TECHNICAL FIELD

The present disclosure generally relates to computerized systems and methods for dynamic inventory management. In particular, embodiments of the present disclosure relate to inventory management systems that categorize groups of items using virtual bundles and dynamically adapt the virtual bundles to maximize inventory diversity and range of available offers.

BACKGROUND

Real-time inventory management systems automatically record orders and purchases to update databases and give companies and/or sellers a complete picture of demand, available inventory, and required repurchases. Real-time inventory management systems are particularly important for online sellers because the inventory management systems provide critical information to forecast client demand and identify supply chain needs. Indeed, to achieve higher precision, real-time inventory management systems frequently use RFID (radio frequency identification) technologies—or bar code systems—in order to record new receipts and sales more quickly with little human intervention. Deployment of these systems allow automated recording of every transaction (both purchases of new stock as well as outbound orders and all of the associated costs) in real-time to provide an accurate inventory status.

Real-time inventory management, however, is difficult to achieve in complex online retail operations that use broad warehouse networks, multiple vendors, and/or customized product listings-which may depend on regions, seasons, or customer preferences. Further, configuring and maintaining inventory management systems has turned cumbersome with the increased complexity of fulfillment center (FC) networks, the use of third-party vendors, and increased personalization of marketing campaigns. For example, products that are offered in a website may be held in different FCs and/or be sourced from third-party vendors. Thus, inventory management systems need to coordinate multiple systems to create an accurate representation of the network's inventory. Further, FCs may store products from multiple vendors with independent inventory systems, different item identification, and/or customized product categorization. Thus, inventory management systems may have to reconcile inventory data.

Such complexity of FCs networks, multiple vendors, customized product listings, and variety of inventory systems results in inventory update delays that prevent real-time inventory management. For example, in order to coordinate inventory between multiple FCs, inventory systems usually update inventory in cycles (e.g., once a day). But inventory updates with such long cycles cause issues at both the front end and the back end of online retail operations. For example, lack of real-time inventory data result in problems of offering unavailable products to customers. Further, lack of accurate inventory data may result in supply chain discontinuity.

The disclosed computerized systems and methods of dynamic balancing of virtual bundles address one or more of the problems set forth above and/or other problems in the prior art.

SUMMARY

One aspect of the present disclosure is directed to a system for dynamic inventory balancing. The system may include at least one processor and at least one memory device comprising instructions that when executed configure the at least one processor to perform operations. The operations may include receiving an inventory data feed from at least one fulfillment center, storing (in a database) a plurality of virtual bundles with associated grouping numbers and quantities—where the plurality of virtual bundles include item bundles grouping two or more of a same item in the inventory data. The operations may also include exposing the database to queries from a seller portal through at least one of RESTful service, a queue based system, an index, or an object table, and receiving (from the seller portal) a client order, the client order comprising a bundle selection from the plurality of virtual bundles. The operations may also include, in response to receiving the client order, updating the plurality of virtual bundles by rebalancing the plurality of virtual bundles and corresponding associated quantities based on the bundle selection.

Another aspect of the present disclosure is directed to a computer-implemented method for dynamic inventory balancing. The method may include receiving an inventory data feed from at least one fulfillment center, storing (in a database) a plurality of virtual bundles with associated grouping numbers and quantities—where the plurality of virtual bundles include item bundles grouping two or more of a same item in the inventory data. The method may also include exposing the database to queries from a seller portal through at least one of RESTful service, a queue based system, an index, or an object table, and receiving (from the seller portal) a client order, the client order comprising a bundle selection from the plurality of virtual bundles. The method may also include, in response to receiving the client order, updating the plurality of virtual bundles by rebalancing the plurality of virtual bundles and corresponding associated quantities based on the bundle selection.

Yet another aspect of the present disclosure is directed to an apparatus including one or more processors and one or more memory devices with instructions that when executed configure the one or more processors to: receive an inventory data feed from at least one fulfillment center, store (in a database) a plurality of virtual bundles with associated grouping numbers and quantities. The plurality of virtual bundles including item bundles grouping two or more of a same item in the inventory data by: generating a plurality of encoded tags, each of the encoded tags encoding an item ID and a bundle group and generating a record in the database for each item in the inventory data and each of the plurality of bundles—each data record comprising an encoded tag field and a quantity field. The instructions may also configure the processors to expose the database to queries from a seller portal through a RESTful service, receive (from the seller portal) a client order, the client order comprising a bundle selection from the plurality of virtual bundles, and, in response to receiving the client order, update the plurality of virtual bundles by: determining an updated item inventory based on the bundle selection, rebalancing the plurality of virtual bundles through sequential assignment of items maximizing bundle diversity, and updating the database to modify an item inventory. Moreover, the instructions may also configure the processors to receive updated inventory data from the at least one fulfillment center and rebalance the plurality of bundles in the database based on the updated inventory data.

Other systems, methods, and computer-readable media are also discussed herein.

