Brands with a global presence need to embrace multichannel retailing to keep up with demand from customers. It’s important to have a system in place that can scale efficiently and move products across the business to fulfil orders from all over the world.
In this article, we will look at five reasons why global businesses such as Fnatic – an eSports franchise and gaming merchandiser – are turning to multichannel inventory and stock management solutions.
Fnatic have been automating from the beginning
Fnatic is a leader of the global professional eSports movement with an ambitious mission to bring eSports into every household. Their success is down to their confidence in trying new time-saving tech which enables the team to focus on issues that matter – like spreading the Fnatic brand.
Whether it’s the use of simple online tools for projects such as Trello or Slack, the latest online brands are all utilising a variety of automation, task assignment, and management systems to automate their processes and stay ahead of competitors.
Fnatic design and distribute their own software which helps simplify the management of your gaming hardware. It’s important that any system they introduce for retail fulfilment to reflect this formula.
As a fast-growing business, the automation of their order fulfilment, stock control, and warehouse transfers across international channels was extremely important for growth. The introduction of a multichannel order management system such as Linnworks was a natural step in perfecting Fnatic’s selling experience to a global fanbase.
And as gamer’s themselves, how could they pass up an opportunity to fine tune their strategy for simplifying their processes?
These new companies and brands are already used to Collaboration
It’s extremely difficult for any company to survive on its own, especially newcomers to competitive markets. So, how did Fnatic and other like-minded brands manage to become so popular with the online community?
Collaboration. Collaboration…Collaboration.
A widely used phrase but one that is so important. Without a network of service providers to enhance your business, you’ll quickly be left behind by those who are willing to network. By embracing the concept of collaboration, you’ll open yourself up to new partnerships, ideas and technologies you may never have considered before.
Without the sponsorship, partners and a network of excellent connections in the eSports community Fnatic would find it very difficult to maintain their titan-like position at the top. By collaborating, they have been able to employ the most talented gamers and experienced managers in the world to reach a global marketplace.
This means that they need to bring in the correct tools and processes to fulfil a big customer base. A multichannel system ensures that orders, information and stock can pass between Fnatic’s distribution centres. A system like this means that their teams, warehouses and fulfilment staff around the world can collaborate and communicate to make sure the job is done right. By bringing disparate and varied selling channels into one location, a collaboration between team members in different locations has been made considerably easier.
New companies are online across the globe, they need their products to be 24/7
Huge growth for online businesses can happen overnight but is very unpredictable. For Fnatic, winning a European tournament can make a massive impact on their shop sales.
The 24/7 global gaming schedule means that Fnatic fans can make purchases at all hours of the day. With an automated multichannel solution, it means that orders, updates and stock from any of their stores can be processed instantly. In fact, any of their users can log in and begin fulfilling orders using automated methods for printing, service assignment and update their huge range of global selling channels.
With automated courier assignment the order details, tracking numbers and channel details are all accounted for with all orders downloaded to their system regardless if the transaction is made via website, shop, selling channel or others.
As online companies scale so must their multichannel systems
All new software in the digital world should be built with scalability in mind. If your system is static and won’t allow the addition of more businesses, you’ll end up spending valuable time replacing sub-systems rather than processing sales.
Fnatic is in a rather unique position, already at the forefront of a new digital scene sweeping the globe. The opportunities for growth and scalability are endless. Even looking at the period from 2017 – 2018, the eSports market is estimated to have grown by 48% to $905 billion. So, with an industry large enough to make super villains look twice, the need for an easily scalable model is essential.
By implementing an order management & stock control system which is multichannel, they’ve future-proofed their stores by having a solution that can grow as they do.
If there is ever a need for more team members, they can have new accounts with unique permissions set up in just a few clicks. As they expand to new marketplaces and gain more international sales, they can implement and map those channels to their Fnatic products inside of Linnworks. And when there’s a need to expand product lines, it’s a simple task of importing new product ranges to list products on all selling channels, both locally and internationally.
Global products, selling on global markets, require global accuracy
Selling to over 12 international marketplaces via websites and worldwide marketplaces, such as Amazon and Newegg, Fnatic has a high selling reputation to maintain.
A key way to ensure you maintain an excellent reputation and services that customers crave is to eliminate human error by introducing a multichannel system to regulate your order processing. By having a unified stock control system, the opportunity for mistakes and overselling products are marginalised.
By setting up multiple warehouses for suppliers to book, send and receive stock enables Fnatic to move products to the right place BEFORE there is an issue.
A reliable stock control system for individual sites means that stock levels are extremely accurate. This means that when a Fnatic Fan chooses to purchase a Rush2 Mouse or gaming headgear they’ll never receive a frustrating “out of stock” experience.
