After the first information on payment reconciliation in JTL-Wawi 1.2 last week, this time we are focusing on FIFO. It sounds strange, but it makes sense for many merchants. The acronym stands for First In – First Out. This describes a form of order placement in which the buyer whose sales order was received by the retailer first is supplied with goods first. In German, we therefore also speak of stock reservation. The advantages of this approach and how it is integrated into the new version of our software are explained below.
The problem
Imagine the following scenario:
A furniture seller usually offers its goods with a delivery time of six weeks, but also has small quantities in stock. This currently includes a certain couch model. A customer now buys this item in stock because it is displayed in the store as “Available, delivery tomorrow”.
A few hours later, a second customer also buys the exact same couch from the online store. Meanwhile, the store indicated that the item would be delivered within six weeks. This is convenient for the customer, as he wants to sell his old couch himself beforehand. However, the second customer pays via PayPal, while the first customer transfers the money and the amount is only received by the retailer two days later. In fact, the goods are now sent first to the customer who paid first. The second customer therefore receives a couch the next day, while the first customer has to wait six weeks for the goods .
To avoid such situations, customers have asked us to create an option for this within the Wawi. This is exactly what is included in the new version 1.2.
The solution
With the release of JTL-Wawi 1.2, retailers can allocate stock to sales orders according to incoming orders thanks to FIFO. In our example above, the couch would be reserved for the first customer, even if payment is not received until two days later. An “overhaul” by a PayPal buyer can therefore be avoided.
We have deliberately integrated stock reservation as an option in JTL-Wawi – not every retailer will find this procedure interesting or relevant. Those who work a lot with oversales will benefit greatly from the new option. However, those who strictly handle their online business according to the “first to pay, first to receive” rule can continue to do so without any problems.
If you want to activate this rule in your ERP installation, you simply need to check the corresponding box in the global options.
However, there is a restriction on the use of First In – First Out: As Microsoft’s SQL Server 2008 does not support the function, it is only available from an installation of SQL Server 2012 and upwards.
Conclusion
With this reorganization of order processing, retailers can save valuable time in the future if they work with oversales. Instead of a time-consuming manual check, JTL-Wawi itself regulates the allocation of goods in a clear “first come, first served” manner. However, it was important to us not to make this procedure mandatory for all merchants. After all, there are enough customers who want to send goods in the order in which payment is confirmed. Regardless of which of the two approaches you take, JTL-Wawi 1.2 gives you more options to sell efficiently and according to your needs.
