EDI 846 Inventory Advice
Just writing this gives me chills.
If you are running marketplace or dropship, inventory management is your biggest worry. Why?
Items not updating properly means you could be overselling or underselling. The first is a cardinal sin of bad experience - for acquisition and not being able to fulfill. The latter is a bad experience because your assortment is off.
All sorts of things could go wrong with your inventory - like what?
The partner may not have inventory feeds setup on a regular schedule.
The software accepting the file could be down, and the partner may not retry.
There are SKUs in your catalog which did not receive updates. This is particularly hard to diagnose at times.
There could be the wrong SKUs in the file - this is almost worse. Your count of SKUs is correct, but it doesn't match your planned assortment.
The inventory values you are receiving are unexpected! Sometimes a partner is sending zero when these are planned to be key items in your assortment.
Your partner is sending UPC, but you are trying to match to a different type of SKU.
If you have more than a few partners, is there any wonder why people need help managing this?
There were a lot of “yes, and!” comments on my original post. Folks really felt this, and had more to add on.
Ozzie Stone said “Real time API feed inventory is the gold standard. BUT, outside of Amazon & Walmart, most retailers are not equipped to handle the API feed. OFTEN, vendor’s ERP system is too outdated to properly facilitate a direct API link. Upgrading to a cloud based ERP takes millions $$$$. PLUS, you need a full time API programmer to maintain the link. Amazon & Walmart are constantly moving targets that change the requirements for the feed. It’s never one and done.”
Mendy Ezagui proposed “a software, or set of processes, for inventory audits. Identifying anomalies and outliers. Sometimes that's as simple as a weekly export and then looking for specific predefined identifiers.”
Zack Rosen said “Most modern technology companies don't have the concept of a providing an inventory ledger. This ultimately leads to a blind stock override of an absolute number, with zero visibility into where that number came from, which is brought up in your point 5. However, most SMB sellers are not properly educated in delta tracking inventory and think that whatever my 3PL says is in stock must be correct so they expect stock to sync as frequently as possible. The best way to solve this is to provide the tools necessary for sellers to view a timeline of events that occurred that put stock to a certain quantity and work with fulfillment partners that can provide a full view of stock movements with accurate scheduled stock counts. Use an 846 as an initial inventory value and nothing more, if you think Real Time Stock is syncing an 846 every 10 minutes you're doing it wrong…There is also a common misconception between what "stock" and "available" actually means and how that plays out in an omnichannel world, but that's for another discussion.”
This is such a common pain point for so many businesses, big and small. What’s working for you?
