From buying new clothes to devouring sweets and savories to purchasing gift items, Diwali season is all about materials management. On average, the month of October and November help businesses to increase their inventory by threefold. To meet a surge in the demand, supply chain processes also increase, leaving entrepreneurs with more stress on warehousing and fulfillment services.
The festive season demands increased inventory, which calls on for more storage space. Small scale and mid-sized businesses generally face this problem as they couldn’t raise the supply due to a shortage in the space. A warehouse comes as a savior during these situations. To match pent up demand, businesses should focus on renting additional warehouses to fill in the gap between the market forces of demand and supply.
The rising expectations and demands of potential customers aim towards hiring an additional workforce. Once you start volumizing the storage space, the next step is to staff up. You can think of hiring both permanent and temporary workforce. Setting up a separate refurbishment team is also a good option. The refurbishment team helps to replenish RTO (return on stock) while ensuring better inventory depth.
Quick tip: To avoid the last-minute chaos, businesses must hire a workforce in advance so that they can get trained to manage the peak days. Also, don’t forget to take COVID insurance for your old and new staff.
Imagine this; you’ve fully stocked your warehouse with your products to meet the festive sale. But due to a sudden hike in the number of COVID cases in that particular area, the government has red-zoned it. You can’t regulate your inventory, leading to a huge loss to both brand equity and finance.
Quick tip: To avoid any such mishappening, you must focus on more than one warehouse to ensure the ease of movement and the last-minute chaos.
ANS Commerce provides warehousing operations with the help of the latest devices and software. Currently, we are working with 15+ marketplaces to enable brands’ presence across long-tail marketplaces. Request your demo for the warehousing solution.
Businesses can reckon upon hiring a temporary yet dedicated vehicle to manage small scale B2B volumes. Backed by the transport system, not only does it ensure quicker delivery but also helps the business to generate more sales.
Tech-driven warehouses are the best to operate. You can start by installing videos and e-posters on the premise explaining the complete process. This helps newly-trained staff to avoid any mistakes while saving time and efforts of the supervisor, who can focus on other big operations.
You must have a risk management plan to prepare yourself for any future loss or mishap. Taking insurance of your inventory is essential especially during peak season when your inventory levels are relatively higher. The inventory insurance policy usually covers various types of damage including, handling damage, theft, fire, and any natural disaster.
Your success is directly dependent on how you handle your warehouse. To meet a surge in the business, it is rather important that you do daily-checks of the equipment. From the lift to power conveyors, to scanners, to generators, you must make sure that you have maintained the entire inventory handling equipment before you hit the festive season.
Your warehouse is likely equipped with more inventory than usual. This increases the chance of robbery and theft. Therefore, you must install more security cameras in the warehouse. Also, you must focus on keeping a complete record of your inventory.
Quick tip: You can even think of hiring additional security guards to prevent your business from theft and pilferage.
There are a few marketplaces that place a restriction on the change in the address of the warehouse. If that’s the case with you then figure it out and ensure that the movement takes place before such restrictions are put in.
If you are worried about how to manage your inventory during the peak season, then we are here to assist. With end-to-end fulfillment and logistics- from the product in warding to delivery, ANS Commerce is specialized to cater to all your e-commerce needs. We manage warehouse and supply chain across all channels, including multi-category storage support and return management with JIT flexibility. Request your demo for the warehousing solution.
What can you expect from ANS Commerce?
Managing warehousing amidst the festive season seems like a complex task but the returns of it go beyond the peak months. Prep your warehouse by planning beforehand; bringing in more workforce, renting more storage space, installing optimized technology, and ensuring regular maintenance.
