In recent years, E-commerce has grown in popularity and an e-commerce warehouse is expected to expand further. India’s e-commerce market is projected to reach $200 billion by 2027.
In today’s rapidly changing environment, the ability to keep up with changing customer demands is critical for staying ahead of competitors. When you start an e-commerce business, you’ll need the right tools, operations, and technologies to scale up the e-commerce warehouse operations.
To meet customer demand, many e-commerce businesses rely on effective warehousing. However, e-commerce warehousing becomes substantially more complicated each time your organisation reaches a new inflection point. Implementing technologies and strategies to handle e-commerce warehouse procedures is critical.
What is E-commerce warehousing?
Ecommerce warehousing is the process of storing and managing the goods for online sales and managing all of the processes required in running an e-commerce warehouse is referred to as e-commerce warehouse management.
In e-commerce, warehouse management refers to the day-to-day activities of a warehouse, which include:
- Effective inventory and equipment management, as well as maintaining the safety of each item
- Employee training in the warehouse
- Maintaining relationships with logistics firms to ensure that products are timely delivered to end consumers.
- Demand forecasting
- Scaling warehouse operations with business growth
- Maintain a record of daily inbound and outbound shipments and more.
Types of E-commerce Warehouses
There is a range of e-commerce warehouse choices available to meet the demands of various organizations. The finest e-commerce warehouses not only have the facilities and experience to provide the services required, but they also enable firms to keep inventory in strategic areas near their customer base for the fastest and most cost-effective delivery.
Let’s look at some of the most common sorts of e-commerce warehouses:
Warehousing from home
Many e-commerce companies begin by storing inventory at home. If your company has a limited order volume, this makes sense. You won’t have to pay for storage if you turn your house into a makeshift e-commerce warehouse.
On-demand warehousing solutions
Businesses can hire available storage space for short periods using on-demand warehousing. The majority of these solutions are provided by tech firms that contract with warehouses to store your product in surplus, shared warehouse space to store your inventory.
For seasonal sales or pop-up events, this strategy could be useful. On-demand warehousing, on the other hand, is similar to outsourcing fulfilment to a company that outsources it to others because they don’t handle any order fulfilment services themselves.
Dropshipping
When a product’s manufacturer controls the complete supply chain, including production, storage, and shipment, it is referred to as dropshipping. When a buyer orders anything online, the manufacturer ships it directly from their plant to the customer, so the merchant never has to deal with an inventory.
E-commerce Warehouse Best Practices
Poor e-commerce storage operations can cause firms to waste money and potentially cause orders to be delayed. Proper warehouse management adheres to the finest e-commerce warehousing techniques, resulting in increased profits and a better customer experience.
Implement a Warehouse Management System(WMS)
A warehouse management system (WMS) is specialized software that allows businesses to optimise their e-commerce warehouse. A WMS can:
- Provide real-time data about inventory and product availability
- Inventory forecasting helps you to determine the product’s stock out
- Accurate location management, space management, intelligent routing
- Automating the DSP allocations based on pin code serviceability and DSP capabilities with nature of products and industry
- Image-based QC to hamper deceptive marketing
Integrate your e-commerce store
Inventory management will be much easier if your e-commerce site is integrated. With warehouse management software, your company will be able to determine stock availability in real-time, anticipate inventory more accurately, and set reorder points in advance before a shortage occurs.
Distribute your inventory
When you distribute your inventory across multiple warehouses, you save money on shipping because orders are automatically prepared and dispatched from the closest distribution centre to the customer. This can benefit the customers by ensuring on-time delivery.
Adopt the Picking Strategy
As your company expands and the number of orders increases, it becomes more difficult to ensure that orders are picked accurately. WMS lets you implement the suitable picking strategy more efficiently. Also, it enables you to derive the most productivity out of the operational improvements. It further optimizes the travel path and time it takes to pick an order.
Handling the Returns
It is a crucial part of e-commerce businesses that need to manage high returns volumes. Make sure that all resellable returns are designated as “in stock” and that you have ample storage space. If you’re dealing with a lot of returns, it’s time to invest in warehouse management software that can help you manage inventory in real-time.
A successful e-commerce business can handle larger volumes of traffic and sales efficiently. This can be done by implementing the right scalable e-commerce WMS solution. Our proprietary Warehouse Management Software (WMS) enables the automation of manual processes and helps you to handle frequent fluctuations in demand, single-item orders, high return volume, and more.