In the world of commerce, it’s not unusual to find yourself juggling more and more props. The more your business grows, the more complex your inventory is likely to be, which also goes for the management of it. Having the ability to automatically connect inventory data between one or more storage locations and your sales platforms can take a lot of busy work off your hands and help you juggle essential tasks more efficiently.
What is inventory syncing?
Inventory synchronization, or inventory sync, is a process of managing inventory across multiple sales channels or storage locations. It involves continuously updating inventory levels to ensure that the information presented across all platforms is accurate and consistent. This is particularly important for businesses selling products through various channels such as physical stores, online marketplaces, e-commerce websites, and social media platforms.
How is inventory syncing important to your business?
The first obvious advantage is that it saves you precious time, as manually updating inventory levels across different systems can be quite a time-consuming chore. Next, automating the communication of inventory data between different channels ensures a better representation of your available stock for prospective clients.
It also helps maintain better quality across your inventory data, as syncing stock details significantly reduces the risk of typos, accidental duplicate counts of the same item, or other similar errors. Last, but not least, keeping track of your stock levels allows you to work with automatic reorder points, so that you more easily steer clear of stockouts.
What benefits can you unlock with WooCommerce inventory syncing?
Holding roughly a quarter share of the market among online stores, WooCommerce — an open-source WordPress plugin that helps businesses sell both physical and digital products — is one of the most appreciated e-commerce platforms currently available. With no limit on the number of products you can have on your sales platform, WooCommerce can be a very helpful tool for businesses looking to scale online sales. Some of the benefits of WooCommerce inventory management include:
- The platform’s user-friendly interface and extensive plugin ecosystem make it easy to streamline operations with your inventory management solution.
- You can easily avoid discrepancies between your store and your stock record.
- Avoid stockouts to keep good customer relations and high client satisfaction.
- Syncing sales data and stock levels gives you valuable insights into how to avoid overstocking.
How can you sync inventory with WooCommerce?
There are several ways you could choose to coordinate the data between your online sales and your stock details:
- Manual WooCommerce inventory sync — The most bare-bones approach is to manually update your inventory with each new order that is processed. However, once your business lifts off and you reach a certain level of growth, this process becomes very time-consuming and the risk of manual data entry error increases, which carries further risks down the line. What’s more, manual updates wouldn’t facilitate automatic integration with some external solutions for shipment, payment processing, or other features.
- Inventory management software — Integrating with a stock management solution can also be a way of setting up your WooCommerce inventory sync. They can, however, be more complex than that and also assist you with syncing your sales and inventory data for other sales platforms, as well.
- Sync a point-of-sale solution (internal or external) — Some point-of-sale (POS) solutions offer advanced features that include inventory synchronization, tracking, and low-stock alert notifications. There are external POS options that can be synced with WooCommerce and be a third party in your sales process. Alternatively, some options can be integrated and be accessible directly from the WooCommerce dashboard.
WooCommerce QuickBooks Online inventory sync
With this accounting software package integration, you can keep your data in proper order across both tools, including real-time inventory syncing, automatic invoice generation, and customer data synchronization. It offers both online and local options, each of which features a different set of functionalities.
WooCommerce Xero inventory sync
Online accounting software solution Xero can be integrated with WooCommerce directly or through third-party services. This integration facilitates automatic invoices for e-commerce sales and can accommodate varying functionalities, from automatic purchase order generation to customer order management and other business accounting functions.
WooCommerce inventory sync with Katana
The WooCommerce design tends to fit dropshippers best. However, the plugin is open-source, which means that companies operating under a different model can use third-party integrations that address their specific needs outside of what WooCommerce itself can offer directly.
For product-based businesses, integrating WooCommerce with Katana equips them with everything necessary to manage their inventory, orders, production, and more. Katana makes it easy to:
- Sync inventory between WooCommerce and Katana to maintain optimal stocking across all your inventory locations
- Ensure optimal stock levels and complete inventory control with safety stock levels and reorder points
- Simplify WooCommerce order management by automating tedious tasks and minimize human-error
Ask for a demo to see how Katana can tackle your specific problems and streamline your WooCommerce inventory sync.
WooCommerce inventory sync FAQs
Can I sync inventory in WooCommerce?
Yes! There are several ways to set up WooCommerce inventory sync, which you should choose depending on the approach you have to your business, as well as what its needs and possibilities are.
Does WooCommerce come with an inventory management system?
WooCommerce does allow you to track and manage your inventory, but you can only use it to keep track of finished products. If your business also needs raw materials tracking, production planning, or other more advanced inventory management features, consider managing your WooCommerce inventory with Katana.
Can I update my stock in WooCommerce?
Yes! Depending on the complexity of the update, methods can vary from manual data entry for individual items to bulk editing or importing a spreadsheet with the new data (usually a sizable update that would take a very long time to edit manually).
Is Shopify better than WooCommerce?
That really depends on what specific needs and requirements you have for your online shop. You may also consider between WooCommerce and BigCommerce. All three are popular for good reason, and when comparing them, you might end up wanting to use them all. The good news is that Katana allows you to easily integrate all three and sync your inventory across all platforms with no extra effort from your side.
