Design practice of Netease strictly selecting inventory center

Yan Xuan is a self owned brand e-commerce , One of the core competitiveness is the ability to control the supply chain . In the Middle East: , The management of inventory is the top priority . How to reduce stock transfer 、 Reduce the shortage rate , It is a topic that business students and analysts have been studying for several years . And these topics , Are based on inventory data management . This article will introduce the design practice of strictly selecting inventory centers for inventory data management .

1. Basic methods of e-commerce inventory management

E-commerce has developed so far , It has crossed the stage of barbaric growth and intensive cultivation ; And the informatization road of e-commerce enterprises , It is also becoming more and more mature and perfect ： From the beginning, extensive management of purchase, sales and inventory 、 To have all five internal organs ERP、 And then to the inventory management system which is gradually subdivided 、 Order management system and so on , Some basic supporting products of e-commerce business have formed relatively mature routines and methods , Inventory management system is no exception .

1.1 The core problem solved by e-commerce inventory management

With the rise of the new retail concept a few years ago , More and more e-commerce companies begin to expand offline businesses 、 There are also more and more traditional retail enterprises starting to work on e-commerce ; Online businesses are facing traffic dispersion 、 Customer timeliness requirements are getting higher and higher challenges . This has led many enterprises to adopt ： Online and offline integration 、 Multi channel sales 、 Multi warehouse cloth goods The operation strategy of . Corresponding , A good inventory management system also needs to be able to solve the following problems to adapt to this trend ：

Meet the demands of warehouse operation management

Warehouse is the infrastructure for storing goods , Its warehousing 、 Out of stock 、 Inventory and other operations can most directly affect the actual quantity of goods , A good inventory management system needs to be able to record the impact of these operations on inventory in real time . And according to the degree of refinement of management in the Library , Except for the most basic skuid+ Beyond quantity , It may also need to be in the warehouse 、 Expiry date 、 More detailed dimensions such as batch focus on inventory information .

Provide decision-making basis for order fulfillment

Under the scenario of multi warehouse distribution , Which warehouse does the user order ship from? For timeliness 、 Cost has a decisive impact . And which warehouses can deliver 、 Which warehouses cannot be delivered , One of the most basic conditions is whether the inventory meets . Therefore, a good inventory management system needs to be able to provide warehouses +skuid+ Data of quantity dimension , As the decision-making basis for order fulfillment .

Flexibly support the complex sales mode at the marketing end

A good inventory management system needs to support the operation of the supply side , It also needs to be able to support the sales strategy of the marketing side ： Is it single channel sale or multi-channel sale ; Is it sold nationwide or in some regions ; Ordinary sale or event sale ; Online sales or offline sales, and so on …… Need to be in “ Maximize sales 、 At the same time, it will not cause oversold ” Under the premise of meeting various complex sales modes at the marketing end .

1.2 E-commerce inventory hierarchy

According to the core problems that e-commerce inventory management needs to solve , You can find ： From the lowest level of warehouse management 、 To fulfill the order in the middle 、 And front-end sales , Different business scenarios have clear but different demands for inventory management , The inventory data dimensions they focus on are also different . If only one set of data is used to manage inventory under different business scenarios , It is bound to bring scalability and compatibility problems . This leads to a very common design idea of e-commerce inventory management ： Inventory hierarchical design system .

Warehouse level inventory

Warehouse level inventory , As the name suggests, it is mainly used to manage the data stored in each warehouse . This part of inventory data generally exists in WMS System 、 Or in the store management system . It is the data of the most front-line production system , It can best reflect the warehouse 、 Quantity of goods in store , Therefore, in many companies, it is also called “ Physical level inventory ”（ To avoid confusion , The definitions of terms in this article are based on the strict selection of inventory centers ; However, we will also appropriately introduce the situation of our peers ）. According to the needs of business scenarios , Warehouse inventory may have owners 、 Storehouse 、 Multiple subdivision dimensions such as batch . Inside the warehouse / Any operation in the store , Including picking 、 Out of stock 、 shelves 、 Inventory checking and so on will have an impact on the warehouse level inventory .

Physical level inventory

At present, many e-commerce sellers deliver goods in multiple warehouses , The inventory of each warehouse level is independent , So you usually need one “ Scheduling inventory ” To manage all warehouses as a whole . from “ Scheduling inventory ” This name can be imagined , How to schedule orders after users place orders 、 How to choose which warehouse to ship from ⼀ system 列 Strategy 略, Depend on it . Because it is the hub connecting the sales side and the warehouse side 、 It is a summary of the actual goods data in the warehouse , Therefore, it is sometimes called scheduling inventory “ Midrange inventory ” or “ Physical level inventory ”( notes ： Strict selection of inventory centers has taken “ Physical level inventory ” Address of ). Because physical level inventory focuses on order fulfillment rather than in warehouse production , Therefore, although it comes from warehouse inventory , However, there is no need to manage to warehouse location and other dimensions like warehouse level inventory , Just make a single warehouse according to the actual business situation （ Warehouse +sku+ Number ）、 Area （ Area +sku+ Number ）、 Total inventory （sku+ Number ） Equal dimension management .

Sales inventory

Sales level inventory is user oriented 、 Inventory data that determines whether the user's purchase behavior can succeed , For physical goods , It comes from physical inventory , But it is not completely equivalent to physical inventory ：

Imagine a scene like this ： A commodity is in the warehouse A And the warehouse B There were 2 Pieces can be sold , in total 4 Pieces of . User a placed an order to buy 1 Pieces of , At this time, other users can only buy 3 Pieces of ： That is, the saleable inventory of the sales layer should be 3; From the perspective of physical inventory , Because the order of user a has not been allocated to the warehouse for production , Therefore, the inventory of the physical layer is still 4.

Mainly for sales , Therefore, the sales level inventory generally no longer pays attention to the warehouse information , It will be managed to the region according to the business needs +sku+ Quantity dimension 、 perhaps sku+ Quantity dimension . At the same time, according to the different forms of sale , Sales level inventory may also be divided into active inventory 、 Dimensions such as channel inventory .

2. Strict selection of inventory center design practice

“ Layered design ” It is a basic idea of e-commerce inventory management , Under the guidance of this basic idea , Different e-commerce companies will also make different designs for each layer according to the actual situation to adapt their business models .

2.1 Strictly select the characteristics of e-commerce business

Different from the platform mode of Taobao 、 JD's regional warehouse mode , Strictly selected e-commerce business has some unique characteristics ：

Online and offline multi-channel + Multi scene sales

One of the characteristics of strictly selecting e-commerce business is online and offline multi-channel + Multi scene sales ： We have independently developed Netease strict selection APP、 Netease strictly selects enterprise purchase as the main traffic entry , At the same time, we are also on Taobao 、 Tmall 、 Jd.com and other platforms have opened official flagship stores , Many cities in China also have strictly selected offline stores . These sales channels basically sell most of the strictly selected goods without distinction , Generally, inventory is also shared by these channels . in addition to , Netease strictly selected APP There are more than ten forms of activities , Each activity form has its own unique inventory use demands .

Multi warehouse cloth goods + All over the country

Another feature of strictly selecting e-commerce business is multi warehouse distribution 、 But there is no division of regional warehouses . Although we are in North China 、 south China 、 East China 、 There are warehouses in the southwest , But the scope of delivery of these warehouses is not limited ： That is, without considering the influence of other restrictions , Goods in any warehouse can be sent to users all over the country . This determines the physical level 、 Sales layer , We have no concept of regional inventory , The inventory of all warehouses is shared by users all over the country .

Warehousing service outsourcing

Under the condition of strict selection of existing businesses , We have adopted the most suitable warehousing service outsourcing mode , No self built warehouse 、 Nor has it built its own WMS System ： Introduce SF 、 Jd.com and other third-party warehousing service providers manage our warehouses , Warehouse operations are also developed by these warehouse service providers WMS System . This means that we cannot get the most direct warehouse inventory data .

2.2 Strictly select the hierarchical design of inventory

Based on the above characteristics of strictly selecting e-commerce business , The hierarchical design idea of strictly selecting the inventory center is as follows ：

Focus on the sales layer And physical level inventory

Because there is no self-developed WMS, Therefore, the warehouse level inventory data is not within our jurisdiction . But front-end sales 、 The performance of orders in intermediate links is controlled by Yan Xuan , Therefore, strictly select the inventory center to be divided into sales level inventory 、 Physical level inventory design .

Sales layer 、 The physical layer is light and heavy

As mentioned earlier , Yan Xuan adopts the strategy of one warehouse for national business , Therefore, there is no need to manage like JD's regional warehouse mode sku+ Sales inventory in regional dimension , Our sales inventory only needs to be managed to sku Dimension is enough .

Considering that it is impossible to get the warehouse level inventory directly , Many business scenarios within the strict selection depend on the validity 、 Library age 、 Batch and other data , Therefore, the physical level inventory of strictly selected inventory centers is heavier than that of general e-commerce companies ： In addition to management sku+ Warehouse / The physical inventory of the whole network dimension is used in scenarios such as order scheduling , It also expands the physical location （ In the library 、 On the way ）、 Physical level inventory with dimensions such as batch . The batch number is determined by the purchase receipt number 、 Date of manufacture 、 The attribute value uniquely determined by the expiration date , We can calculate the expiry date according to the batch inventory 、 Stock age and other information , Inventory can be more refined management .

Sales level inventory is based on physical level inventory , They are connected by an inventory formula , Ensure that when the quantity of physical objects in the warehouse changes 、 The sales level inventory of the marketing side also changes accordingly .

2.3 Strictly select and lock inventory design

In the general direction, strictly select the inventory center and adopt the layered design idea commonly used in the industry , And made some trade-offs in terms of details combined with their own business characteristics . in addition to , It also has a relatively unique design ： Flexibly use locked inventory logic to support various complex business scenarios .

Business background

Various promotional activities are an important part of e-commerce operations , And these promotional activities, such as secsha 、 Limited time purchase 、 Deposit purchase and so on have special requirements for the quantity of commodity inventory involved in the activity ： In order to ensure the effect of the activity, a certain amount of inventory is required ; To avoid excessive gross profit reduction, control activity costs , It is impossible to set the activity's purchasable inventory to infinity . therefore , Some inventory management systems adopt a separate method “ Active inventory ” Data for inventory management ： Add a separate activity table to manage activity inventory 、 Active frozen inventory .

In the actual business scenario of strict selection , There may be many promotions at the same time , Besides promotional activities , There will be many other scenarios with special demands on inventory ：

• Some third-party platforms, such as tmall, have their own management rules （ Especially during the "double 11" promotion ）, Strictly choose to ensure a relatively sufficient inventory when selling in this channel
• Some channels stock goods separately , This part of inventory cannot be shared with other sales channels
• Some are not fully online to b Business needs after reaching the contract intention 、 Reserve inventory before the order is issued to ensure the subsequent normal performance
• Some special non online sales business scenarios ( For example, replenishment in offline stores 、 JD self operated business replenishment, etc ), Inventory needs to be reserved from a specific warehouse and shipped to reduce transportation costs

Lock inventory design

Through the above business background introduction, we can find , Promotional activities are just one of the scenes with special demands on inventory , In addition, there are many other business scenarios Reserve a certain amount of inventory for specific purposes The appeal of .

Based on this , Strictly select inventory centers to introduce Lock inventory pool Concept ：

Think of the original shared inventory as a big pool , All the inventory is stored here . And in the shared inventory pool , You can open up many independent locked inventory pools ： That is, the locked inventory pool is a subset of the total inventory pool .

At the same time, we stipulate that each locked inventory pool has a unique “ Secret key ”： That is, lock key , also called lockkey.

The user of the inventory shall , close lockkey+skuid+ Quantity to the inventory center to apply for a locked inventory pool , After successful application , Users only need to bring lockkey To request the inventory center, you can use the inventory of the locked inventory pool . such as , Strictly select the main station to do activities , It can be generated according to the specific situation of the activity lockkey, And use lockkey+ Activities sku+ Request the inventory center to allocate the locked inventory pool by activating the required inventory quantity , The inventory in the locked inventory pool is earmarked for this activity , Once an active order is generated , On the belt lockkey+ Activities sku And request the inventory center for relevant order information to deduct the corresponding locked inventory .

You can see , No matter how many different types of activities there are on the marketing side , We can all manage the active inventory quickly . meanwhile , This method can also easily support other business scenarios with special needs for inventory besides promotional activities .

In the process of the rapid development of yanxuan business , Such a flexible and concise design will undoubtedly help us to quickly attack cities and occupy land . Of course, it also exists ： The inventory center has weak control over the locked inventory pool 、lockkey It's hard to unify norms 、 The related system has a high understanding of inventory costs, which is insufficient , And this is one of the key problems to be solved in strictly selecting inventory centers .

ending

The core of e-commerce inventory management lies in the hierarchical design of inventory data ： According to the actual business needs, for the warehouse level inventory 、 Physical level inventory 、 The inventory of the sales layer is managed with different granularity . But after the basic inventory data model is established , Can bring more value to the business , Or how to carry out supply chain management ： How to use the minimum cost ( Low inventory transfer ) At the fastest speed ( The distribution of inventory in each warehouse is reasonable , No shortage ) Deliver the goods the user needs . This is how to make purchase plan and purchase execution 、 How to balance inventory between warehouses and other more complex topics .

Author's brief introduction