What to ask your agency about inventory sync
The advice here is unglamorous, which is probably why it gets skipped. If you are briefing an agency or a freelancer on inventory sync, these questions are worth asking early.
Small percentage changes matter here because they apply to every order, every month. Budget a little time for it every quarter and it never becomes a project of its own.
Questions worth asking
- Who will actually do this work, and have they done it before?
- How will we know afterwards whether it worked?
- What happens if it needs changing in a year?
- What are you assuming that we have not confirmed?
What a good answer sounds like
Selling something you do not have costs trust and money. It is worth being explicit about, because assumptions differ quietly. Anything you cannot measure here, you are deciding by taste, which is fine as long as everyone knows it.
Decide up front what happens when stock hits zero. It is worth being explicit about, because assumptions differ quietly. The teams that stay on top of it are the ones who put it on a calendar rather than a wish list.
How to tell if yours is fine
Trust does most of the selling online, and trust is built from unglamorous details. Three things worth confirming about inventory sync before you move on:
- Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
- Selling something you do not have costs trust and money — and you know whether that is true here
- There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped
If you are not sure where your systems currently stand on this, it takes us about an hour to find out.