Inventory management is not something that can be done manually. It involves a lot of planning and execution. You need software to make it easier for you. In this article, we will tell you about the best free inventory management software for ecommerce purposes as well as for small businesses.
Not everybody likes to shop online but, for those that do, it has been proven to be convenient, cost effective and time saving. Online business is growing at a rapid pace and many entrepreneurs are seeking ways of profiting from it in one way or another. Among others, inventory management plays a central role in the success of an online business. Will you become an online retailer? If you are just starting out, you might be tempted to look for the best ecommerce inventory management software. As you may know, this type of software can help any online business owner keep track of stock availability and manage their inventory easily and efficiently.
There are plenty of inventory management solutions for e-commerce. When it comes to this type of software, the provider’s services depend on the cost you want to pay and the functionality you expect to receive. Keep reading this article to find out what are the best solutions you can use for managing your inventory.
Inventory management software is a system that helps you to maintain a record of the items you have. A better inventory management system allows you to know accurately how much stock is available and how many items have been sold. This eliminates the need to manually count your stock, which in turn saves you time and money.
What is Inventory Management Software?
Inventory management is often a time-consuming and tedious process for many business owners. However, a software tool with the right features can help you to deal with some of the headaches and stress that inventory management can bring.
Whether you’re running an ecommerce website, a brick and mortar store, or a supermarket, you’re always going to need a way to keep track of your inventory. These tools are how you get an insight into every aspect of your products. What’s more, tracking the way that your inventory moves can also give you a better insight into your customers and what they want from your business too.
Inventory management software can come with a lot of common features, including:
- Barcode scanners: To track and manage your products
- Inventory optimization: To ensure that you always have the right amount of each product available for your customers
- Stock notifications: Alerts that warn you when you’re over or under-stocking on a specific item according to defined thresholds.
- Multi-location management: The option to manage a range of warehouses and point of sale systems at once.
- Material grouping: Collect inventory into predefined categories so you can measure which products are most in demand.
- Report generation: View a history of your sales, track your most popular product, and manage the items in your inventory that don’t reach expected sales levels
- Purchase order records: Keep track of the items that you’re stocking, and where you’re getting those products from.
Ultimately, inventory management tools will allow you to track the goods across your business supply chain, so you can track everything from your sales orders, to your unique business needs. Some software solutions even come with integrations that connect to your offline barcoding strategy, your accounting system, and more.
Seller Cloud
SellerCloud boasts a strong set of features, as it’s one of the suites we were talking about above. With scheduled listings, shipment handling, inventory tracking, customer feedback management and product catalog building, you receive a little bit more than a regular inventory management app. The main reason we like Seller Cloud so much is because of its multitude of integrations. For example, you can connect with channels like Amazon and eBay, along with vendors, shopping carts, repricers, payment gateways and more.
Since we’re mainly focusing on inventory management for this article, let’s take a look at some of the core features. To start, you can keep your inventory in-sync throughout all platforms, and the system allows for multi-warehouse management solutions. There’s a tool for reserving certain inventory for deals and channels, while all vendor feeds are updated with changes with your inventory. Low stock alerts are sent to you, just in case you’d like to send out a new order. Finally, inventory tracking is packaged in for both you and the customer.
Pricing
The inventory management and ERP software from Seller Cloud depends on how much you sell. You’ll need to let the company know how many orders you get to get an accurate quote. You’ll also need to decide whether you want a dedicated server, premium support, and so on. Monthly minimum cost is usually around $1000.
Pros
- Simple and convenient supply chain management
- Sync all of your orders and inventory fast
- No need to maintain separate connections with suppliers
- Reorder features for quick and easy selling
- Convenient tools
- Pricing is straightforward and transparent
Cons
- Needs a lot of updates on a regular basis
- Can be a bit overwhelming for beginners
- Expensive for some
Inventory Management Software for Ecommerce: Channel Advisor
Channel Advisor is yet another ecommerce suite filled with products for bringing in new customers, managing inventory, handling social commerce and expanding your product intelligence. The Channel Advisor software assists companies that would like to get products posted all over the internet, without adding too much work into the process. For example, Channel Advisor has a digital marketing “channel,” in which all of your products are distributed on places like Google. Bing, Yahoo Facebook.
The system then moves onto marketplaces. So, for example, it would ensure that all of your items are stocked and ready to sell on sites like Amazon, Walmart, Sears and eBay. After that, Channel Advisor has features for gaining insights and understanding whether people are buying certain products online or offline. This product data is turned into insights for better establishing how you’re going to improve your conversions over time. Once you take a look at it, most of the products inside the suite are solely dedicated to your inventory, making it one of the top choices out there.
Pricing
The pricing for the Channel Advisor software depends on performance. If your sales dip, then the amount you spend will fall too. This makes it easier to keep on top of order fulfilment for your retail business without running out of cash too quickly. There are multiple easy reorder points and tools to help you keep things running smoothly.
Pros
- Good customer experience with plenty of support
- Help with orders across multiple marketplaces
- System is reliable and works well
- Very customizable interface that suits you
- Pricing is based on your cash flow
- Convenient layout
Cons
- Some issues with charging
- Not always reliable with data reports
Inventory Management Software for Ecommerce: nChannel
nChannel is a cloud-based multichannel platform that connects your sales channels with your fulfillment channels. It integrates front-end sales channels like Shopify, Magento, Bigcommerce, Amazon, and eBay with your back-end systems such as NetSuite, MS Dynamics GP, NAV, and RMS. Through integration of your systems, nChannel centralizes inventory, order, and product information management into one place.
This inventory management software ensures you don’t oversell by updating inventory levels in real-time across all your sales channels as orders are placed. It also automatically sends online order information back to your fulfillment system to ensure your orders are fulfilled quickly and accurately. Overall, these components help you create a better customer experience. Customers will know when inventory is available and the status of their order. If you’re serious about multichannel, then nChannel helps you overcome those complexities.
Pricing
nChannel is an excellent pick for anyone who wants to manage their inventory from a mobile device, or website. With order tracking features and lots of high-volume data and information, it’s easier to plan a successful business, with fifo and lifo accounting. Pricing starts at around $400 per month, with no free version. There’s also no free trial.
Pros
- Convenient solutions for companies with lots of data
- Various integration options
- Very customizable interface
- Lots of support for tracking orders
- Straightforward user interface
Cons
- No free trial
- Integrations are sometimes complicated
Fishbowl
Fishbowl is the best inventory management software for growing brands and enterprise customers. It seamlessly integrates with Quickbooks for better inventory management.
This software is fully-geared towards inventory automation. The work order system enables users to create and share work orders for a variety of tasks.
When talking about the setup process, Fishbowl offers a variety of training and support resources including starting-up videos, online tutorials, in-house experts, and more.
Features
- Multi-channel inventory syncing
- Integrations for WooCommerce, Shopify, Amazon, and more
- Inventory costing
- Inventory tracking
- Forecasting
- Centralized inventory database
- Stock history reporting
- Data exporting/importing
- Multi-warehouse routing
- Barcode support
- 3PL inventory management
- WYSIWYG editor
- Shipment integration
Price
Fishbowl offers a good price based on the number of inventory-focused features it offers.
You’ll pay $4,395 for lifetime permanent ownership of the software. You’ll only need to pay again if you want to continue receiving support and updates after the first year.
QuickBooks Commerce — Best Inventory Management Software for Most
QuickBooks Commerce
Best for Most
Interested in a better way to manage products, customers, orders, and everything in between? QuickBooks Commerce is an all-in-one inventory management and B2B ecommerce platform that comes with automated stock adjustments, a mobile app, support for multiple currencies, zonal shipping rates, and more.>> Get 14 Days Free!
QuickBooks Commerce is an all-inclusive business management solution that encompasses order management, inventory management, and bookkeeping in one intuitive platform. So, it’s much more than just inventory management.
With QuickBooks Commerce, it’s easy to monitor product and material levels as you sell, manufacture, and restock goods across all of your locations and warehouses.
But it also syncs with QuickBooks Online to automatically track income and expenses and goods change hands.
So, you can say goodbye to double data entry and costly human mistakes since QuickBooks automates the bookkeeping process for you.
You can also easily automate inventory management and simplify your fulfillment processes at every step of the way from procurement and manufacturing to shipping products out the door.
One of the most significant reasons we love QuickBooks Commerce is because it consolidates orders across all of your sales channels. Even if you sell on your website, Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Facebook, and in-person at your retail store, you can manage inventory across all of them in one place with ease.
To take that one step further, you can use QuickBooks Commerce to identify your highest-performing products for each channel to hone in your marketing and sales strategies on a per-channel basis.
You can even list your products to all of your sales channels in a few clicks, rather than listing them all manually.
You can also easily manage inventory lists and stock at each warehouse or physical location. Each inventory record includes details about cost, stock history, product variants, and MAC (moving cost average) so everyone gets a clear picture without having to search for the info they need.
As a new QuickBooks Commerce user, you get free onboarding assistance and free 24/7 tech support if anything comes up along the way.
If you’re new to QuickBooks entirely, you can get a special introductory offer of QuickBooks Commerce + QuickBooks Online for just $50 per month for the first three months. This special deal saves you 50% while you get your bearings and decide if it’s a good fit for you and your business.
The one big thing that’s not so great about QuickBooks Commerce is that you can only use it in conjunction with QuickBooks Online. So, you’ll have to sign up for that if you aren’t already using it.
QuickBooks Online plans include:
- Essentials — $50 per month
- Plus — $80 per month
- Advanced — $180 per month
However, Intuit is always running deals on signing up for QuickBooks Online. Right now, you can get 50% off your first three months, no contract required.
How We Evaluated Inventory Management Software
We looked at inventory-first programs as opposed to POS programs with inventory. We examined two dozen software services and narrowed our list down to systems that are easy to use and have pricing plans suited for SMBs. We also looked at important features (such as real-time and multilocation tracking), the ability to do mobile inventory counts and granular inventory, and the types of reports it can deliver (like COGS and costing reports).
We also considered how well it works in industries other than retail, whether it handles multiple warehouses or sales channels, what integrations it allows, and how easy it is to get help. We did not consider enterprise-level systems.
Conclusion
Inventory management is one of the most important functions involved in running an ecommerce business. Perhaps the most important one, and yet one of the most overlooked. The ramifications for letting your inventory slip through the cracks can be serious and can be felt throughout the business.
Choosing the best eCommerce inventory management software for your small business can be a major challenge. There are so many different options available, but you need to find and choose the one that will be able to provide you with the best results and most efficient business management experience.