Selling expired products is a big no-no. Besides being a costly mistake, it can have even bigger consequences, resulting in a damaged reputation, fines, or legal action. That’s why tracking expiration dates is critical for any company that deals with products with a limited shelf life, and luckily, with technology, tracking expiration dates is easier now than ever before.
In this article, we will explore the importance of expiration date tracking and how technology like Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) can help manage perishable goods.
Let’s dive right in!
Understanding the importance of expiration date tracking
Tracking expiration dates is not just about selling expired products. It’s about protecting your business, customers, and bottom line. Easy enough, right? To further understand, let’s take a look at why it’s so crucial.
Regulatory compliance
For many industries (food, pharmaceutical, cosmetics, chemical, etc.), keeping tabs on expiration dates isn’t just a good idea – it’s the law. For example, in the US pharmaceutical industry, Arizona has a law that stops distributors from shipping drugs with less than 120 days until expiry. This means that businesses in Arizona have to be on their toes and tracking every product’s shelf life to stay on the right side of the law.
This is where a dependable Warehouse Management System (WMS) can help. With a WMS, the tracking of expiring stock can be automated.
Quality control
When it comes to the quality of a product, expiration dates truly excel. It’s almost like expiration dates were created to help with quality control. Huh.
For consumers, expiration dates help us know that a product is safe to use, and when it comes to food and beverages, this is even more important in helping us know that we aren’t about to consume something spoiled or rotten.
For businesses, expiration dates help us make sure that only the freshest, highest-quality products are delivered to the customer.
Implementing a WMS with expiration date management can automate the tracking process, reducing the risk of expired inventory slipping through the cracks. Now, that's what I call money well spent!
Customer satisfaction
The end goal of every business is all about keeping the customers happy. So, it should be no surprise that you can increase customer satisfaction by making sure customers don’t receive expired products.
Also, just to complicate things a bit, some customers also have specific requirements for product shelf life. They might want products with expiration dates of more than 6 or 12 months in the future. For example, a customer who bought an expensive organic face cream would not be very happy if it started growing mold within a month of their purchase. No bueno.
This also can be avoided with a good ol’ WMS. By using a WMS to track expiration dates effectively, you can elevate the entire operation, ensuring compliance, maintaining quality, and keeping customers happy.
Key features of an effective WMS for expiration tracking
Now that we have shared how a WMS can help with expiration dates, we should also tell you that when it comes to effectively tracking expiration dates, not all Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) are created equal. To elevate your warehouse operations and gain vital control over perishable goods, you need a WMS with a specific set of skills (as Liam Neeson would say). Let’s explore the key components that make a WMS effective for expiration tracking.
Batch and lot tracking
To start things off, a robust WMS should offer comprehensive batch and lot tracking capabilities. Here’s how this is helpful:
A batch and lot tracking feature is vital for tracing specific groups of products produced or received at the same time. Therefore, with batch tracking, it is easy to monitor the journey of your products from production to dispatch. This level of detail is invaluable when managing perishable items or products with a defined shelf life.
Expiration date alerts
Just like my momma used to say: Informed decisions are the best decisions.
Another important feature of an effective WMS is its ability to provide real-time alerts about products nearing their expiration dates. These notifications not only keep you up to date but can help you make quick, informed decisions. These decisions can help decide whether or not to run a sale to unload the inventory before it expires. Or remove the products from inventory if they have expired.
Inventory visibility
A good WMS provides a bird’s-eye view of all the inventory. With an even better WMS, you also get a real-time overview of all product batches and their corresponding expiration dates. This level of visibility is crucial for effective planning and ensures that no product is overlooked or wasted. Don’t lose money on misplaced inventory ever again.
Full inventory visibility also helps implement strategies like First-Expired-First-Out (FEFO), which prioritizes products nearing their expiry dates for dispatch.
Using a WMS with these key features, you can automate expiration date management, eliminate human errors, and keep detailed records of production and best-before dates. Now, that's fresh!
Elevate your warehouse operations with a reliable WMS – Zenventory
To elevate your warehouse operations with an affordable and reliable WMS, look no further than Zenventory. Zenventory’s expiration date capabilities have helped hundreds of brands, and we can help you with that, too. See the Zenventory difference yourself.
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