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Amazon is best known as an e-commerce giant, but something equally important to keep in mind is that the majority of its platform is actually composed of small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs). According to Amazon’s own statistics, more than 60% of all sales on its platform are made by independent sellers.
Your business will be one among the many independent sellers and SMEs on the platform who are all vying to get their products in front of millions of people shopping on Amazon. To compete successfully, you’ll have to optimize as much of your operations as you can—with inventory management being a crucial aspect to pay attention to.
Fortunately, tools like Amazon inventory management software can help make this process easier. With these tools helping you manage your inventory, you’re free to focus on other important areas of your business, such as product sourcing and managing customer feedback.
Amazon inventory management software refers to any applications or platforms designed to streamline your inventory management. They can be used by companies of all sizes but are particularly useful for independent sellers and small to medium enterprises, who may not have the time and resources to effectively manage their inventories on their own.
While there are a variety of tools, platforms, and software designed to help you manage your inventory on Amazon, they’ll typically offer these core features and functionalities for your business:
Amazon itself doesn’t have a way to manage your inventory aside from what’s already on the Seller platform or when you’re subscribed to the FBA program, so these third-party tools help make the process easier. Depending on their plans or what pricing tier you subscribe to, these tools can offer more advanced features that can ultimately help turbocharge your Amazon business.
InventoryLab makes inventory management convenient for both beginner and experienced Amazon sellers. With this all-in-one business management platform, you can streamline your inventory management processes and reap the benefits of improved efficiency and cost savings. Its comprehensive suite of tools lets you see the bigger picture, ensuring an accurate inventory for your business.
InventoryLab enables you to track all Amazon inventory movement. These include all sales, returns, removals, and even disposals. This helps you know when and which product to restock and see your sales history in a user-friendly dashboard. Its suite of solutions also includes product research, listing, accounting, and reporting and analytics tools.
Key Features
Pricing and Plans
Threecolts offers two pricing tiers for InventoryLab:
Threecolts’ Base plan for InventoryLab includes essential features like inventory management, product research tools, Amazon listing software, performance reports and data analytics, and accounting and monitoring of finances. Meanwhile, subscribing to the Base + Insights plan gives you access to sales projections, stock levels, custom views, and a detailed sales history.
Pros
Cons
Specifically designed for SMEs and independent sellers, Sellbrite leverages its cloud-based capabilities to drastically make inventory management and product listing easier. It’s also a multichannel solution that can help manage inventories across different e-commerce platforms, which can help aspiring Amazon sellers quickly get started on using a multi-pronged approach to selling their products online.
Above all else, Sellbrite targets improving the quality of life for Amazon sellers, ensuring that they have an easier time updating and monitoring their inventories. The platform’s interface is easy to use for new users, and you can get started with managing your Amazon inventory within a few minutes of using the tool.
Key Features
Pricing and Plans
Sellbrite has three tiers of pricing, which are mainly based on how many orders you get per month:
Sellbrite offers a free plan for new users for up to 30 orders per month, which is suitable for anyone looking to use inventory management software for the first time. It also has add-on integrations that are available at any tier, which can expand the features you’ll enjoy from the platform. Sellbrite’s pricing model is overall more friendly for SMEs, with several options on how to pay for your annual plans.
Pros
Cons
Zoho’s cloud-based Amazon integration allows users to see their inventory status from a single dashboard, with the capability of updating current stock levels on Amazon. Zoho Inventory focuses heavily on the centralization aspect of its platform, helping it function beyond inventory management and toward e-commerce management.
Zoho Inventory’s shipment estimates, delivery confirmation, and overall tracking features make managing inventory easier even when facing a surge of customer orders. It also has multi-channel marketing and inventory tracking for helping e-commerce sellers get started on other e-commerce websites.
Key Features
Pricing and Plans
Zoho Inventory has four pricing tiers to choose from:
Zoho offers higher-end packages for its Amazon inventory management software, although the features you get make up for the cost. Zoho’s suite of solutions integrates with both Amazon and other platforms. However, Zoho also offers a free plan for users who want to try out the capabilities of the platform, although this plan is only limited to 50 orders a month.
Pros
Cons
Automation can be a key element in helping business operations, including areas like inventory management, become more efficient. Brightpearl focuses on automation via its Automation Engine feature, which can help you with anything from smart sales forecasting to inventory planning. Automations also include retail analytics, payment status, and warehouse management.
Its cloud-based capabilities ensure that the data you have access to is accurate and updated in real time. This can be crucial for sellers who strategize around the seasonality of their products, as it helps make restocking and forecasting customer demand easier. Overall, Brightpearl markets itself as an automated one-stop shop for anyone looking to better manage their inventories and businesses on Amazon, which can be appealing for those looking for a comprehensive management solution.
Key Features
Pricing and Plans
Unlike most vendors on this list, Brightpearl doesn’t offer straightforward, pre-packaged pricing or tiers for their features. They’d much rather that you book a demo and talk with their sales experts to identify which aspects of your inventory management can be best addressed by their solutions.
This makes it appealing for businesses that want a more involved presence from their software provider, but it can also be difficult for people who aren’t used to negotiating. However, it’s a potentially more flexible pricing plan for anyone who’s conscious about their budget for an Amazon inventory management tool.
Pros
Cons
Helium 10 is a trusted name when it comes to Amazon inventory management, primarily thanks to features like its Inventory Protector, which helps protect sellers against coupon abuse and other black hat tricks that may be used by other sellers or customers. Their beginner-friendly platform helps make inventory management easier than your average inventory management tool, with a dedicated focus on inventory monitoring.
For inventory management, Helium 10’s inventory features can help you better monitor and keep track of your inventory, especially in response to customer demand and market shifts. This can help with your forecasting for inventory restocking, but you can also combine this data with the findings you’d get from other features like the Sales Estimator and Profitability Calculator.
Key Features
Pricing and Plans
Like many inventory management tools and software, Helium 10 offers three tiers of pricing:
Helium 10’s beginner-friendly design extends to its pricing model, where the Basic plan is a free trial that you can use forever. Subscribing to annual plans can add up in saved costs in the long term. However, the free services it can provide can suffice for basic inventory management and protection needs.
Pros
Cons
Jungle Scout remains one of the most well-known tools for helping Amazon sellers with their operations. It offers features such as product research, browser integration, and sales analytics. As far as inventory management goes, Jungle Scout’s capabilities are adequate—but for people looking for a dedicated inventory management platform, it may not be enough.
This is because Jungle Scout’s primary benefit for Amazon sellers is that it mostly focuses on product research, which means features such as inventory management are less robust than you’d expect. While it’s an acceptable tool to help Amazon sellers succeed, specifically for those looking for inventory management, they may want to look elsewhere for comprehensive solutions.
Key Features
Pricing and Plans
Jungle Scout has three tiers of pricing for its platform:
Interested users should note that Jungle Scout does not offer a free trial of their services. Jungle Scout also offers the Cobalt plan (custom pricing) as an enterprise solution for brands, retailers, and agencies in need of advanced market intelligence tools.
Pros
Cons
While all Amazon inventory management software share the same base functions, there are some things you should keep in mind when choosing one to use for your business. Knowing which tool suits your business can make all the difference in improving your inventory management processes.
There’s no denying that an Amazon inventory management tool can be useful, but it’s also important that you pick the best one that meets your budget requirements. While premium subscriptions and plans can unlock more useful features for your business, budget should still be your first consideration when choosing a tool.
Keep in mind that no matter which tool you use, all the options we’ve given above can help you manage your inventory better as an Amazon seller. It’ll ultimately be up to you to find the best combination of features that fit your budget and the needs of your business. All of the tools can help you scale as your business needs grow, so you don’t have to worry about being held back by basic features.
Given that some tools offer more features out of the gate compared to others, there will always be some learning curve involved when using Amazon inventory management tools. What’s important to keep in mind is that you should choose a tool that you can use with little to no training.
If that isn’t possible (or you have a specific software/platform that you’re determined to use), make sure that your tool has a good track record in terms of customer service. A tool’s customer support team will be the first people you call when you have a question about your tool or if something goes wrong with it. Checking that they provide good-quality service can help you ensure a more seamless software/platform integration and usage.
Features are an important consideration when selecting an Amazon inventory management tool. So check whether the features included in the basic plans are already a good fit for your current operations or whether you need to upgrade to unlock more useful features. It’s good to have the option of unlocking advanced capabilities, but it’s also ideal if the free plan or basic plan already offers what your business needs for inventory management.
Some Amazon inventory management tools also offer integrations with other applications and platforms apart from Amazon itself, which can be useful if you want to automate more of your business operations. Opting for additional integrations with shipping, accounting, or invoice platforms and applications can drastically improve your efficiency in handling and forecasting orders.
Like additional features, this isn’t always necessary if you’re just looking for a better way to manage your inventory as an Amazon seller. However, it should be a consideration for your business down the line, as these integrations can help with both inventory management and other aspects of your operations.
Once you’ve considered the factors above, it’s also a good idea to check customer feedback on each inventory management software. By checking other user reviews, you can get a good grasp of each tool’s strengths and weaknesses and how they fit into your business operations.
Threecolts offers various solutions to help Amazon sellers and other e-commerce retailers support and elevate their performance on e-commerce sites. With access to these tools, you’ll be able to manage your inventory, better address customer concerns, and automate cost savings on your inventory purchases.
Threecolts’ InventoryLab offers extensive product research tools, Amazon listing optimization, and accurate inventory tracking. It enables you to make data-driven decisions that can further improve your operations as an Amazon seller.
