How to Organise Your Inventory When You Have Multiple Remote Business Locations

Inventory management is a key aspect of running a product-based business, whether it’s eCommerce or retail. With effective inventory management, you can keep your stock organised and improve space efficiency in your warehouse.

Operating a business in New York for example, can make inventory management more difficult than in other areas of the country. There is such limited space, and the available NYC office trailer rental space can be very expensive to purchase or rent. 

What can make things even more complicated is when you store your inventory across multiple locations, whether due to availability issues or because you supply products to a wide customer base. There are steps you can take, however, to make inventory management smooth and simple, even if you have several storage locations.

We’ve covered some top tips for organising your inventory and optimising warehouse productivity below.

Use Inventory Management Software

Inventory management software enables you to streamline your inventory storage and order fulfilment processes, even if you have several different warehouse locations. Such software enables you to check your stock levels so you can order more products if you’re running out and see which items aren’t selling as well.

With inventory management software, your warehouse staff will be able to find products more easily and see which products are available in other storage locations if they can’t find the right item to fulfil customer orders.

Consider investing in a high-quality inventory management software that provides a central platform from which you can manage stock in every one of your locations at once. Centralised inventory management also ensures efficiency and consistency across your entire business.

Perform Regular Audits

Conduct regular audits of your warehouses to count stock levels and check whether you need to order more of certain items if your customers are buying them frequently. To make the auditing process simpler and less stressful, audit each warehouse location one at a time, instead of all at once.

If you have the budget, consider outsourcing your warehouse audits to a third-party company that can oversee the entire process for you. They will be able to identify which products are the most popular and which aren’t selling, and they will also provide top tips for inventory management and storage for your business.

You may want to invest in auditing software if you choose to perform your warehouse audits by yourself. This type of software will make it easy to monitor stock levels, log and track issues, and implement new warehouse management processes, if needed.

Cross-train Your Employees

Cross Training is essential when you have more than one inventory storage location. Teaching your employees how to perform a range of different tasks to suit each warehouse enables them to work efficiently in all of your locations.

In turn, you can allocate staff and resources appropriately for maximum operational efficiency within your business. You can also cover staff sickness or holidays more easily if your staff know how to perform a wide variety of roles.