Perhaps even more important than the stock price of a business is how efficiently the product itself is managed and shipped to customers. Fortunately for small business owners whose inventory control system is out of control, there's an app for that.
Continue reading for a list of the best inventory and shipping apps for small business owners available in app stores today.
Inventory Now
Don't have a point-of-sale system (POS)? Or, perhaps you have one, but without all the bells and whistles of a high-end POS? Don't fret. The Inventory Now app (iOS) incorporates many of the functions of a high-end POS.
It provides at-a-glance views of total inventory, inventory details, and an inventory summary. What's more, you can enter unit costs and unit sales, use the built-in barcode scanner to take action on different items in your stock and even integrate PayPal for seamless customer payments.
Stock Control Inventory
Small businesses that sell myriad products are even more prone to losing track of the location of various products in their stock than those that specialize in a single product. But that won't happen if you download the Stock Control Inventory app (iOS).
The app lets you categorize your inventory into different groups and associate these groups with a specific stock location so that you always know where a particular item dwells. In addition, you can also input the quantity and price of items so that you always know the level and value of your stock.
Inventory+
Keeping tabs on a large inventory can be ugly. But not when you use the elegant, colorful and intuitive Inventory+ app (iOS). Aside from the speedy search, voice notes and location tracking features, it lets you fully customize your inventory catalog.
You can choose from 20 data attributes, including ratings, photos, videos, and voice recordings. Thanks to the CSV and PDF data export options, you can monitor your inventory from your computer as well as on-the-go in your smartphone or Apple Watch.
Goods Inventory Pro
Is your inventory housed across multiple sites? Then you need the Good Inventory Pro app (iOS), one of the best inventory and shipping apps for small business owners with a multi-location stock.
The app lets you conveniently add products to the inventory via the barcode scanner, classify and ID them by their location and view buying details for multi-product transactions.
Even better? You'll never have to worry about lost shipments because the app gives you a view of items en route to being received by you or sold items to be shipped or delivered to customers.
Shyp
Professional-looking packing labels for outgoing product shipments are a pain to create and print. Why not outsource the task to the ShipStation app (Android, iOS)? When an order comes in, use the app to edit or verify delivery addresses or hold or cancel the order.
If the order is all cleared for delivery, fire up the app again to create and print shipping labels, buy postage and painlessly print out packing slips. Furthermore, the app lets you track all of your recent shipments, send out tracking emails and even make return labels for orders that customers change their minds about.
On Shelf
Stocking up on more of a product that has historically been a poor seller is a losing proposition. The On Shelf app (iOS) helps you avoid this all-too-common inventory issue. It provides sales trends that alert you to which items in your inventory are top sellers and which items are total duds. This way, you can increase the inventory of popular goods and either pull off the shelves or reduce the number of unpopular goods. Color-coded inventory status symbols make it easy to see which items are at an adequate level, running low or need to be reordered. Plus, the barcode scanner makes capturing sales a cinch.
ShipBob
Are your customers demanding faster product shipments? Turn to ShipBob, an e-commerce order fulfillment solution that provides a low-cost two-day shipping option to your customers. It works by leveraging a distributed inventory model made of multiple order fulfillment centers in locations across the U.S.
The companion ShipBob app (iOS) is with you every step of the order fulfillment process. It handles everything from acquiring packaging, packing and shipping packages to tracking orders.
In fact, it has an elegant interface consisting of a Dashboard, and an Orders screen, and Products screen. Moreover, the Products screen lets you view order history, order details and inventory in seconds with a few taps.
