Abstract

For kitchen, bathroom, and travel accessories companies, the effectiveness of inventory management is critical, in which variations in seasonal demand and a wide range of products as well as changing customer preferences create strategic challenges for inventory management. A proper application of data analytics can be transformed into inventory efficiency solutions, extra stock reduction, and improvement in customer satisfaction in a transformed manner. This paper shall discuss the best practices in managing inventory for such product categories, with a specific focus on how predictive analytics, demand forecasting, and even real-time inventory tracking can optimize stock levels and hence reduce operational costs. Predictive analytics allows forecasting the changes in demand by time-series analysis with seasonal, calendar, and external influences, such that the availability of stock at the company can accurately correspond to the consumers' demand at any point in time. It saves a company from overstock and stockouts, reduces holding costs, and order fulfilment is raised to maximum levels. The real-time tracking provided by IoT technologies and integration enhances the visibility of inventory across different locations of storage, thereby raising timely response actions to disruption in the supply chain. This paper further talks about the role of data insight in sparking timely restocking so that a delay is avoided and a constant flow of the supply chain is maintained. Using data-driven practices can further help waste reduction optimize warehouse space, reduce time and cost associated with managing inventory, and so on. Adoption of these data analytics-driven best practices by companies would certainly enable those firms to realize ample improvements in inventory accuracy, operational efficiency, and the overall customer experience in the kitchen, bathroom, and travel accessories market.

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