Certainly the most obvious choice for retailers to keep track of their inventory and transportation operations is using a tms transportation management system. But what is it? While it may be buried under jargon that would make a lawyer blush, it is quite the simple idea to grasp once you remove the word soup from the definition.
TMS Transportation Management System
TMS Transportation Management System, or TMS for short, is a platform with the sole purpose of helping manage the shipping process. There are currently over 17,300 warehouses all over the United States and because of that, supply chain management and inventory management is absolutely necessary to keep a company from losing its inventory because of bad management.
Transportation management systems provide tools that help manage goods being transferred like transit time or carrier mix. Why send products to a location with a carrier that costs more than the goods will make you?
Do you need to track freight? Transportation management systems has you covered there, too. GPS is commonplace and you can even put systems in place to alert you when a delay has been made from the employee’s themselves or acts of Mother Nature.
Expanding further on inventory management software–if you are scratching your head, trying to figure out how many invoices to send out, transportation management systems has you covered there as well. Not to mention, you would be on top if consumers knew just how much inventory you had for a particular product. On 33 percent of retailers actually release that kind of data. It really is an all-in-one tool that streamlines business decisions nearly to a one-two click and you are done.
Do not make the mistake of foregoing inventory management. Inventory shrinkage can cost you a serious penny, especially if you own a small business when every amount of income made matters the most. In fact, retailers get hit with a 1.33 percent reduction in their sales if they suffered from inventory shrinkage. But what is it?
Inventory shrinkage is when your inventory is smaller than what it is supposed to be. Your list might say you are supposed to end up with 100 boxes of razors, but your inventory is only reading 90. Inventory shrinkage can involve damaged goods, simply lost and even stolen.
