How does barcoding help you better track your inventory?

Barcoding promotes better tracking because it automates inventory count maintenance. Every time an item is removed from the shelf to fulfill an order, it gets scanned and the appropriate count is deducted from the Inventory Management System automatically. When warehouse employees receive a new product, they input it into the system, print a barcode. Then, when the same product is reordered, it’s only a matter of attaching a barcode and scanning in the quantity received. The system will also be able to tell automatically when an inventory count is low and trigger a reorder alert automatically.

How does barcoding help you better understand your inventory?

Successful inventory tracking allows for inventory optimization. First you have to know the situation today, then you can start moving towards a goal. With inventory tracking on auto-pilot, you can start looking at which products sellout fastest and which sit on the shelves. Tracking products well will allow you to immediately see the effect of advertising programs - i.e. we’ve advertised this product heavily over the last three months, now lets see how it flew off the shelves compared to the previous three months.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00701/Helium-balloon_1__701052a.jpg

It’s amazing that a shot like the one below was taken without millions of dollars in government funds.

I will definitely think of this next time I seem to be outmatched by the competition!

1) Freeinternet.com - according to Wikipedia, this company lost $19 million bucks on $1 million in revenue, not surprsing considering that they’re giving away internet access for free. I guess the ads never really took?

2) Boo.com - those of you wondering why venture capital money is so hard to come by…Boo.com had a perfectly legitimate plan, to sell apparel online. There are lots of profitable websites doing that today. Boo.com, however, managed to burn through $135 million in venture capital dollars in about a year and a half, check it out on Wikipedia.

3) There’s one more I remember reading about, but I’m sorry I can’t remember the name. They advertised delivering anything anywhere. Go online, say you want a snickers and it’ll be at your door. It didn’t take long before millions in investor funds didn’t alleviate that fact that delivering a single candy bar halfway across town doesn’t add up.

4) Intechnic Corporation…oh wait, we’re definitely still here.

Hackers (1995)

Zer0 cool’s nemesis in the move wrote a “worm” that chipped away at the company’s profits and put small amounts of cash into his account using this 3-D super magic programming language…

Swordfish (2001)

Hackers isn’t the only one programming in 3-D. In Swordfish, where John Travolta fights terror with terror, they like to write computer viruses using some sort of goofy crystal ball. Are those Photoshop tools on the left? A nice touch is how it’s “Decrypting Data” on the floor of some virtual hallway.

(courtesy of apcmag.com)

Masterminds (1997)

Here all we have to do is type “initialize phone routing system” and everyone thinks we’re in Hong Kong. Then, we run through a video game map in under 2 minutes while facing threats from a virtual prosecutor in order to gain access to some sort of top secret database.

1) Your competition uses a particular Content Management System, what would they say it does better? After all, you are looking for the company that will best suit your needs.

2) How much time will this really take to get done? Often times schedules change as requirements get fleshed out and to arrive at an exact schedule, a development team needs to spec out the project.

3) How will my project be supported? There may be a ticket system, forum, 800 number, dedicated individual or even someone overseas as infamously pioneered by some big computer manufacturers. This is important since your websites will be a new piece of software to you and you will have questions.

4) How do you document the project? Projects are often planned in phases depending on complexity. A proposal starts the project and a technical specification gets into the details so that developers know what to do.

5) What’s the cost for the project? Here, on a project of moderate complexity, you actually don’t want an exact answer since the team you introduced the project to must get into the technical details, think through features, research APIs if that are being used, etc. and get their heads around the amount of work involved.

This list isn’t all encompassing, but should provide you with some common sense things to think about on your next web 2.0 development project.

No one wants bad reviews obviously, but if the site is run well, has good products, fast shipping, and good customer service then there generally shouldn’t be many.  Some customers saying they changed their mind about the product and got a quick return may even help others feel more comfortable to deal with the site.  Overall, in web 2.0 development, interaction with the website leads to customers having a better experience and coming back.

Simple White Paper Request Form:

Intechnic’s own Contact Form:

We’ve found that simple contact forms asking for max a name, e-mail, company name, phone and brief message work best because they’re quick to fill out and give a simple starting point for a conversation.  There have been lots of studies comparing short and long contact forms and why simple is better, bottom line is you don’t want barriers to your customers contacting you!