If your sales are dropping or won’t increase no matter how much marketing you do, don’t automatically assume that demand is weak or that your e-commerce website needs a complete overhaul. Your problem could be poor customer satisfaction.
In the age of the Internet and social media, word gets around pretty fast. Dissatisfied customers are more likely to speak out online than those with satisfactory experiences. Unfortunately, negative emotions trump positive feelings in its ability to motivate people to publicly speak their mind. This hurts your reputation and discourages people from becoming customers.
Customer satisfaction, whether good or bad, is heavily influenced by your inventory and warehouse management. Here is how:
It Affects Timely and Accurate Fulfilment
Timely and accurate order fulfilment has a very strong impact on customer satisfaction. Their money is committed to the purchase and their expectations are set. When the order arrives but is inaccurate because the wrong goods were sent, or there were too few items, the customer is let down. The store has their money but they don’t have what they paid for. Then begins the trauma of their contacting customer service to get things straightened out. Hopefully, the customer service people are top-notch. Almost as bad, is a shipment that takes too long. Their expectation of a specific arrival date hasn’t been met, and unmet expectations create instant dissatisfaction.
Timely and accurate order fulfilment requires that you know where your product is in your warehouse. It also requires having the means in place to rapidly and accurately pick, pack, and ship it to the customer. In other words, you need top-notch inventory and warehouse management.
It Affects Your Product Availability
If product is unavailable because it is out of stock, then many customers will find it elsewhere with a competing store. These are lost sales and possibly lost customers. Habit may bring some of the repeat customers back. However, repeated experience with out-of-stock items will teach them to stay with competitors who don’t have this problem. Consistently losing repeat customers in this way is costly to business.
Avoiding stock-outs requires that you have precise inventory counts and good records that allow you to make accurate demand projections. Demand projections prevent you from ordering too little or too much stock, and good inventory management makes this possible.
For more information on inventory and warehouse management, and for inquiries on our inventory and warehouse management software, contact us.
