Multichannel Inventory Management for Jewelry eCommerce
Ever since the pandemic, eCommerce sales have been consistently increasing, a trend that shows no signs of slowing down any time soon. Jewelry sales, in particular, have been growing steadily (31.1% since 2019 and almost 20% since January of 2021 alone). Even by the end of 2025, they are still expected to grow at about 4% from year to year.
It is of no surprise, then, that those other industries have been piggybacking on this trend. Jewelers require plenty of assistance from complementary services and products to scale their operations and keep up with this kind of demand.
That is why, from CAD software to 3D printing and laser sintering equipment, technology has infiltrated the jewelry eCommerce industry profusely.
Nevertheless, it is far from reaching a saturation level – good news for jewelers jumping on products like SaaS early enough, as they will still be able to differentiate themselves from their competitors and bring more value to their customers.
Jewelry SaaS products help with a variety of operations, including dropshipping as well as integrations between marketplaces, websites, social media platforms, and points of sale (aka an omnichannel customer experience).
Why is this important? To understand the answer to this question, we have to first understand why an integrated multichannel/omnichannel sales approach is needed and how software-as-a-service can help with that.
The Benefits of Integrated Multichannel Jewelry Sales
We are living in a digital age. Online sales (eCommerce) and mobile sales (mCommerce) are the norms nowadays. In fact, by 2025, mCommerce is expected to account for around 44% of all retail sales in the United States.
To remain competitive, jewelry sellers must not only adapt but also optimize, online-driven business operations. One of the better strategies for that is to have a presence on multiple sales platforms, like the ones mentioned above, and ensure they talk to each other for a smooth workflow.
The reasons for that are:
- Customer expectation changes (no longer wanting to look in more than one place to find what they’re searching for, or easily bounce between various platforms)
- Leveraging the opportunities of multiple sales channels (e.g. large customer/subscriber base, reputation, pricing levels, data analytics, etc.)
The Importance of Inventory Management Systems (IMS)
As mentioned earlier, SaaS products aim to facilitate online jewelry business operations. Manual operations are simply inefficient, expensive (think additional personnel and salaries), and ineffective (large room for error).
Staff could spend valuable hours reconciling reports and discrepancies resulting from tasks done by hand. Automation software can relieve some of that burden, reduce the time spent on redundant activities, and increase productivity.
One of the primary roles of jewelry SaaS products is to ease inventory management challenges brought by a multichannel sales approach. Let’s peruse through some of them and understand that better.
- Inconsistencies and Missed Updates
Between the multiple platforms, multiple jewelry product SKUs, and various warehouses where inventory might be stored, it can get extremely confusing to keep track of available stock, returns, and storage space.
An IMS can help synchronize these numbers, in real-time, and across platforms for easy tracking and updating. You no longer have to worry about being out of stock, selling more than your inventory levels, or paying for unused storage space.
- Reports Accuracy
Your KPIs inform your decisions and, ultimately, your budget. Therefore, being able to rely on accurate numbers is crucial for any business. By using an IMS, you cannot only download data analytics about each of your products on each of your sales channels, but you can also ensure that they are the most recent numbers, they are accurate, and that you have a full picture of your total revenue across the board. This eases both budget planning and accounting tasks by providing accurate data in a structured, easily readable format.
- Shipping and Vendor Management
Logistics is very much intertwined with inventory management processes. Being able to print the right amount of shipping labels correctly, attach them to the right products, and transmit that information to suppliers, couriers, and customers is crucial.
An inventory management system can help you find the most cost-effective and timely solutions by automatically directing stock to the closest courier and/or customer. It also helps with packaging and organizing products prior to shipping.
IMS Features to Look For
To be able to make the most out of your multichannel inventory management system, you need to understand the ins and outs of your business operations. Points like the volume of monthly sales, numbers of warehouses, location of main target market segments, etc. are all essential to how effectively you can use an IMS.
However, several features have proven useful for most eCommerce jewelry sellers. These include:
- Instant synchronization – the jewelry inventory has to stay synced across all sales channels. All stock movements triggered online and offline should immediately affect all points of sale. It is critical that the jewelry Inventory Management System seamlessly integrates all sales channels, and updates from vendors or your manufacturing department.
- Jewelry specific – each industry has its specifics, including inventory management. Here, in the jewelry industry, one should cover gemstones inventory, metals, uniqueness of some of the items. The correct representation of all aspects in the software created the right foundation for the business.
- Multiple warehouses support – as digital sales of your jewelry grow, the inventory becomes more critical. The improvement can be achieved by the right combination of multiple inventory locations, providing the best experience for different target audiences, according to the sales channel and buyer’s country. As the order comes in, the IMS should trigger the right warehouse into the operation.
- Tracking and forecasting inventory (per sales channel) – sales history per product, as well as separate product bundle tracking abilities, can help with refilling stock on time and putting together better promotions and marketing campaigns. Understand which jewelry products are your best sellers, quick-sellers, and least demanded on each platform.
- Scanning, printing, and barcoding – the ability to handle all the paperwork, print and scan barcodes in-house help you to track stock levels easily and quickly, as well as identify and follow up with workflow bottlenecks.
- Integration abilities – the same jewelry data services multiple needs, therefor the migration of the data between systems is critical. Your jewelry IMS has to be easily connected with other business processes and matching software, such as CRM, PIM, analytical tools, and more.
- Data analytics – having access to a multitude of in-depth reports is probably the most important feature of an IMS. However, based on your jewelry business size, the magnitude of your operations, number of products and suppliers, as well as sales locations, you may require different types of reports than another jewelry store owner. So doing your research beforehand is definitely a good idea.
Given the number of benefits a multichannel inventory management system provides to jewelry sellers, as well as the digitalized, competitive market that they have to work with, implementing an SaaS product, like Valigara, into one’s operations is a no-brainer. The substantial savings of both time and resources, the improved accuracy of reports, and the reduced amount of headaches and stress are reasons enough to jump on this bandwagon right away.
