Integrations are a huge part of what makes a warehouse management system so successful and useful for your business. The ability to house all inventory and data from different software systems in one place keeps your warehouse streamlined and open for change. As an eCommerce merchant, online store platform and marketplace channel integrations are key to selling your products. SkuVault features like Quantity Updates and Quantity Buffers help keep your inventory online accurate and on time.

Update Inventory Quantities in Real-time

When you’re selling on multiple marketplace platforms, including your own website, the last thing you want is for incorrect inventory quantities to display. With SkuVault Quantity Updates, you never have to worry about this again. This feature was designed to satisfy customers with accurate listings no matter where they’re searching for and purchasing your products.

Let’s breakdown how Quantity Updates work. When a sale occurs on one of your connected channels, the quantity of the item needs to change on your other channels to reflect what you have available.

For example, if you sell four out of five copies of the latest Star Wars DVD on eBay, then the updated quantity needs to reflect across the rest of your marketplace listings. Similarly, if you get a new shipment in of a certain SKU, you’re going to want to update your channels to put more quantities available for sale. The “real-time” part of this real-time Quantity Updates feature means that your other channels are updated in real-time throughout the day.

What are the consequences of not using Quantity Updates?

If your quantities aren’t updating in real-time, you’re on the fast track to get hit with out of stocks. If more than one sale comes in before you get around to updating your quantities, then you run the risk of sending customers an ‘Out of Stock’ message that could be easily avoided.

Say the reverse is true, and you just received a shipment that contains five new copies of that Star Wars DVD but you don’t get around to updating your quantities until that night, or the next day. In this example, you’ve missed out on potential sales since you have the product on hand, but your listings have been empty. Out of stocks and undersells lead to all sorts of problems - lower feedback rankings, lower product listing placement in search results, and, ultimately, lower sales. Real-time quantity updates help to greatly mitigate this problem!

SkuVault integrates with a number of eCommerce solutions to help facilitate Quantity Updates, including:

• Channel management systems like ChannelAdvisor, SellerActive, and Zentail
• Online store platforms like BigCommerce, Magento, and WooCommerce
• Shipping platforms like ShipStation and ShipWorks
• Marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, and Walmart

Control Marketplace Listings with Quantity Buffers

SkuVault Quantity Buffers are similar to Quantity Updates in the sense that they both work to keep inventory listings up-to-date and accurate. Quantity Buffers, however, give users a bit more control on how much quantity is allowed to be sold on platforms and for how long.

Buffers are holds you can set for your inventory on your specific marketplace channels.

For example, you may have 500 water bottles available for sale. However, you may not want to list all 500 water bottles as available on Amazon. SkuVault allows you to “buffer” the quantity you want to be listed on your marketplace channel, while still keeping track of the physical quantity in your warehouse.

You can set a max buffer so even if you have 500 water bottles in your warehouse, Amazon will only list that you have 10 available to sell. Once those products sell, SkuVault will always update Amazon (or your preferred marketplace) back to that max buffer number so long as you have the inventory in stock to do so.

SkuVault offers three types of Quantity Buffers:

• ‘Maximum Quantity’ buffer limits the amount of a particular product that you are making available.
• ‘Push Constant Quantity’ in a buffer and always have a certain amount of product available no matter how much you physically have on hand
• 'Low Quantity Cutoff’ buffer puts in place a cutoff in available quantity at a designated point above zero to prevent oversells on fast selling items

Try Using SkuVault Product Statuses 

Another way to make quantity listings more enticing to customers is to utilize SkuVault Product Statuses. 

Product Statuses allow you to categorize your individual inventory items by unique descriptions, details, or helpful notes. If a couple of items are “popular holiday sellers," you can put a “popular holiday seller” label on those specific items. Typing the keywords “popular holiday seller” into the search bar will bring up a product list of all of the items labeled with this status. Do you have a couple of inventory items that you know have a 2-3 day shipping delay? By adding a “2-3 day shipping delay” status to these items, you can quickly review which products have this shipping issue.

Why would you want to buffer the inventory on your marketplaces?

If you have 500 water bottles to sell, why not list all 500 as available? Buffering your inventory creates a sense of urgency to buyers for your products. If Amazon lists your product with only 10 left in stock, this encourages buyers to purchase before the item goes out of stock. Buffers work well during the holiday season when sales run on a limited time and equally for flash sales.