One of the hardest parts about running a small business is juggling all of the components that make the business run smoothly. Often times, business owners are bogged down by the responsibility of having to manage the complexities of product inventory and sales, while also trying to build their brand.
Luckily, Shopify provides several features that could help ease the burden of these complicated responsibilities.
Inventory Management:
When your business offers numerous different products, all with varying amounts in stock, it can be almost impossible to manage this all by yourself. And hiring another person on your team to keep track of this responsibility can be extremely costly. In order to ease this burden, Shopify has included an inventory management section on the Shopify portal. Business owners can easily upload a CSV file with their initial inventory, product variants and location. From there, Shopify will take over. In order to access inventory files and data, one must go to the products tab and then select inventory. If you have multiple locations that require inventory management, you must determine the location as well. Once you have made it to this page, you can easily filter and skim through all your different product variants and add and subtract stock as needed.
Point of Sale (POS):
For those who want to bring their online store to life in a brick and mortar store, it can be difficult to decide which avenue to take when it comes to choosing a POS software. There are so many different options out there and some can be faulty, expensive, or hard to use. Luckily, Shopify offers its own POS software, allowing business owners to easily connect their online stores to in-store hardware. Business owners can customize the Shopify POS software to align with the design of their store and the overall vibe of their brand. Shopify's POS system also makes it simple to display specific products, discounts and apps featured on a business' online store. Business owners no longer need to worry about keeping track of two different softwares when Shopify has it all!
Shopify Shipping:
Another component of managing inventory that can be quite burdensome is keeping track of shipping labels and shipping costs. To alleviate this burden, Shopify recently added the "Shopify Shipping" feature. This feature allows users to link their Shopify accounts to Shopify's partnership accounts with popular carriers. According to Shopify Help Center, this feature:
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Displays actual calculated shipping rates
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Gives customers less expensive rates
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Allows users to easily print shipping labels.
The "Shopify Shipping" feature is helpful for both the business owner and the customer by, making costs to the customer less expensive and making the task of managing shipping easier for the business owner.
In conclusion, owning a business can be difficult at times. But hopefully these Shopify features can ease the burden of some of the most difficult responsibilities associated with owning a business.
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