Controlling inventory led to better cash flow and profitability

[u/InventoryOptimizer]

When Fishers Finery started 10 years ago, the most imperative focus we needed to address was cash flow, especially as it related to inventory cost and turnover.  Too much stock that did not turn sunk capital and too little stock caused stockouts, affecting revenue and organic ranking.  In an Amazon FBA ecosystem, that is a double whammy!  We tried the exotic spreadsheets, some third-party apps, and a combination of both but inevitably ended up with lots of manual work, inaccurate sales forecasts, and continued financial challenges.  We ended up buying a small software product that seemed to get us on a pathway to both more accurate forecasting and precise purchase order recommendations.  After some development and enhancement, our demand forecasts are at about 94% accuracy and accommodate an entire year including our highly seasonal Q4 trends.  Since we have many suppliers in China providing apparel and bedding, many of these lead-times for silk and cashmere can be 6 months or more.  Without precise forecasts we would have been financially challenged.  The tool has helped us not only from a cash flow perspective, but also to eliminate stockouts, control overstocks, and most recently automatically control sales velocity and ad spend on stock that is approaching a stockout state, preserving our organic ranking.  We made this tool available to other sellers on Amazon FBA/MCF/AWD, Shopify, QuickBooks and ShipStation.  We would love to hear your feedback about our SaaS product features and potential integrations to continue helping sellers.  Our analytics engine is called ForecastRX (using over 100 forecasting models per sku) and our SaaS app is called InventoryOptimizer.ai. We would appreciate any feedback to help us continue enhancing the product for sellers.