Communiqué for Marketplaces (CMP) is a must have tool for your business. With over 220 standard reports, and 14 dashboards, CMP provides a wealth of information and illuminates many aspects of your business you would not otherwise be able to visualize.
When demoing CMP to a new customer, we always like to discuss their return on their CMP subscription (ROI). There are 2 reports in CMP which usually accomplishes this goal right from the start. The Slow Movers by Date and the Zero Product Sales. Each report looks at different aspect of your Inventory, but together it highlights in-stock inventory issues listing items which has never sold, or has not sold in a while.
The “Zero Product Sales” report looks at in-stock inventory which has no record of any sales. You can use the “Shelf Days” option to control when to start looking. By default, the “Shelf Days” option is set to 90 so this report will not list any item that has not been sitting on the shelf less than 90 days. We use the last purchase order receive date for the item when calculating shelf days. The last notable option for this report is the Qty OH filter. By default, it is set to 1 but you can set it to whatever value you want.
The “The Slow Mover by Date” report looks at in-stock inventory which has sold in the past but has not sold within the period specified. By default, this report looks back 90 days for any in-stock items with a Qty OH of 1 or more. We use the last order date for aging the last sale to determine the Days since last sale.
Setting the Qty OH value to 0 with either report defeats the purpose of the reports since it will also list out-of-stock items as well. These reports are designed to find in-stock items which have an inventory value representing a monetary investment on your part. Even though you can set the Qty OH to 0 I would recommend against it since it will list items of no monetary consequence for these reports.
For those of you with CMP, run each of the reports with whatever filters you deem appropriate for your business and see the results for yourself. Let’s hope there are lots of smiles out there after running these reports and your results are few to no items listed. For the rest of you, no need to panic just yet, or reach for the Prozac to calm your nerves. Information like this can be very valuable when used the right way.
Look at the items on each report to determine your course of action. Some items will not sell and are not worth the continued effort so it’s best to put them on clearance to recoup what you can so you can invest the proceeds towards inventory which will generate a profit. Other items may need some additional help with marketing, promotions, re-pricing, etc. I had one customer exclaim “I know why this item has never sold. It has never been listed on our website.”
Remember, every great tree needs to be pruned much like every great company. Use these reports as an opportunity to prune inventory from your stock which does not help you grow your company to make it strong and prosperous. Running reports like this periodically can help you to focus and set your direction.
You cannot make good decisions without good reports providing good data.
Are you ready to automate your workflows to gain maximum productivity? Take a look at one of our recent projects to learn more about how we can help with your business automation, 3rd party integrations, and reporting, contact us.
We hope this post has been helpful. Any questions or comments, please feel free to post.