Six Key Steps to Effectively Managing Inventory with Your eCommerce CMS

When it comes to increasing the profitability of your eCommerce business, a lot more is involved than just increasing sales and managing your expenses effectively. One of the biggest expenses that seems to get swept under the rug frequently is the inventory, and a lack of management in particular.

There is a thin line between management and mismanagement when it comes to your online inventory, but following these key steps will make it much easier for you to stay on the correct side of that line.

Focus on Applicable Accounting Methods
One of the first things you can do is to make sure you shift focus towards applicable accounting methods that are firmly in place right now. Whether you decide to go with a daily or an annual accounting system, for instance, should be a major concern.

Maintain an aligned balance sheet throughout the year just to be fully prepared if your business should ever become audited. This inventory system will maintain a continuous record of the accurate cost of goods being sold throughout the year to make it much easier to track sales and monitor profitability, according to Yahoo.

Use Competitive Pricing for All Products
Make sure that each of the products featured within your online inventory is competitively priced to sell. Periodically research the price points used by your competitors online and offline to ensure your prices remain competitive.

Even though it is advantageous to offer your customers price-matching guarantees, making sure that your prices are already competitive by completing this research will allow you to minimize this issue proactively. Your customers won’t feel the need to shop around as much since they will know your website provides the most competitive prices available.

Check the Quality of Product Photos
Another point to consider when it comes to managing your online inventory effectively is to ensure that the quality of your product images and photographs remains consistently high as well.

Each of the images you use throughout your website needs to be clear, concise and captivating. Don’t settle for reflecting one particular view from one specific angle, because you need to provide your customers with a 360-degree view of your products through the pictures. Doing so will increase the chances of your window shoppers becoming paid customers.

Accept a Variety of Flexible Payment Options
Accepting specific flexible payment options and rejecting others might seem to be the most feasible route to take for the average business owner, especially when it comes to reducing overhead expenses associated with processing payments through merchants and online payment gateways.

However, the exact opposite is actually the case. You need to make sure that you accept a variety of payment options — appealing to the needs of your customers more than your bottom line in this regard.

Keep in mind that close to ten percent of interested customers abandon their online shopping carts simply because the company didn’t cater to their preferred payment method. With an average shopping cart abandonment rate exceeding 65 percent, no business owner can afford to allow any shopper to leave their site just to go to the site of one of their competitors instead.

Don’t Be Shy When Using Call-to-Action Buttons
Your call-to-action buttons are the maps that will take your customers directly to their shopping carts and corresponding checkout pages regardless of where they are clicked throughout the website. Whether customers want to finalize their purchases on the homepage of your site or from the “Contact Us” page, you can effectively push more inventory out to your customers by placing your call-to-action buttons strategically throughout the site.

Allow these buttons and links to stand out from everything else that is found within the website design. If your call-to-action buttons and graphics are less visible than your social media buttons, according to Yahoo Small Business, you have a serious problem that needs to be addressed immediately. Use bold colors and captivating fonts to draw attention to where it belongs the most — your call-to-action buttons.

Educate Your Customers through Blogs
As you are developing an effective CMS product management strategy for your online inventory, don’t forget to create an engaging blog to keep your customers and clients well-informed. Doing so will make it much easier for your customers to trust your company as an expert authority within your respective industry.

That type of trust will lead to an increase in conversion, sales and repeat business as well. Even if your unique visitors choose not to buy anything right away, they will still make a habit of visiting your website frequently to learn as much as they can from the content within your updated blogs.

Regardless of the type of products you sell or services you offer, it is imperative for you to develop an engaging blog that will teach your customers valuable information — proving that you sincerely want to help them instead of just turning them into a sales figure.