Tackling Supply Chain Shortages

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If you’ve ever had a problem with finding your favorite products online such as clothing, beauty products, medications, and even food, it’s because those items are in short supply. Since the beginning of the pandemic, supply chain disruptions have become quite frequent in many industries across the globe.

If your e-commerce business sells any of these products, you may be in a stressful situation to figure out just how to resolve the issue. Here are a few ways your business will be able to handle supply chain shortages while keeping your profile afloat, and keeping your customers satisfied and up to date with all changes and expectations.

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Analyze Your Supply Chain

It’s critical to analyze manufacturing and every aspect of fulfillment when undergoing supply chain shortages. Knowing where your materials are coming from, how much each of them costs, and knowing or forecasting any possible delays or material damages will allow for complete visibility – which is vital to improving shortages.

To avoid further shortages, you may need to look into placing larger bulk orders so that more materials or products are available to you at any given time. On the other hand, you don’t want an excess of stock or inventory, therefore, you may need to look into faster shipping from distributors to avoid any likely issues. This can also result in using several different suppliers.

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Keep Your Customers Up To Date

Another key factor in avoiding further disaster upon product shortages is to keep your customer updated on all shortages and any potential hiccups down the road. This also means keeping them informed on any out-of-stock items and shipping delays; reaching out by any of the many forms of communications such as social media platforms, SMS, and email. By keeping customers informed, you’re less likely to receive angry inquiries by customers as they’ll be more understanding about the situation.

An additional method of informing your customers of any changes to your operations is to add a notice to your entire store. Placing a store notice that appears on every page of your site is a great way of communicating the issues at hand and customers will take notice of production delays or item shortages before they place an order. This store message could also be present on the checkout page as one final reminder about possible delays or shortages.

From there, order tracking is a necessary tool to have on your e-commerce website as customers will be able to frequently check their statuses for any updates and changes – with email notifications to let them know about any disruptions without having your customers manually input their information on your website.

Look After Your Inventory Management

Something that you don’t want is for one of your customers purchasing an item that’s out of stock and unavailable. This is why you need to update your online inventory accurately and frequently. By updating the stock on your website, you’ll be able to set an automated stock counter and therefore, not sell a product you don’t have as your website will inform the customer that the item is “out of stock” or “unavailable”. Information regarding products should always be up to date and accurately synced with the fulfillment process.

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Price Adjustments

With industry shortages comes a higher cost of material products. For this reason, many businesses have increased the prices of their products, and you should as well. The prices that consumers pay for goods and services jumped by 5.4% in September of 2021 due to higher manufacturing, labor, and material costs.

For this reason, it’s a good idea to analyze how much you’re paying manufactured materials so you can adjust your pricing structure accordingly to keep profits high. After tweaking the price, you need to inform your customers so they aren’t taken back by the sudden price changes for products they’ve previously purchased. Let your customers know why your business is increasing prices and allowing them to express their questions or concerns.

Conclusions

Supply chain shortages can be sudden and frustrating to deal with, but the previously presented methods are ones you can use to keep your e-commerce store running as smoothly and efficiently as possible. By staying on top of all operations and keeping your customers informed along the way, you’ll be set up to better handle supply chain disruptions and shortages in the future.