Wholesale warehouse management: challenges and solutions

Wholesale warehouse fulfilment presents unique challenges and requires unique solutions. Explore them in our industry guide.

Wholesale warehouse management is all about delivering large and mixed orders to business customers. Inventories require extensive storage and tailored picking methods. Day-to-day fulfilment operations and warehouse technologies need to be up to the challenge.

Buying goods and selling them on to businesses in large or mixed orders is a multifaceted affair. Bulk shipments from suppliers need to be carefully unloaded, items accurately counted and goods placed into the right area.

Intricate inventories must be monitored to ensure the right amount is in stock at any one time. This is often achieved through the use of barcode scanners or RFID tags hooked up to a warehouse management system (WMS) rather than manual data entry.

And at the end of the customer journey, returns must be processed and logged when the products arrive back at the warehouse – or continue their journey to the supplier.

The scale, purpose and complexity of wholesale operations are the key differentiating factors from other kinds of warehouse fulfilment. This creates novel challenges that require novel solutions.

Failing to address these challenges means shipping errors and excessive returns. And because shipments tend to be in bulk, this is more costly than for a non-B2B warehouse operation.

So, what are the unique challenges that wholesale warehouse management involves – and how can a WMS help?

Wholesale warehouse fulfilment: challenges and opportunities

Wholesale warehouse fulfilment centres can face problems that are particularly pronounced in B2B operations.

Staffing challenges

Handling large, palletised orders can require staff with the right skills and experience, including the safe use of forklifts and other materials handling equipment. Finding – and keeping – these staff can be costly and time-consuming.

Inventory accuracy

Because wholesale warehouses deal with complex orders, it's more important than ever to ensure the stock on the shelves matches the stock in your inventory.

If there's a discrepancy, orders will be incomplete, late or both. Stockouts and late shipments cost money – and, in some cases, can cost you customers.

Inconsistent demand

Related to stockouts is the thorny question of demand. Large or irregular wholesale orders can significantly impact inventory levels, making accurate demand forecasting particularly important.

Getting it wrong can lead to lost revenue through overstocking or lost custom from stockouts.

Customer expectations

Wholesale customers want accurate fulfilment, stock availability, reliable delivery windows and order visibility. All these depend on in-house organisation.

Legacy technologies

Finally, some wholesale warehouses still rely on legacy software. This can affect order accuracy, which in turn affects customer satisfaction and retention.

That's one of the biggest reasons so many wholesale warehouses make the switch to cloud-based WMS software. A modern WMS ensures accuracy and inventory visibility – two prerequisites for successful fulfilment, whether B2C or B2B.

That's not to say a WMS is the only solution. But it is a substantial change that can make substantial changes.



Solutions

Make the most of warehouse space

Sometimes, storage in a wholesale warehouse overlaps with other kinds of warehouse storage. The approach taken will depend on the product, operation and order profile.

Often, however, it's a case of storing in bulk – typically large quantities of identical goods in a high-density configuration.

This can involve pallet racking, block stacking or other high-density storage systems, depending on the goods being stored and how frequently they need to be accessed.

These approaches help make efficient use of space – an essential consideration for warehouse managers who need a cost-effective solution to handling cases, pallets and large orders.

Wholesale orders are also often larger than individual consumer orders. This can create significant fluctuations in inventory requirements, particularly where demand is irregular. Wholesalers therefore need to balance having enough stock to meet demand against the costs and risks of holding excess inventory.

Adapt picking and packing to wholesale orders

Picking and packing can be different, too. Rather than picking individual items, staff may pick whole boxes, cases or pallets using forklifts and other materials handling equipment.

And in the case of packing, wholesale businesses will often need to deal with large palletised crates as well as small mailing boxes and bags.

Keep track of complex inventories

The scale and complexity of operations also affects inventory management. All warehouses benefit from WMS inventory visibility. However, this is nowhere more apparent than in a wholesale storage environment.

A WMS can track stock levels, barcodes and supplies across connected channels – and consolidate this information on a single, easily accessible dashboard.

Implementing these solutions means your orders are more likely to be accurate and arrive on time. This reduces costly returns and helps avoid frittering money away on excess inventory.

How we can help

Here at Minster WMS, we provide wholesale warehouses with inventory and warehouse management solutions. These optimise the distribution and fulfilment processes at every level – primarily by increasing inventory visibility and order accuracy.

We provide two systems: CORE and EDGE.

CORE is our entry-level solution built for small- to medium-sized businesses. It can be up and running within 24 hours and comes backed by round-the-clock support from real experts.

Then there's EDGE, our enterprise-grade system for larger operations. This is the solution of choice for businesses that need greater customisability and more advanced integrations.

Both provide real-time tracking, inventory monitoring and traceability. They can be integrated with barcode scanners and voice-picking systems to reduce reliance on manual data entry and increase accuracy up to 99.98%. And they both come with a self-service portal where B2B clients can track their orders.



Want to see exactly what our solutions can do for your B2B inventory management operation? Book a demo with our UK team today.