Since Etsy was founded in 2005 it kept growing and improving the platform for art lovers. Here it doesn’t matter if you are a seller or a buyer, the important thing is that you love handmade things and crafts. Because of continuous development Etsy is becoming a more comfortable platform to use not only for buyers but also for sellers. Of course, when you are a seller, you need to keep track of inventory on Etsy and maybe on other stores that you have.
Etsy shop manager
Etsy is aiming to create a very simple and understable platform for sellers, which would be easy to manage. In order to achieve this goal they have already made some steps. First of all, Etsy has created a shop manager which helps make quick decisions here and now, without needing to search for the information somewhere deep in the settings. Everything was put on the main page and is easy to understand for both new and advanced users.
On the Etsy shop manager dashboard you will find information such as latest stats – orders and listings; recent activity in the shop – the actions that your customers make. There you can also easily get to your listings, manage marketing activities, conversations with customers, orders and shipping.
Keep track of inventory on Etsy
Let’s have a look at how to keep track of inventory on Etsy in real world. Some time ago Etsy received a lot of complaints, because sellers couldn’t keep track of their products. It didn’t matter if they were big or small, it was hard for everyone.
Therefore, Etsy decided to take actions and solve this problem. The only reason leading forward being the profits for everyone. In the end they introduced SKU’s. If you haven’t heard about it before SKU means Stock Keeping Unit.
So why do we need it? Well most of the business around the globe uses SKU’s in order to be able to better track and differentiate their products. For example, you are making 5 different necklaces and 5 people bought them. It used to be hard to track which should go where and it was even harder to deal with the parcels in the post office. Now you can have SKU’s and differentiate each type of your item and easily track how many of each you have sold.
By using SKU you are allowing yourself to keep track of inventory on Etsy and even other ecommerce platforms easily. Imagine that you have one shop on Etsy and one on Shopify. You need to constantly track and double check if the available quantities are up to date. SKU helps you separate items and makes sorting your inventory easier.
If you wish to keep track of inventory even more conveniently, then you should use Multiorders inventory management software. It allows you to merge products with the same SKU’s from different shops and manage them on one dashboard. It also automates the updating process. Therefore you will no longer need to worry about available stock being inaccurate.
Effective SKU system
Before you jump to creation of numerous SKU’s you should have some useful tips how to do it correctly and make your life easier. You need to label your inventory using a certain strategy and focusing on the important features of your products.
For example, you can base SKU on the product itself. If you make necklaces from gold, silver and metal you can create SKU’s like these – NG101, NS101, NM101 – first letter is for necklace, second letter is for gold, silver and metal. The number in the end is item number – you can start at 1000, 100, 10 and so on. It is up to you.
The second option for creating SKU is to base it on the item’s location. So if you keep silver necklace in the drawer, you can include it in your SKU. The last method is to specify different colours, rocks, patterns and so on. By using one of these strategies you will make easy to remember and understandable SKU’s for you which will make shipping and inventory management like a breeze.
However, at all means avoid using letters like O or I and symbols (like commas, question marks etc). The letters can be mixed with numbers and the symbols may cause some errors.
Track inventory from multiple shops
By having a correctly set up SKU system you can easily expand your business to more sales channels. For example, when using Multiorders, you can merge items that have matching SKU’s in different stores and keep the available stock levels updated as customers buy your products.
With Multiorders, when an item is sold in one of your stores, the stock levels will be updated on every other marketplace, to match your stock. This way you won’t ever surprisingly run out of stock as your business expands. You also don’t need to keep as much inventory as you would otherwise.