As a business owner your time is precious, you don’t want to be wasting it with monotonous admin tasks, you want to spend your time on the things that matter to you and that are going to help your business to flourish. This is why maximising efficiency is usually a top priority for any business. For retailers, wholesalers and eCommerce businesses, efficiency is crucial given the current market conditions.
If your business is eCommerce, retail or wholesale and you’ve implemented a virtual PA then you are making steps in the right direction as you already know the benefits of implementing a Virtual PA. However, if you are still managing your stock across excel sheets, or even worse on loose sheets of paper, then you are putting your business at risk.
Without a system in place to manage your stock, how do you know accurately what your stock levels are? How do you process your returns? How are you keeping track of your customers to ensure they feel valued and make them aware of promotions within your company? You’ve already improved the efficiency of your business with your virtual PA, to take things to the next level you need to have a robust stock management system in place.
Let’s look at how you can implement stock control software with your virtual assistant to maximise your efficiency and help your business thrive.
What is stock control software?
Stock control software does exactly what it says on the tin. It is software that allows you to maintain accurate records of what stock you have available and updates in real time, meaning your stock levels will always be accurate. Previously businesses would rely on excel spreadsheets to manage their stock, however this method is highly inefficient and can lead to errors. If stock levels are not accurate and your customers try to order something that isn’t in stock then it is likely that your customers will be left frustrated and disappointed.
Stock control software can bring a multitude of benefits to your business, below are some examples of how stock control can take your business to new heights.
Benefits of Stock Control Software
Better reporting
For businesses, data is crucial. You need to have data on your customers, their buying habits and how much they are spending with your business. You also need accurate data on your stock in order to see what is selling and what isn’t to allow you to improve your reordering processes.
Implementing stock control software will allow you to pull reports on various areas of your business to allow you to analyse your businesses performance and make necessary adjustments to improve this.
Price Lists
Having the ability to set up price lists for your products can be a powerful tool in your arsenal. Setting up price lists allows you to apply quantity breaks when orders hit a certain amount. This means if a customer orders so many of a product they will receive a discount on the price. This is incredibly effective when looking to build long term relationships with customers, if you sell to wholesalers and they know they will discount if they order over a certain amount, the chance of them reordering from you will increase.
Returns
When selling goods, returns are a natural part of the process. Ultimately some customers may be dissatisfied with a product for whatever reason and at some point you are going to have to process returns. For many businesses, this is where a lot of money is lost, through inefficient processing of returns. By having a system in place that can process your returns you can also view which items are being returned regularly or if any customers are developing a habit of returning products. This allows you to re order items accordingly and feeds in to your overall business strategy.
Great Efficiency
Without having a system in place to manage your stock, your virtual assistant will rely on data that has been collected manually. This means that someone in the business will have to manually count stock and then send this information across.
This poses two problems. Firstly this process leaves a high margin of error. Secondly this is a very time-consuming process. Stock control software automatically updates your stock levels when a sale is made, saving you time and money and giving you the peace of mind that information is accurate.
Integrating Both
Integrating both systems is simple. For your stock control software, Khaos Control Cloud is a cloud-based solution, meaning to implement it you only need an internet connection to access your account. Simply give your virtual PA access to your Khaos Control Cloud account and they can oversee all your orders and stock levels. As you can access Khaos Control Cloud from your phone, tablet or laptop you can access your account any time to check things are running smoothly. Your virtual PA could email you at the end of each day with the days sales and reports, meaning you are fully in control.
Conclusion
If you run an eCommerce, wholesale or retail business and want your company to truly thrive, implementing stock control software and allowing your virtual PA to have access to it can be a powerful combination.
As I have demonstrated in this blog, stock control software can be highly beneficial to a business due to the greater reporting it allows and control over business processes. Choosing a solution like Khaos Control Cloud means you can access this software from anywhere in the world. This makes it an ideal solution to pair with a virtual PA such as those which Outsourcery provide.
Avirtual provides real, high quality personal assistants that have previous experience working for top companies such as Deloitte and KPMG. These are not freelancers, but highly trained individuals with years of experience that work from Outsourcery’s offices. These “virtual” PAs are far more cost effective than hiring a full-time staff member and give business owners the flexibility to expand their workforce when they need to.
Combining both these powerful systems has the potential to revolutionize your business. To find out more, book your demo of Khaos Control Cloud today.
