere boosting overall productivity.

Accuracy equals efficiency. Minimising errors means minimising the time and work to correct them. When orders are accurate and shipped on time, returns are less frequent and customers are happier. It’s clear that investing in a WMS is pretty good value for the money.

1. Easyship

• Easily integrates with all online selling platforms. Because they deal in selling shipping services, naturally warehouse management is included in their software.
• Shipping pricing that is updated in real-time and accessible to customers upon checkout
• 250+ courier services.
• Have warehouses and distribution centres all over the world.
• Inventory can be monitored via the Shopify dashboard.
• If you ship less than a hundred times per month. There is no charge. Their shipping rates remain one of the best in the business.

2. ShipHero

• Best for emerging, scaling, and high-volume brands

• Great option for multi-channel sellers.
• Automation has some customizable elements such as the option to prioritise certain orders.
• About $500 per month for the basic plan and $1,850 for the standard
• Uses national, regional, and local carriers to ensure deliveries are efficient and on time
• PostHero is a feature that let’s sellers keep track of the movement of packages through the shipment process

3. Oracle Warehouse Management 

• • Enterprise-level warehouse management solutions

• Transform your site, no matter how large or small, into a fulfilment centre and quickly scale your warehouse operations

• Cloud-based
• Inventory management from manufacturer all the way to the customer
• Advanced wave management and algorithms make moving merchandise more efficient
• Works seamlessly with Oracle supply chain management solutions
• Efficient omnichannel fulfilment allowing customers to buy and return easily
• Supports both B2B and B2C

4. Körber 

• Aimed at enterprise-level operations
• A WMS leader
• More than 1,600 warehouse management customers
• 99% customer retention rate
• Cloud-based
• Highly customizable, future-proof WMS software, from small to large warehouses they can meet specific needs
• Some features:  inventory management, receiving and putaway, warehouse transfers, picking and packing, cross-docking, order and wave management, replenishment, loading, shipping

5. Mecalux Easy WMS 

• A WMS that fits any warehouse size, is flexible, adapts, and scales
• Offers both cloud and on-premise solutions
• Multi-owner, multi-site and multi-language functionalities
• Guaranteed the best efficiency regardless of manual warehouse operation, mixed, or fully-automated
• Manages all movements, processes and operations
• Price tiers depending on the needs of your business