Are you switching to an online sales model for your store inventory of cell phone accessories or simply new to the reselling industry? If so, you will love these five tips that will give you the confidence you need to sharpen your resale skills. From how to check out the competition to tracking and budgeting for your inventory, we've got you covered!
Start by Discovering What is Working
Before you tweak your process or establish a new one, explore what other resellers are doing that is giving them a competitive edge online. Which products are they promoting? How much are they charging? Which marketing platforms are they utilizing? While this may seem overly time-consuming, the ROI results are definitely worthy of your efforts! Plus, services like Aquate Intelligence and Wiser will do a lot of the work for you.
With Aquate Intelligence, you can learn the ins and outs of your competitors' earnings including their financial earnings, details about successful product launches, company changes, product mapping to match your products to theirs, and much more! Speaking of mapping products, Wiser keeps track of competitor's pricing with an in-depth historical analysis plus minimum advertised price (MAP) monitoring. What's even better is they let you match that competitive pricing in real-time! Thankfully, there are many exciting retail platforms and services like these to explore that give you the added information you need to make your retail store a success.
Research the Hottest Selling Products
Now that you know the competitive layout, it is time to do a little spring cleaning of your current inventory and analyze the fast-changing market of the cell phone industry to see which accessories are going to sell quickly. Do you need to buy products that work with more current mobile devices or add a new trending accessory? In order to keep up with the latest trends, you may already have point-of-sale (POS) reports to review from your company's recent sales that you can compare with your acquired sales data from your competitors. However, tradeshows can provide you with another avenue for finding out what's hot. If in doubt, go old school and send out a survey to your customers, friends, and family. Nothing says you are in-the-know or completely out-of-touch with your audience like a quick conversation about cell phone accessories with your teenage niece or nephew. Please note, if you still have items that work with older cell phone models in your inventory, rest assured there are many people utilizing these models who may need screen protectors, cases, and more.
Use an Automated Tracking System
With your inventory purchased, priced, and posted with professional images and highlighted features on your eCommerce site, you will eventually want to use an automated tracking system to ensure you place orders for more inventory on time and discover the items that are not selling. An automated tracking system exposes over-buying or under-buying habits to better manage your ROI while keeping up with customer demand and making the most of your purchasing budget. Moreover, when you are out-of-stock, your consumers will be forced to begin making purchases from your competitors leaving open the possibility those shoppers will not return to your eCommerce store. Perhaps the biggest impact of an unbalanced inventory ordering system is the significant reduction in your profit margin. Therefore, whether manually or automatically tracking your inventory, be sure to note your purchase, shipment received, customer purchase, and distribution/shipping dates for each item to maximize your profits.
Stay Ready to Ship With Orderly Stocking Techniques
Another benefit of spring cleaning is you have an opportunity to get organized. Customer browsing is only one reason physical stores keep their products neatly displayed. Flush shelves, clear labels, tangible stacking, and regular dusting will go a long way to save you time when fulfilling orders or taking stock of your inventory.
Ship With Ease Using These Apps
One other tricky component to maximizing your inventory process is related to distribution. Slow packaging and shipping may delay your orders too long. While safe-distancing, it helps to have a free app that will bring a distributor to your warehouse or doorstep for pickups. Shyp will pick up your items, pack them, and send them for you at the lowest price provided your location is within the Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and Chicago areas. Prices are low for larger shipments, and the 20-minute pickup service is a must for faster shipping needs. Be sure to also check out AfterShip, which will track your packages while in the care of over 370 carriers globally.
In short, although there is a lot involved in making your eCommerce cell phone accessory business a success, there are many platforms available that will help you stay organized and knowledgable about how your inventory stacks up to the marketplace supply and demand. Best of all, you already have the greatest advantage by buying the top-selling products at the lowest prices available when you order your wholesale items from Mighty Wireless! We take the guesswork out of searching for the hottest sellers because we attend the tradeshows and work with our partners to keep a finger on the pulse of the marketplace so you can feel confident as you browse our online catalog containing thousands of popular accessories that will give you the highest profit margin.
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