How often have you thought to yourself, I need more hours in the day? If your business is growing, I’m sure you’re thinking about this more and more frequently.

As your business scales, many processes—like inventory planning—become more challenging to manage manually. That’s where inventory replenishment software comes into play. 

You could save eight hours a week or more if you didn’t have to spend so much time pouring over spreadsheets and dancing around overstock and stockout and worse… but the idea of selecting the right software to reliably automate your inventory forecasting processes can feel almost as overwhelming.

How can you be sure that the inventory replenishment software you implement won’t cause more issues? Besides, software implementations aren’t cheap: How can you guarantee that your chosen solution will offer you a solid return on your investment?

This post will cover the benefits of using inventory replenishment software and provide five examples of reliable software solutions you may want to consider for your business. 

What is Inventory Replenishment Software (And Why Do You Need It)? 

You want to make the best decisions possible for your tech implementations, so let’s establish a few vital things about inventory replenishment software and why your business needs it. 

What is inventory replenishment software? Inventory replenishment software, or stock replenishment software, provides visibility to real-time stock levels, sales, supply chain, inventory in transit, and more. A truly incredible inventory replenishment solution will then provide recommendations on when to replenish so you can maintain optimal inventory levels. 

Your inventory replenishment software enables you to automate and optimize complex and critical inventory processes, providing you with crucial intel when purchasing or transferring inventory to support sales across multiple channels. 

Ultimately, inventory replenishment software aims to reduce capital investment and increase your margins. With the right solution in place, you will be able to stop overordering to prevent stockouts and start ordering exactly what you need when you need it. 

With the right inventory replenishment software, you’ll save costs on storage fees, overstock, and deadstock. You’ll also enjoy an increase in sales due to avoiding the dreaded stockout. However, it can be challenging to trust software to make your inventory-related decisions for you. So, we must ask the question: How reliable are automated inventory processes?

Automated inventory processes are more reliable than manual methods of inventory planning. Companies see an average of a 30 percent increase in stock use efficiency when they use an automated inventory process, due to a decrease in human error and the time savings that inventory replenishment software can provide in terms of worker hours. 

1. Blue Ridge 

Blue Ridge offers an inventory replenishment solution that offers fully configurable software that you can use to build the perfect inventory planning solution for your business. Blue Ridge is the best fit for larger, Fortune 1000 companies. It is a more expensive solution, which may put it out of reach for smaller, growing businesses. 

Some of the features Blue Ridge offers include:

• Robust Analytics: View all your reporting and analytics in a single dashboard. 
• Rapid Time-to-Value: Expert onboarding processes promise clients the fastest return on their investment possible. 
• Simple Interface: Blue Ridge is advertised as an intelligent, app-like solution designed to be easy to use.

2. NetStock 

NetStock promises smarter inventory management. Their software is a predictive inventory planning solution that offers inventory optimization, forecasting, demand planning, replenishment, and more. NetStock is a good fit for teams that don’t have technical staff on hand to help with data analytics. However, NetStock requires the use of an ERP, and there is no direct connection with sales channels.

Some of NetStock’s features include:

• Simple-to-Understand Analytics: NetStock boasts that it offers powerful analytics that you can understand even if you aren’t a data scientist.
• Dashboard Visualizations: See all your critical data in a single dashboard, enabling you to make decisions quickly.
• What-If Scenarios: Create plans for best- and worst-case scenarios by using the “What-If” feature. 

3. Cogsy 

Cogsy offers an inventory planning solution that can help you make purchase orders with confidence and avoid missed revenue opportunities. This software solution is great for businesses currently struggling with inefficiencies in their operations that need a quick fix. However, it’s not necessarily the best fit for anyone looking to improve demand planning.

Some of Cogsy’s top features include:

• New Product Planning: Cogsy enables you to estimate demand for products you haven’t yet launched.
• Selling on Backorder: Even if you stock out, you can sell items on backorder with automated shipping date estimates for customers.
• Replenish Alerts: With Cogsy, you can restock proactively by receiving alerts from your software letting you know you’re getting low. 

4. Lokad 

Lokad promises users the ability to make better supply chain decisions using quantitative data. You can use Lokad to improve with purchasing, stocking, pricing, and more. Lokad is best suited for small- to mid-sized businesses in aerospace, automotive aftermarket, and manufacturing. 

Some of Lokad’s key features are:

• Automation: Calculate forecasts in real-time by pre-scheduling advanced forecasts to be ready when your business needs them. 

• Data Import and Export: In a perfect world, all your data resides in one system in a perfect world. We don’t live in a perfect world. You can use Lokad to import data from another program, helping to increase your accuracy. 

• Ordering Constraints: Lokad calculates overlapping constraints to prevent you from needing to fulfill those constraints by hand. 
  
  

5. Flieber 

Flieber is a demand planning and inventory optimization solution that uses advanced tech and data analytics to synchronize sales velocity, supply chain operations, and inventory management. It’s our goal to make sure you always have the right products, in the right quantities, in the right place, at the right time. Flieber is the best solution for direct-to-consumer sellers looking to increase their revenue without increasing their workload. 

Flieber’s software includes critical features like:

• Demand Planning Calculations: Accurate inventory forecasting allows you to plan ahead. Our solution forecasts with the help of advanced AI and machine learning technology. 
• Replenishment Features: Never stock out again with features that let you know when you need to reorder or transfer orders between warehouse locations. Replenishment recommendations and actions are optimized to account for MOQ-requirements, lead times, and ideal minimum/maximum stock levels.
• Real-Time Adjustments: Supply chain disasters and unexpected demand are no longer a concern. Recommendations are provided to accelerate delivery or manage sales and marketing efforts to help stretch your inventory further.

The Best Inventory Replenishment Software For Your Business 

When implemented and used effectively, inventory replenishment software can help you reduce inventory-related headaches like stockout, overstock, and time-consuming manual tracking processes. Using the information provided in this post should help you select the right inventory replenishment software for your business with confidence. 

Small- to mid-sized businesses often find themselves stuck between small, start-up-level inventory solutions and massive, clunky enterprise-oriented software. If your business is looking for something robust enough to solve your business’s challenges, but nimble enough to help you pivot and grow, Flieber might be the best solution for your business. 

Flieber has helped retailers scale their profits in over a dozen countries using our inventory replenishment software. Flieber’s solution uses advanced technology and data analytics to synchronize your sales, inventory, and supply chain processes to quickly and effectively make decisions that increase your revenue—with a fraction of the work. 

To see how Flieber can solve your inventory replenishment challenges, schedule a demo to see our solution in action today!