Why does it seem that kitting, bundling and subscription services go hand-in-hand with eCommerce? Generally speaking, people see it as a way to differentiate their brand online. For example, if you let customers mix-and-match an order, they create the exact product they want. What could be more different than that? However, businesses can hit a snag if they don’t know how many kits they can make from their supply of component product. That’s what makes virtual inventory such a valuable tool.
How Many Kits Can You Sell? Let Virtual Stock Tell You
A kit refers to a collection of products sold as a single unit. By bundling a variety of items, a kit becomes offers customers a product that’s more than the sum of its parts. It creates an appealing variety. Kitting, however, can also create problems. First, a business needs the manpower to assemble the kits. Secondly, a business needs to know how many kits it can sell. If they know that, their customers will know how many kits they can sell. This is a crucial bit of information at a time of year when orders pile up. It’s what makes virtual stock indispensable.
Kitting Changes Warehouse Operations
Product bundling may be an age-old strategy, but eCommerce has made it more popular. In fact, if you want to measure its growing popularity, look at warehouses. For example, 29% of company-owned warehouses now include kitting as a service, up 3% from 2017. Similarly, 31% report a product assembly service, up 4% over last year. Moreover, more 3pls now offer kitting services in their warehouses to differentiate from their competitors.
The Virtues of Virtual Stock for eCommerce
Obviously, it doesn’t help to market kits to your customers online when you don’t know if can fulfill the orders. What you don’t know will really hurt you, especially at this time of year. So, what does it take to know how many kits you can sell? Basically, you have to know how much of each component of a kit you have on hand. That’s why Cin7 built its Virtual Stock feature. When a business knows how many component products it has on hand, it knows the number of kits it can bundle from those products. Not only does Cin7’s Bill of Materials feature you generate a Virtual Stock level. It also lets you report virtual stock to your customers online. Thus, when they shop on your website, they know exactly how many kits are on hand to purchase.
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