Real Time Inventory Tracking: Why It Breaks, Why It Matters, and How to Fix It

If inventory feels slippery, it usually is. One system says product is available, another says it is gone, and the warehouse floor has its own opinion entirely. Orders oversell, retailers issue chargebacks, and customer service spends the day playing detective. Real time inventory tracking is not a buzzword problem. It is an operational survival problem.

For fast growing brands, inventory errors show up before revenue plateaus. The math is unforgiving. Every missed scan, delayed update, or manual spreadsheet correction compounds into lost sales, unhappy retailers, and expensive fire drills. What looks like a software issue is usually a systems issue that touches people, process, and technology at the same time.

Why inventory data lags behind reality

Most inventory systems were not built to tell you where product is right now. They were built to tell you where product should be once a process finishes. That gap is where problems live.

As Bryan Wright, CTO and COO of G10 Fulfillment, put it plainly, "A bad WMS system will not track inventory 100%, as it should." The difference between good and bad is not cosmetic. It is about whether inventory is tracked at every physical touchpoint, not just when it lands on a shelf.

In outdated environments, inventory often appears in the system only after putaway. That means receiving, staging, forklift moves, and internal transfers all happen in a kind of digital fog. When sales channels query availability during that window, they get guesses, not facts.

Bryan explained what real time actually looks like on the floor. "A good WMS tracks inventory through the warehouse at every point that you touch it." He went further. "At any point in time, I know that Bobby has this product on fork 10 right now, and if I needed to go find that product, I just got to go find Bobby on fork 10."

That level of precision is what keeps inventory data honest. Without it, brands are flying blind.

The cost of not knowing where inventory is

Inventory errors are rarely small. They show up as oversold SKUs during promotions, missed same day shipping cutoffs, and retailer penalties that arrive weeks later with no room for appeal.

Connor Perkins, Director of Fulfillment at G10, hears this story repeatedly from new customers. "One of the pain points our clients have experienced with previous 3PLs is inventory accuracy." He described the downstream effect clearly. "They were losing money by shipping wrong items or wrong quantities of items."

The problem is not just shipping mistakes. When inventory data lags, planning collapses. Marketing runs promotions on inventory that does not exist. Retailers place urgent purchase orders that cannot be filled. Customer service absorbs the blame while operations scrambles.

In B2B environments, the stakes are higher. Chargebacks do not care why inventory was wrong. They only care that it was wrong.

Why scan based tracking is the foundation

Real time inventory tracking starts with scanning. Not occasional scanning. Not scanning at receiving and shipping only. Continuous scanning, everywhere inventory moves.

Connor put it bluntly. "You want everything to be scanned in the warehouse, nothing done on paper." The reason is simple. Paper is invisible to systems, and invisible work creates invisible errors.

Scan based tracking creates an audit trail that shows what happened, when it happened, and who touched the product. That audit trail matters when something goes sideways. It also matters when things go right and you want to scale.

Bryan described the visibility customers actually get when scanning is done correctly. "It shows the product landed on the dock at 8 o'clock. At 8:10, John picked it up and took it to location XYZ. At 10 o'clock, we picked two items off of that pallet." That is not reporting after the fact. That is operational awareness.

Real time visibility changes how teams behave

When inventory updates in real time, behavior changes. People stop padding forecasts. Customer service stops guessing. Sales stops promising inventory that is not there.

Maureen Milligan, Director of Operations and Projects at G10, explained the customer side of this shift. "What these real-time portals provide our customers is 100% visibility." That visibility removes friction. Customers no longer wait for emails or tickets to understand what is happening.

She described the practical impact. "They can actually watch those progressions going on." That immediacy eliminates phone tag and reduces panic. It also forces accountability. When everyone can see the same data, excuses disappear.

Why real time matters more in omnichannel fulfillment

Selling through one channel is hard enough. Selling through Shopify, Amazon, and big box retailers at the same time is where inventory errors multiply.

Jen Myers, Chief Marketing Officer at G10, described the dilemma brands face. "You want to make sure your inventory is tracked across those two different systems, to make sure that there's enough inventory." Without real time synchronization, channels compete against each other for the same units.

Real time inventory tracking lets brands make informed prioritization decisions. When Amazon suddenly wants two pallets and D2C orders spike at the same time, the system has to know what is actually available. Guessing is not an option.

Technology alone does not fix the problem

Buying software does not solve inventory accuracy. Configuration, discipline, and operational rigor matter just as much.

Bryan explained why flexibility matters. "We have better visibility to transactions-we are constantly upgrading technology and making it faster, more scalable." The key word there is transactions. Inventory is not static. It is constantly in motion.

Connor added another dimension. "If you're an entrepreneur and you have unique requirements, you need to absolutely make sure that the Warehouse Management System that your 3PL uses can handle those requirements." Real time tracking fails when systems cannot adapt to how a business actually operates.

What real time tracking looks like when it works

When real time inventory tracking works, it feels boring. Orders ship on time. Inventory counts line up. Retailers stay quiet. That boredom is expensive to build and priceless to maintain.

Joel Malmquist, VP of Customer Experience at G10, tied accuracy directly to outcomes. "We have over 99.9% ship accuracy of these orders." That number is not marketing fluff. It is the result of systems that do not lose sight of inventory as it moves.

Accuracy at that level protects revenue. It also protects relationships with retailers who have zero patience for mistakes.

How G10 approaches real time inventory tracking

G10 was built around scan based, transaction level visibility from the beginning. The goal was not dashboards. The goal was control.

Bryan summarized the philosophy simply. "A good WMS tracks inventory through the warehouse at every point that you touch it." That mindset shows up in how G10 configures workflows, trains teams, and integrates systems.

Connor emphasized execution. "Having a 3PL and WMS that is 100% scan-based is crucial." Not optional. Not nice to have.

Maureen highlighted the customer experience side. "It just takes that kind of telephone tag out of play." When customers can see what is happening in real time, they stop reacting emotionally and start making decisions rationally.

What this means for growing brands

Real time inventory tracking is not about perfection. It is about reducing uncertainty. The less uncertainty in your inventory data, the faster you can grow without breaking things.

Brands that invest early in scan based, real time systems avoid the painful rewrites later. They do not have to apologize to retailers or explain missed shipments to customers. They scale with fewer scars.

If inventory accuracy has been a recurring headache, the fix is not another spreadsheet or another temporary workaround. The fix is a system that tells the truth in real time.

If the goal is fewer surprises, faster shipping, and inventory data that reflects reality, it starts with asking better questions about how inventory is tracked, scanned, and surfaced. That is where G10 can help remove the guesswork and replace it with clarity so growth does not come with chaos.