The Apparel Industry in North America is quite large, with the market’s revenues reaching over $3,000 billion in 2011, as can be seen in today’s infographic from BlueLink entitled ‘The North American Apparel Industry’ (see below).
Since the management of inventory is a huge part of any apparel business, they need to do it right. An efficient, mobile inventory software system is needed to properly track inventory and manage warehouses in the best way possible.
What manager has not dreamed of a sophisticated system for a better management of in-store inventories?
Most often, it is the visibility of inventories which is the problem. Without automated in-store inventory management, it is impossible to know exactly what’s in stock.
This inaccuracy results in either a lack or excess of current or even obsolete inventory. Many may believe that having an excess of inventory is more desirable than having a lack of one, however this is false. In the first case, stock is not being used and in the second case, the quality of customer service is affected. In both of these cases, profitability and working capital are negatively impacted.
As in anything else, when you talk of “free inventory management software “, the free-of-charge option sounds extremely appealing!
Accessibility of the free inventory management software (downloadable from the Web), a wide variety of products, their zero cost and user-friendliness may be enticing to an executive to choose the free option over a system that requires payments.
However, before taking action and downloading a free inventory management software , any manager should weigh the pros and cons of this option, which in reality, has more drawbacks than actual benefits.
