Technology is constantly evolving. Regardless of a company’s size, it should be keeping up with technological advances in the relevant industries. Upgrading your Warehouse Management Software technology can be an excellent opportunity to introduce new techniques to improve processes, enable teams to produce more efficient work, and offer superior products.

3PLs or e-commerce businesses managing their own warehouses need to keep up with competitors and the high standards that consumers demand. Letting your technology stack fall behind can be detrimental to the success of your business.

In this article, we will discuss Warehouse Management Software systems and the principal trends regarding this technology in 2023. You will learn how those WMS features may become valuable to improve your business results.

What´s a Warehouse Management Software System?

A Warehouse Management System (WMS) is software used in the manufacturing and retail industries. It provides an overview of a company’s entire inventory and improves supply chain management from when goods enter a warehouse until they are shipped out to fulfill orders.

WMSs are increasingly becoming, for many companies, one of the most essential tools that help retailers organize, plan, staff, and control the resources across the supply chain in real time.

Read More: Warehouse Management System Software: a starting guide

There are many ways to increase the productivity of warehouses, from the use of robotic technology to automating your supply chain with a cloud-based system from your computer. Warehouse Management Systems frequently update their software to stay up-to-date with current industry trends and innovations. Below, we explore some WMS trends for 2023.

Discover how Shipedge WMS can improve your business

GET STARTED WITH SHIPEDGE

WMS Trends 2023

1 – Automating Your Warehouse

In business, the term automation can mean many different things. In the context of Warehouse Management Software, automation is the implementation of a set of processes that improve workers’ quality and service through the removal of manual work or procedures for warehouse workers.

For example:

• If a warehouse worker (laborer) spends a lot of time walking around the warehouse to pick up the products, they’re duplicating the work time and reducing productivity. With a good WMS, your software will automatically create the most efficient route for pickers to get more products off shelves per hour. Individual laborers picking more orders per hour means more money saved for your business on labor costs.

That will be very useful both for workers, who have the opportunity to do their job more efficiently, and for employers that will need fewer employers to do the same work, reducing the business’s operational costs. Another example that nicely illustrates how automation can save businesses time and money is:

• Sometimes smaller businesses or 3PLs will track orders and inventory in an Excel spreadsheet. Eventually, managing all orders that come in by hand through multiple channels will become unfeasible for a single employee, or an impossible task as volume grows. Using technology that automatically tracks orders coming in and when they are sent out completely eliminates this cumbersome manual task.

With inventory automation in your WMS, orders are checked without any manual processes. This will save time and allow employees to focus on more critical aspects of running the business.

Read more: Seven vital Warehouse Software Features for e-commerce warehouses

By using the automation that your Warehouse Management Software is capable of providing, your company is better enabled to perform against competitors with new advantages such as:

• Saving costs on employees’ salaries: Reduce overhead costs by creating efficient workflows
• Optimizing supply chain for efficiency: With the organization of the warehouse space, for example
• Tracking critical data: Shipedge’s WMS allows warehouse managers to view important KPIs such as picks per hour, sell-through rates, and may even expose bottlenecks in workflows

As a result of these advantages, companies will also improve their relationships with their customers because they can offer better and quick service with no delays with the best quality performance.

Do you want to improve your Warehouse Automation now?

2 – Omnichannel Fulfillment with your WMS and OMS

The rise in consumers’ online shopping habits has become a significant factor at play for many retailers. Consumers are purchasing online now more than ever, and expect to be able to order from anywhere in the world and receive that order as quickly as possible.

To stay competitive in an online-first market, brands need to adapt their strategies to allow for the fastest response times, real-time inventory information, and instant connectivity across platforms.

Many WMS/OMS systems will support omnichannel fulfillment to combat the growing challenge of listing products in as many places as possible while managing that inventory properly across channels. According to a study, companies with omnichannel customer-facing strategies in place retain, on average, 89% of their customers.

In practice, implementing a WMS/OMS with omnichannel connectivity capabilities allows you to manage inventory easily across various channels, such as a physical store, your Amazon storefront, Shopify, or your website. Marketplace channels must work together and act cohesively to be beneficial to your company, but more importantly, to your customers.

Read more: The ultimate order management system guide

Implementing software that supports omnichannel fulfillment is an important step in running a successful warehouse. With Shipedge’s WMS, you can:

• Get superior channel integration: Shipedge integrates 75+ selling channels in marketplaces, shopping carts, and other selling tools
• Centralize all order management: With the aforementioned channel integrations, it’s easy to see all of your orders in one centralized location
• Control inventory availability: with omnichannel order fulfillment, you can improve your customer experience by ensuring accurate stock levels for sale online. Your inventory availability updates in real-time to avoid selling too many products across multiple channels

By implementing warehouse management software that supports omnichannel inventory fulfillment, the entire management process becomes much simpler. Integrating all your channels is the best way to help automate processes and ensure a positive experience for warehouse workers and customers alike.

The ability to manage everything in one place is crucial to creating faster automation and positive business-to-consumer interactions. The more positive interactions consumers or clients have with your brand, the more likely it is they will stick with your products/service. Using your warehouse management software’s omnichannel capabilities will help 3PLs or e-commerce businesses stay competitive in today’s world of customer-centric commerce.

Improve your Warehouse management with omnichannel fulfillment

3 – Warehouse Organization And Mapping

According to the Commercial Observer, warehouse availability has dropped again, despite the increased level of warehouse construction and overall warehouse square footage in the United States. Because of this, the price of storing products in warehouses is becoming more expensive.

Warehouse Mapping offers an organized method of product storage, eliminating wasted space in warehouses. Any unused space in your warehouse is costing your company money, so why not optimize your warehouse to store as many products as possible? With a WMS such as Shipedge’s, you will be able to define each section or zone, including different types of locations.

Some of these locations may include:

• Floors
• Pallets
• Shelves
• Special zones/areas (temperature controlled, high security, etc)

For 3PLs with limited space, Shipedge WMS also offers the ability to “automate billings”. With this resource, you can charge different rates to each customer in the warehouse.

For example: 

You could charge a client a dollar a day for the space occupied by a pallet. And another fifty cents per cubic foot per week. Another client could be charged five dollars a day for pallet occupation with an additional 10 cents per cubic foot.

It’s trendy to offer free storage, and we can support that. You set a minimum price for handling that varies based on storage, volume, or location. And that’s an excellent solution for service providers with limited space.

With Shipedge’s WMS, you will also be able to fully control your warehouse´s volume storage with a dynamic allocation feature. When a spot opens up in your warehouse and becomes available, the WMS will know where the free space is and what can be put there. Additionally, with our Warehouse Management Software, you will get insights on the best locations to store your goods based on sell-through rates. By organizing your warehouse properly, your company has the opportunity to save a lot of money.

Organize and map your warehouse

4 – Sustainable Techniques

One of the many challenges that brands face today is producing a high-quality product and excellent customer service with environmental impact in mind. More consumers than ever care about brands’ sustainability missions. According to research done by Deloitte, 23% of consumers would switch their regularly consumed product purchases to a competitor’s brand if their values on environmental issues are shared.

To help promote sustainable practices in the supply chain, many e-commerce brands have partnered with 3PLs to help manage environmentally conscious logistics management solutions. Third-party logistics companies are storing products from many retailers at once, and take on the task of finding the best shipping, most efficient packaging, and labor for brands that outsource warehouse space to them.

For example:

• With the cartonization feature, a company can reduce waste by choosing the packaging closest in size to the product needing to be shipped. This will reduce waste by saving bigger cartons for bigger products, and reduces void fill and material waste.

Not only will cartonization help reduce wasted materials and save your company money but your customer relationships may be strengthened once they are assured that you’re using the most efficient packaging possible. Why ship something in a larger package than needed on a courier’s truck or plane, wasting valuable resources?

If you are ready to find out more about a Warehouse Management Software system to help your business reach a higher level of environmental sustainability, reach out to one of our solutions engineers below

Read more: How to ship more for less: Cartonization & Best Rate Shipping

5 – Cloud-Based Warehouse Management Software

A cloud-based WMS is a logistical facility with warehouse management implemented in a SaaS model. You can access cloud-based WMS from anywhere as long as you have an internet connection. External servers are used to run and store the program data, so the business doesn´t need to keep any hardware premisses. Many cloud-based services, like Shipedge, also referred to as Software-as-a-Service companies, have access to the following benefits:

• 100% cloud-based: Data and information are captured in the facility and securely stored in the cloud
• Real-time information: Warehouse inventory is continuously updated. For example, when inventory arrives at the warehouse and what amount of product was received
• Scalability: The software features can be adjusted, expanded, and modified according to the company’s needs, easily adapting to business growth and fluctuations
• Security improvement: Encrypted servers protect your customers’ and clients’ information from cyber-attacks
• Quick and more straightforward implementation: Starting a cloud-based WMS can take as little as two weeks
• Improve your employer´s satisfaction: They can work from any part of the world and have quick and safe access to the program.

SHIPEDGE WMS: the best of 2023

Shipedge is an e-commerce convergence system that provides cloud-based, omnichannel fulfillment and cartonization features and is partnering with the best ship rates. Recognized by Getapp and Software Advice as one of the best Warehouse Management Software Systems on the market, Shipedge WMS is a product that is constantly getting updates to help our customers:

• Improve all your business results: all new WMS trends are available in Shipedge WMS. Remember that with the simple addition of Shipedge WMS to your business, you can maximize all your results without making efforts.

• Optimizing space: With the mapping and organization of all your warehouses, you will be able to optimize all your warehouse space and get better, lucrative results.
• Reduce labor costs: with the advanced technology of automation WMS, you will be able to get more done with fewer workers. The results will be very productive for you at the end of the day.
• Having better feedback from your clients: with the identification of corporate social responsibility causes, like the environmental´s one, you would be able to conquer a target who shares the main ideas of the company.

If you are interested in getting all the advantages a warehouse management software can provide for your business and saving time send us a message or ask for a demo.