There’s a reason dropshipping has become a popular business model. For one, it comes with low startup costs. Also, you don’t need to worry about too many overhead expenses. But, of course, it is not without its challenges. Running a dropshipping business can be extra challenging, particularly when you have to manage thousands of orders, inventory, and shipping. Fortunately, cloud-based ERP systems are here to step in. Today, we’ll share how a cloud-based ERP system can help streamline your dropshipping business operations.
Centralized Order Management
In a dropshipping business, orders come from various sales channels. You probably have an e-commerce store, Instagram shop, and accounts in multiple marketplaces like Amazon or eBay. Now, imagine processing orders from these different channels manually day in and day out. It’ll likely take too much of your time and put you or your staff at risk for errors.
When you use a cloud-based ERP system, you can centralize your order management and automate order processing. For instance, you can set up rules to automatically route orders to the appropriate supplier or warehouse, reducing the time required to fulfill an order. You can also enable your ERP system to process orders according to their priority level to complete urgent orders quickly.
Automated Inventory Management
Inventory management is critical in a dropshipping business. You need to ensure a sufficient stock to fulfill orders while avoiding overstocking, which can tie up your capital. A cloud-based ERP system can help automate inventory management by integrating data from your sales channels, suppliers, and warehouses.
For example, you can set up automatic reorder points and receive alerts when stock levels are low. This reduces the risk of stockouts and ensures you can fulfill orders promptly. ERP solutions also often have analytics that tracks the performance of each product to determine which products are selling faster and which need to be restocked more often. This helps you optimize your inventory management and reduce the costs associated with overstocking.
Real-time Order Tracking
Customers expect timely delivery and want to track their orders in real-time. With a cloud-based ERP system, you can provide real-time order tracking to your customers by integrating your shipping carriers. You can send automated shipping notifications and tracking information, improving client satisfaction and reducing support requests.
Cloud-based ERP solutions also track and analyze the delivery performance of your shipping carriers. That information is crucial, as it can help optimize your carrier selection process. You can easily switch to a new shipper if the bottleneck is in your current shipper. In turn, you improve the delivery times of your orders and continue to delight your customers.
Streamlined Supplier Management
In a dropshipping business, you work with multiple suppliers, each with its products, pricing, and shipping policies. Managing multiple suppliers can be challenging and time-consuming. But don’t fret because you can streamline your supplier management by integrating your suppliers and automating communication using a good ERP system.
Some ERP systems provide tools that automatically update product catalogs and pricing details on listings based on new information from your suppliers. You can also utilize your ERP solution to automatically route orders to the appropriate supplier based on its location and product availability. This reduces the time required to process orders and helps guarantee that you can fulfill them promptly.
Efficient Accounting and Reporting
Managing finances and generating reports from different sales channels and marketplaces can be time-consuming and prone to errors, particularly in a dropshipping business. You can say goodbye to those wasted time and costly mistakes with the help of a cloud-based ERP system. It can help streamline your accounting and reporting by automating financial transactions, such as payments and invoices. With a centralized system, all financial transactions can be automatically recorded and tracked, reducing the chances of errors and discrepancies.
An ERP system can also generate financial reports such as income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements, providing a clear overview of your business’s financial health. You can use these reports to make well-informed and prompt business decisions.
Streamline Your Dropshipping Business with Kentro
Are you ready to reap all the benefits mentioned above? Streamline your dropshipping business operations with Kentro. It’s a modern cloud-based ERP system that offers a range of solutions—from multichannel listing management & inventory tracking to accounting automation and supply-chain management. Schedule a product demo to learn more.
