One way to grow your e-commerce business is to be more efficient, particularly with your supply chain. After all, when your supply chain is managed well and moves at a productive pace, you can turn inventory more quickly and set your business up for long-term growth.
So how do you make sure all parts are functioning optimally? We’ve identified four key ways to speed up your supply chain so you can increase efficiency and grow your business:
1. Build Relationships With Your Suppliers
First and foremost, you should build a relationship with your suppliers. That means communicating with them on a regular basis and having a mutual understanding of each other’s lead times and needs.
For example, run some numbers to get a sense for your sales cycles and sales velocity — this will tell you how much inventory, at a minimum, you need at a given time plus when and how much to reorder. Sharing this information with your supplier now will save time when you actually need to place an order. In addition, your suppliers can use this information to work you into their production schedule so you never have to worry about surprises or delays.
2. Take Advantage of Fulfillment Benefits
Speeding up order fulfillment is another way to turn inventory more quickly and maximize your supply chain. So if you sell on Amazon, for example, opt for their FBA program so you can take advantage of Amazon’s fulfillment efficiencies and ultimately offer your customers a better shopping experience.
3. Sell on Multiple Marketplaces
Spreading your inventory across multiple marketplaces increases your chances of selling more — and more quickly. And it doesn’t have to involve a ton of extra work. In fact, ChannelAdvisor lets you manage your cross-channel activity with ease. The ChannelAdvisor platform provides actionable analytics and streamlines everything from digital marketing to repricing to order fulfillment and operations, helping sellers improve online performance and competitiveness on marketplaces.
4. Get Paid More Often
When you have daily access to your e-commerce income, the possibilities for growth are seemingly endless. You can buy more inventory, invest in big opportunities, and cover unexpected expenses that may arise. And you could pay your suppliers early and more often, which would help strengthen your relationship with them and speed the supply chain. So how can you actually do all of this when you’re currently experiencing a two-week delay in income payments? The solution is Payability, a financing company for marketplace sellers that gives you daily access to your income.
Payability offers a variety of solutions to help you maximize cash flow. One option is Instant Advance. With Instant Advance, Payability buys a certain amount of your future receivables at a discount, giving you a large lump sum of cash that you can use for inventory or other large investments. With Instant Advance, you could get up to $250,000 today — the actual amount depends on your account health and sales performance, not your credit score. In fact, Payability doesn’t even pull your credit.
If you’re looking to supplement this large deposit with daily payments, Payability offers Instant Access, which pays you your e-commerce income one business day after making a sale (or sooner if you use the Payability Seller Card, which can be used anywhere Visa is accepted).
To learn more about Payability and the 2,500+ marketplace sellers that have achieved record growth from Instant Advance and Instant Access, visit go.payability.com/ChannelAdvisor to receive a $250 sign on-bonus and discounted fees.
Blog post by Victoria Sullivan, marketing manager at Payability
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Victoria Sullivan has over eight years of social media, copywriting and marketing experience. Prior to joining the Payability team, Victoria developed social media content and strategies for top technology brands such as Skype and Samsung. She holds a degree in Advertising from Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. She can often be found in a yoga class or working on her fashion blog.
