Inventory management is one of the biggest challenges when running a LEGO® business. Each piece has a unique location in your warehouse. Therefore, things can get quite messy when you've already got thousands or even millions of pieces in storage, and you're updating your stock with new items. To help you out, Bricqer supports multiple inventory strategies - including the one that suits you best.
Consolidated vs. unconsolidated inventory
Adding new pieces to your inventory is easy. Each new item gets assigned a location. However, updating your inventory with parts you've already got is a completely different ball game. Now you’ve got to choose between consolidated and unconsolidated import.
Consolidated inventory
A consolidated inventory management strategy is pretty straightforward. You've got brick X on location Y, and when you import same brick X, you put it in location Y too. The benefit is that you can save on space in your warehouse, because a single part is stored at a single location. However, the downside is clear as well: for every new part you add to your inventory, you'll have to put them in the correct existing location.
Unconsolidated inventory
Lately we are seeing a trend of larger stores choosing to go unconsolidated. With an unconsolidated inventory management strategy, you treat every brick as if it's a new one. You simply put these bricks at new locations, regardless of the part already existing in your inventory. Again, you've got brick X on location Y, but now a second brick X gets put on a new location. This can be a huge time saver, as you won't have to put parts at the correct existing location.
Huge timesaver
If you're having your LEGO® bricks sorted externally, an unconsolidated inventory management strategy can save you a lot of time. And therefore costs too, since warehouse staff don't have to look for a particular location over and over again. However, in order to list double bricks as one single item on marketplaces, you need software that understands that some bricks are the same despite their location being different.
And that's exactly what we've managed to accomplish with Bricqer. We allow unconsolidated stores to put their items on marketplaces without double listings and take all different locations in account when calculating the optimal route for order picking. That's how we save you a tremendous amount of time ... twice.
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