Streamline Dropship Inventory Management: Best Practices and Solution

It is known to all dropshippers that you don’t need to hold any inventory for your dropshipping business, which can save you time on dropship inventory management. However, you may have to monitor the inventory dynamics of your suppliers and adjust your store product stock status and numbers accordingly. in case issues such as non-timely inventory tracking, inaccurate product stock details and delivery failures may cause your supply-side management disruptions.

To successfully manage your dropship inventory, read the following content to learn what you can benefit from proper dropship inventory management and the best practices and apps for it.

Benefits of Dropship Inventory Management

Inventory management plays a crucial role in the success of a dropshipping business. Here are some benefits of proper dropshipping inventory management:

More Control over Supply Chain

By monitoring the inventory levels of your shelf items on your supplier’s side, you can get the latest stock updates from your suppliers. Besides, you can get a good idea of how many suppliers you need to pick as your backup ones in case your default supplier is out of stock or puts items offline.

Enhanced Customer Satisfaction

When you provide up-to-date product information including inventory details, you can consistently fulfill customer orders in a timely manner, which will make your customers happy with dealing with you. This helps you build customer loyalty and enhance customer buying experience.

Strategic Planning and Forecasting

Dropshipping inventory management provides valuable data that can be used for inventory planning and forecasting. By analyzing historical sales data, customer demand, and inventory turnover rates, you can make informed decisions about inventory.

For instance, for high-demand items, you can increase stock levels to prevent stockouts, while also ensuring that your suppliers can meet the increased demand. Conversely, for underperforming items, you can reduce their online stock or temporarily remove them from your offerings.

Dropship Inventory Management Best Practices

Now that you know the perks of managing dropship inventory, you can learn the best practices that you may want to know and follow.

Track Inventory in Real Time

Keeping an eye on inventory in real time helps you avoid overselling products and allows you to make informed decisions about restocking. You can implement a robust dropship inventory tracking system that provides real-time visibility into stock levels or take advantage of a dropshipping inventory management tool to give you peace of mind in managing inventory while dropshipping.

Stay Connected with Multiple Suppliers

Sometimes, your main supplier may not have enough inventory for your customers' needs. In this situation, you can choose some backup suppliers in case of stockouts. For example, you can consider maintaining a safety stock level for your best-selling or high-demand products. It provides a safety net to prevent stockouts during peak periods.

Plus, you can have more negotiation power. When you are able to source products from several suppliers who can meet your standard, you can take the initiative to choose the one that provides lower prices and better quality.

Monitor Sales and Inventory Performance

In your daily business operations, you can regularly analyze sales patterns, inventory turnover rates, and other key factors to identify trends and make data-driven decisions. This helps you optimize your inventory levels, identify slow-moving products, and capitalize on popular ones.

Automate Your Management Workflow

Automating dropshipping inventory management can help streamline your operations and save time. Here are some steps that you can automate during your dropshipping inventory management:

• Integrate with Suppliers: Connect your stores with your suppliers' systems or platforms. This integration allows you to achieve real-time syncing of inventory levels and other relevant information.
• Use Inventory Management Software:  Inventory management software or tools specifically designed for dropshipping like DSers are also good options. These tools can help you centralize and automate inventory management tasks.
• Use Sales Forecasting Tools: Utilize sales forecasting tools to predict demand and adjust your inventory levels accordingly. This can help prevent online stockouts or overstocking, optimizing your inventory management.

DSers' Solution to Streamlining Dropship Inventory Management

As one of the best practices, automating your dropship inventory could be one thing that you may prioritize because it can significantly improve your inventory management efficiency. That is where DSers can play a role.

DSers is one of the top-rated Shopify apps and the AliExpress official partner as a dropshipping tool. With this app included in your daily dropshipping routine, you can not only streamline your order management efficiency but also access good inventory management tools. Let’s have a close look.

Set A Backup Supplier for Your Product Offers

As mentioned earlier in this article, you have known the importance of developing a backup supplier for your hot-selling items. With DSers, you are able to provide a second supplier for the same product variant. This ensures that you can stock enough quantities for hot items or high-demand items.

Here are steps that you can follow to finish the setting:

Step 1:  Go to the My Products page.

Step 2: Click the Mapping button to access the Mapping card and click the Basic tab.

Step 3: Import your desired AliExpress URL in the Input box and click Import.

Step 4: Set a second supplier for your product.

Automatically Update Product Inventory from AliExpress

You understand that your product's real inventory will change depending on your supplier’s product inventory and you are not able to check their changes all the time. For this case, you can use the DSers Inventory Automatic Update feature to track and synchronize the supplier’s inventory.

You just need to go to Settings > Synchronization and access the Automatic Inventory Update part and then follow this guide to complete the steps.

Conclusion

Now, you have learned the benefits of dropshipping inventory management, its best practices and one best app for effective dropship inventory management. You can follow the parts that you have the ability to do and check how they can affect your inventory management efficiency and business performance. Check more resources on our DSers blog.