Every day, thousands of entrepreneurs and sellers all over the world lose profits due to poor inventory management. However, working with a virtual assistant or a freelancer who has the skills to handle your inventory can improve this situation.
Ways a Virtual Assistant Can Help with Inventory Management
There are a few responsibilities as an Amazon seller that you can delegate to an Amazon Inventory expert:
Daily Recurring Tasks
Making sure that you don’t run out of stocks and checking that they’re always fresh can mean a steady profit. Balancing your stocks is a delicate art that is best assigned to someone with experience and skills. In the long run, it helps to have someone help you with this as it can lessen storage fees.
A virtual assistant or freelancer who understands Amazon inventory management practices can help with recurring tasks and predict demand. This results in keeping your storage organized and at the right levels and minimizes excess inventory.
Product Demands
It can be tricky to predict product demands and plan for seasonal inventory trends. As a business owner, you probably are already juggling several tasks, so hiring a virtual assistant to help you with this important responsibility will allow you to focus on other things while your hired virtual assistant relays updates, help you gather data, and help with making informed decisions about particular trends based on gathered information.
Your virtual assistant can also provide the perspective and inspiration you need for your business to continue growing. They can offer insight on improving your inventory, come up with ad ideas to improve sales. While your virtual assistant works on maintaining your inventory, you can focus on more profitable tasks.
Inventory Resolution
You’ll need to maintain a healthy IPI (Inventory Performance Index) score to avoid storage restrictions if you are fulfilling orders via FBA. The IPI is calculated based on your excess inventory rate, sell-through rate, stranded inventory rate, and in-stock inventory. Amazon sends notifications in your IPI dashboard in Seller Central with tips for reducing storage fees and carrying costs.
Fixing stranded inventory is an important task that can be assigned to your virtual assistant. They can help maintain a healthy IPI by checking for stranded inventory daily and resolving storage issues quickly by following Amazon guidelines.
Maintaining Supplier Relationships
It can be difficult to find the right suppliers, however, a virtual assistant who knows what you need and what your goals are can help you keep track of the details and compare suppliers to find the best fit for your Amazon business. Not only can they help you find the right supplier, they can also help manage and maintain your relationships with suppliers.
Keeping track of supplier name, the main point of contact, addresses, contact information, MAP policy details, payment terms, and other details is essential to supplier relationships management.
You and your virtual assistant can create a system for maintaining all the information so it can be accessible to both of you.
Inventory Management can be time-consuming not only for you, but also for the virtual assistant you’re hiring, so perhaps, some of the tasks can still be automated using inventory management software.
Are you ready to improve your numbers as an Amazon seller? Talk to us to know how Sidekicks agents can help you with your Amazon business. Sidekicks is an on-demand virtual company and we’re eager to help visionaries and entrepreneurs like you. Click here for your free 30-minute consultation.