Updated: April 25, 2024
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As seasons change and the chance to refresh your surroundings presents itself, broaden your organizational efforts beyond your home or living spaces. Your ecommerce business workspace is an important area that also deserves a refresh and reorganization.
Whether you're looking to simply tidy up your workspace or completely overhaul the layout and structure, we're here to provide you with useful tips and strategies to help transform your work area into a more efficient, organized, and navigable environment. With the right tools and techniques, you can create a workspace that will inspire productivity and creativity.
1. Group inventory types
Keeping track of inventory can be challenging, especially when your business offers a wide variety of products. For effective present and future inventory management, understanding two aspects about each item is essential: the quantity in stock and its current condition.
Start by conducting an inventory audit to assess the quantity and condition of each item. Then, sort products into groups based on returns, overstock, damages, and discontinued items. This will help you manage your inventory more efficiently and decide how to handle each product type.
2. Organize products into homes
Once your main inventory groups are established you can easily organize remaining products into homes. This is where similar products will reside together in families. Are you liking our puns?
It’s important to ask yourself questions like: “How often do I sell this item?" and "Is this the best place for this?”. The goal here is to group similar items together for easier navigation in the future. Every product should have a place where it belongs, with similar products that may be purchased together, homed together. This can guarantee faster picking and packing when orders are placed.
Pro tip: Use boxes, bins, and other stackable containers to really maximize your space and make it accessible to others.
3. Label your product containers
At this point in your ecommerce workspace organization journey, everything should be arranged with similar products binned and boxed together. From here, you need to make it easy to tell what a product bin contains.
Label all your containers, boxes, and storage for easy accessibility with no questions about where a product may reside. It’s as simple as putting a name to a face. Knowing where to pull from will make the picking and packing phase of fulfillment much easier, not only for you, but for anyone else working in your space.
4. Utilize storage space for back stock inventory
This is a massive unlock for those of us with so much excess product! So often, “dead space” near the ceiling of warehouse space is usually left unused and untouched.
Excess storage space is perfect for any product that may not need to be as readily available as other product. Consider niche items, slow-selling product, and anything else you don’t need quick hands on.
5. Follow triadic design principles
It goes without saying that organization is based on the product you’re selling (and sometimes underselling). Triadic design follows the workspace design principles of product popularity. The goal is to organize your items into zones depending on the handling of the product.
Zone 1 is the perfect location for top selling items, whereas Zone 2 is great for average selling SKU, Zone 3 for underselling or niche product. Even better, with Saltbox’s flexible warehousing options, we can offer flex storage for product, whether that be back stock of top sellers or excess under sellers that need a place to reside.
6. Consider hiring an extra set of hands
As an entrepreneur, it may feel like you have to accomplish everything on your own. But necessary tasks like picking, packing, and shipping orders takes longer than they may seem.
Offloading some of these tedious tasks to a dedicated team can eliminate the need to hire additional full-time employees. Here at Saltbox, we offer members that extra set of hands to get organized with our eForce services. Our operations specialists are trained to handle the daily tasks that keep your business running, including:
- Assembly: Putting together boxes, shipping containers, and storage for products or suite
- Kitting: Preparing various parts of an order for shipment, such as kits, subscription boxes, or standard orders with branding needs
- Receiving and sorting: Receiving products on your behalf, sorting items based on specific needs and organizational structure
- Picking and packing: Providing fulfillment services including picking, packaging, and inserting branded items into orders
- Inventory management: Tracking inventory levels and restocking items to ensure availability and accessibility for growing businesses
- Special projects: Offering assistance with any specialized work or tasks that your business may need‍
Plus, you'll have more time to focus on tasks like marketing and design to scale your business without worrying about capacity or time constraints.
About Saltbox
Saltbox offers a cozy and practical spot for small to midsize ecommerce businesses looking for a mix of warehouse and co-working space. Think of our spaces as a blend of a functional warehouse and a trendy co-working area, complete with all the essentials like conference rooms, kitchens, and comfy lounges—perfect for both storing goods and getting work done.
We take the hassle out of logistics with accessible loading docks and our helpful staff who manage your shipments and inventory for you. Plus, our flexible fulfillment services are designed to adapt to your business needs, whether you need help by the hour or prefer a dedicated team to handle your orders. Saltbox is here to make your business operations smoother and help you focus on growing your enterprise.
Come check out the space, book a tour today!
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