I recently had the opportunity to see RestockPro in action at a customer's warehouse. Because RestockPro offers so many customization options, it’s always interesting to find out how different users manage their local and FBA inventory with our tool.
This particular company (let’s call them Amazing123) is on an Enterprise plan and several employees use RestockPro each day. In this blog post, I’ll share a bit about each user’s role and how RestockPro helps them accomplish their daily tasks in the warehouse.
In a high-growth environment, researching potential products and exploring profit margins are essential. “I use RestockPro to try to determine what we need to buy and whether or not we have a margin on what we want to buy, and how quickly something is selling," said Susan, the buyer at Amazing123. "I also use it to determine if we have overstocked items. I use it to track new items, I use it to track items that we’re watching, I use it for a lot of things. It’s made a big difference in my life and made my job a lot easier.”
Susan uses RestockPro to conduct product research and determine whether a product is worth stocking and how much inventory to order. RestockPro also alerts her when it is time to consider whether to restock an item and suggests the reorder quantity based on sales history.
Amazing123 is constantly adding new products. They also do a lot of kitting, which means that they need to create listings for each group of items. After the buyer determines which products will be added to the company’s inventory, the product creator, Sam, builds out the product information in RestockPro and creates the SKU. He also takes professional product images for the Amazon listing in their in-house imaging studio.
You can add a lot of information when creating a new product in RestockPro. “We notate all the case packing, what the cases look like, what the costs are that are associated with it in our notes, and any other notes…the suppliers, of course, part numbers, cost associated with it," said Sam. "We’ve found that it helps us on a day-to-day basis.” He also includes ancillary costs, such as the reshipping fee and a nominal repackaging/labor fee, when creating a new product.
“The tagging function we also find helps a number of folks through the new product process in terms of a time frame; we can go back and see when the product was added into the system more easily so we can track its performance over short and longer spans of time to see if it’s viable," he said. "Also, tags in terms of perhaps who ordered it, who put it into the system; it offers a great deal of flexibility for us.”
Amazing123 uses the tagging functionality in RestockPro to help track items that are part of various Amazon programs, special discounts, and much more.
When inventory arrives at the warehouse from one of Amazing123’s suppliers, the receiver checks it in with RestockPro. Amazing123 previously conducted this process by manually entering the information, but now the receiving team can simply scan each UPC to mark the item as received in RestockPro.
Bill, who receives shipments, said, “I receive, I build kits, I print production orders. I like RestockPro because it’s all right there in one place and makes it really easy to do everything that I need to do.”
Amazing123 does a lot of kitting, so they have a team member, Eric, who uses RestockPro throughout the entire process, especially in changing allocations. "When things change on the product on the fly, I’m able to break my kits and rebuild them by going back into the local inventory. That’s really improved from my old job of using spreadsheets to figure out multiple bits and multiple parts that go into them. It’s made my job a million times easier."
Eric also uses it for product research. "I use it to look back on the history in the product section to see how we’ve ordered the product, the amount we’ve received in, any problems we have. I’m able to pull the POs to see kits and be able to find any issues that might be coming up. I basically use [RestockPro] for everything," he said. "It’s my first stop any time I go to look into any type of issue or see product that’s on its way to us or on its way to Amazon, that’s the first stop. It used to be Seller Central or multiple spreadsheets, and now I just look at RestockPro.”
It used to be Seller Central or multiple spreadsheets, and now I just look at RestockPro.”
RestockPro makes it easy to print custom labels and stickers. In the warehouse, the stickering feature is used to customize and print labels with all of the information needed. The shipping team is able to quickly track inventory and shipments with RestockPro, ensuring that their FBA shipments are received as expected.
The company’s owner, James, also uses RestockPro to aid in making important decisions for Amazing123. He pays special attention to Restock Suggestions. "There’s an enormous amount of information on each and every SKU that we sell, so I can just glance at a particular item that we’re selling, and I can see so much information, what we’ve sold in the last 30 days, 7 days, the margins," he said. "It does take a little work to input all of your costs, but once it’s set, it’s great for making buying decisions, or pricing decisions, so I highly recommend RestockPro. And I know that other people in our organization use it for many other things, receiving, ordering, purchasing, shipments, the list goes on.”
RestockPro is useful for many team members at Amazing123, but the consensus is that the main benefit is having everything they need in one place. As Eric pointed out, “You could try to create all of these processes, but it would probably take you five to six years. RestockPro allows you to grow faster.”
You could try to create all of these processes, but it would probably take you five to six years. RestockPro allows you to grow faster.”
By helping companies scale their FBA inventory management and restocking decisions, RestockPro accelerates their growth.
Did you know that you can choose the settings for each RestockPro user at your organization? This allows you to control who sees what information in your company’s account.