Have you ever thought about what happens after you send a message telling customers that the
items they ordered are out of stock?
Only one out of those five customers will forgive you for your poor customer service, and out of
the remaining, 80% would jump on your competitor.
And, we are sure that you don’t want that.
Overselling is a very common problem retailer face while selling on multi-channel platforms. It’s
a situation where retailers sell more than they actually have.
As a Counterpoint omnichannel retailer where you have access to such a brilliant retail
management system, it’s important for you to understand what’s leading you to oversell items
and how you can prevent it.
Why are you overselling?
There can be multiple reasons why you aren’t able to get hold of your stock numbers, including-
1. Not updating your stocks frequently
It happens to be one of the major reasons why retailers oversell.
When you manually handle your stocks, it becomes impossible to have real-time inventory
information.
Retailers have to be on their toes to update stock and keep track of the items coming in and
flowing out.
This process is not time-efficient and is also prone to human errors. The discrepancy between
actual and recorded stock lead to overselling items.
2. Not syncing your inventory with e-commerce channels
While selling on multiple platforms, it’s important to sync your online store with your
Counterpoint POS.
And, when you don’t do this, there are chances that your customer might order a product that’s
not available.
This situation becomes frequent when you have a sudden spike in the number of customers,
and keeping real-time stock updates becomes impossible.
3. Not getting hold of your inventory deadlines
So, while you manage all your stock alone, there will be times you forget that something was
due to the order or the delivery, you asked for hasn’t still arrived.
You should be quick to understand that your sourcing methods aren’t very efficient or time-
savvy.
And, once things go wrong at the backend, it will definitely show its effect on customers pilling
up their orders on your online store.
How can you prevent overselling?
At some point, every retailer has been guilty of overselling, and that’s okay. These are some of
the strategies that could help your omnichannel business sell more but not oversell-
1. Forecast your product’s demand accurately
Many times retailers fall into overselling because they haven’t managed the demand for their
product well. A lot of things go into predicting accurate numbers but once you figure that out,
overselling would be a less-known problem for your business.
Forecasting your product’s demand depends on the following factors-
- The overall economic condition
- Historical demand trends of your product vs. the current demand
- Upcoming promotional discounts
- Guaranteed sales coming from subscription
These items are enough to give you insights into the future demand for the product. You can
calculate the tentative sell-through rate for your product and avoid overselling at all.
2. Keep a separate product reserve
There will be situations when you will be awestruck with the number of orders pouring in that
you didn’t estimate to come.
So, here keeping an inventory reserve can do wonders.
These will be your last resort if you have oversold.
And, you know, if you have reached this level, it’s time to fill up your stocks.
3. Establish a POS integration system
Having a robust automated inventory management system is so important to managing your
multichannel business.
Even though your Counterpoint POS offers you all crucial information and makes retail sales as
smooth as possible. However, manually handling different e-commerce channels isn’t feasible
or fast.
Thus, a POS e-commerce integration system is extremely important.
The software automates all manual workflow from updating stocks to downloading web orders in
real-time.
If you are thinking of setting up an e-commerce integration system with similar features on your
Counterpoint POS, Octopus can be your ultimate option.
The Octopus plugin is a cloud-based middleware that allows POS to integrate with various e-
commerce channels, including Amazon, eBay, Google Local Inventory, Google Shopping,
Walmart, etc.
Retailers can connect not just one POS but multiple POS under the same banner, like the
Counterpoint.
Level up your online game today with Octopus Bridge POS eCommerce integration software.
