Inventory Lab Review – Is It Worth Your While?

Anyone who follows the eBusiness Boss blog knows that I am always on the lookout for new Amazon tools. Since we’ve been getting a few questions about Inventory Lab lately, I’ve decided to take a closer look.

Online marketplaces such as Amazon already make it easy to list and sell products. However, there are still several aspects of an online business that you need to manage yourself.

I use software to improve efficiency and save time; most top sellers do. After selling on Amazon for a little while, you realise that you need to use every possible advantage.

By the end of this review, you should have a good idea of whether Inventory Lab is a tool that will benefit your online business.

Let’s get into the basics by going through the features.

Inventory Lab – What It’s Used For

Inventory Lab is a comprehensive tool. Not only can you research and list products, but you can also manage your inventory, track your expenses, and analyse profitability.

The software consists of two tools.

1. Stratify

Stratify can improve both your efficiency and profitability. Using detailed data, users can perform real-time product research.

The software also simplifies the process of listing products, printing labels, tracking profits/costs, and building FBA shipments.

On the accounting side, Stratify makes it possible to track expenses, view total in-stock values, and monitor sales.

You can track all of your business expenses in one place; this makes it easier to make strategic decisions.

Comprehensive reports are also available, ensuring you know which products and suppliers are the most profitable. From a strategic point of view, having this information can save you a lot of time and money.

2. Scoutify

Scoutify is the mobile part of this tool. Once you download the app, you can analyse potential inventory directly from your mobile device.

Scoutify is very popular with online and retail arbitrage sellers.

By entering the cost per unit, you can quickly see the potential profitability of any item you might be thinking about purchasing.

Another key feature of this app is the built-in barcode scanner. Many of today’s inventory management tools don’t have this feature, which means you need to pay for it separately.

You can install this app on as many devices as you need to, which is useful if you work within a team.

Inventory Lab – The Key Features

To give you a good idea of the capabilities of this tool, I thought I would focus on the features I found most useful.

Access Detailed Business & Expense Reports

As an online seller, data is everything. Not keeping track of your numbers can negatively impact the future of your business, particularly over the long term.

Inventory Lab goes the extra mile in terms of reporting. From sales, reimbursements and refunds, to profits and losses – you can track almost anything related to your store’s finances and performance from this platform.

Having access to these reports makes all the difference, to succeed at the highest level you’ll need to be able to monitor and track your KPI’s.

Print Product Labels as You List

With the help of the Scoutify app, it’s possible to print a label and attach it to an item as soon as you list it.

Immediately printing labels can save you up to an hour per inventory batch. It removes the need to sort through pages of labels at the end of the listing process.

Limit FBA Warehouse Numbers

When listing your inventory in Seller Central, Amazon will sometimes split these products between multiple FBA warehouses; this can be annoying and will increase expenses.

When using Inventory Lab, you have the option to choose between Live and Private workflow types.

By selecting the Private workflow type, Amazon won’t receive your submission until the inventory batch is complete, this tends to result in inventory ending up at fewer fulfilment centres.

Use the Buy List to Upload Items to Inventory Lab

Listing retail arbitrage inventory is made much easier with the Scoutify app.

Using the app, you can scan an item, enter the price you’re paying and selling it for, and add it to your Buy List.

You also only need to enter a supplier name once; Scoutify can then add to each item on your buy list. It only changes once you add a new name.

Once your RA sourcing is complete, email the file and use it to upload the items to Inventory Lab in one go.

Create Detailed MSKUs

When listing your items on Amazon via Inventory Lab, you have the option to create custom MSKUs (Merchant Stock Keeping Unit), this is what Amazon uses to keep track of inventory.

Inventory Lab makes this process simple is by creating sequential MSKUs, for example, if you use a date and item number as your MSKU (2020-02-14_001), Inventory Lab will number all items that follow sequentially (2020-02-14_002).

However, you can take this one step further by including other valuable information such as the ASIN, supplier, and buy cost in your MSKUs. By having this type of information, it becomes easier to reprice and track your suppliers once you start adjusting your strategy later on.

Access Product Prep Information

To avoid additional Amazon prep fees, it helps to know how you should prep an item the first time around.

Inventory Lab will show you how to prep a product for Amazon FBA; this unique feature will save you time, money, and ensure your sales numbers are not affected.

Inventory Lab Pricing

If you prefer to try before you buy, Inventory Lab offers a 30-day free trial, with access to all their features.

Trial users get access to FBA and Merchant Fulfilled Sales data for the past 60 days. If you choose to sign up as a paid user, you can access this same data beyond the 60 days at no extra cost.

If you go ahead with a paid plan, expect to pay $49 per month or $40 per month if billed annually.

Inventory Lab – Are There Alternatives?

Few inventory management tools do precisely what Inventory Lab does, but AccelerList seems to be the closest match.

AccerList has not been around for as long, but the features are very similar to Inventory Lab, except for the built-in scanner – this is unique to Inventory Lab.

If you require a mobile scanner, you will need to pay for a separate app.

According to some users, AccerList is more intuitive than Inventory Lab when it comes to listing items online. However, Inventory Lab does have more reporting and accounting-related features; this, of course, is a big plus.

As with Inventory Lab, AccerList’s workflows speed up the process of scanning and uploading items and makes tracking and adjusting prices simple – both tools are useful in this regard.

A small plus with AccerList is that it automatically creates your first box and assigns items to it, which isn’t the case with Inventory Lab.

Lastly, AccerList is slightly more affordable than Inventory Lab, coming in at $34 per month – this is without a mobile scanning app, though.

If you have an interest in the private label side of Amazon, there are a few other tools worth mentioning.

Jungle scout is hugely popular, there are too many tools to mention here, but you can read my full review on Jungle Scout. Let me know if you have any q’s.

If you’re searching for a tool that is best for optimising your product listings, I recommend reading through my Helium 10 review.

If tracking profits and costs is a priority for you, I suggest you watch this review on Sellerboard:

Inventory Lab – The Verdict

Inventory Lab is an impressive all-in-one tool for managing inventory and your accounting processes. It is an ideal choice for anyone who wants to forgo some of the manual processes associated with running an online Amazon business.

As an Amazon seller, this tool uses real-time profitability and inventory values to help you increase profits and grow your business. The fact that you can organise your label printing directly from the app is a great bonus.

Inventory Lab is also excellent for tracking and understanding your expenses in the most detailed way possible.

Overall, you can get a lot done and free up more of your time by using this tool.

If you haven’t yet, I suggest signing up for the 30-day trial to decide whether Inventory Lab meets your business requirements.

If you’ve got any questions, please ask away below!

Tags: Amazon Software Review