Skubana is principally an inventory management application that integrates with ecommerce platforms and marketplaces. The software is aimed at medium to enterprise-scale businesses and covers order management, fulfillment, inventory, purchasing, payment, and distribution.
While Skubana is generally well-received, there are many alternative solutions out there that offer more targeted management solutions. Before investing in its software, it’s critical to consider which features you need most.
For example, if you’re looking for a tool with in-built customer services and accounting features, then Skubana probably isn’t for you.
But don’t worry. We’re going to be running you through some of our top-choice Skubana alternatives to help you make the best decision.
Why look for a Skubana Alternative?
Despite being one of the best-known inventory management applications on the market today, Skubana is not the best choice for everyone. When choosing a software solution for your business, it’s essential to scope out your business’ short-to-long-term requirements and look for suitable software that can grow with you.
Instead of investing in an all-in-one solution designed mainly for small businesses, like Skubana, we recommend honing in on exactly what you need and picking a tool with the perfect tech stack to accommodate this.
Here are some important reasons why you might want to look for an alternative to Skubana:
Your wholesale business needs more flexible options
As a wholesaler, you need seriously flexible options when it comes to order fulfillment, invoicing, and pricing. You might require solutions for things like complex dropshipping, partial fulfillment, or fulfillment from multiple locations—and you’ll definitely need automation.
While Skubana does offer automated fulfillment, it just doesn’t have the flexibility of some of the other software on the market. That’s because it hasn’t been designed specifically for retail and wholesale businesses, like Brightpearl has.
As well as reliable and flexible features to meet your individual requirements, Brightpearl’s powerful automation engine lets you automate everything from shipping to fulfillment, returns, demand forecasting, CRM, reporting, and accounting.
It also gives you the intuitive functionality to streamline day-to-day back office operations and support growth, making it ideal for agile businesses. The same cannot be said for Skubana, nor alternatives like TradeGecko.
You want to make data-driven decisions
Unfortunately, Skubana does not offer in-built inventory planning, business intelligence, or reporting. If this is vital to you, then you’ll need to shop elsewhere. Retail operating systems like Brightpearl are a better option in this case. Brightpearl offers data-driven inventory planning and an integrated demand planner. Perfect for making predictive analysis based on targeted KPIs.
Source: Altis.com.au
You want better accounting
To access accounting functionalities, Skubana users have no choice but to use a third-party integration. User reviews describe a “lack of flexibility in data exports for accounting function […] I will always have to reconcile Skubana with my accounting solution. Currently, the company is sending me an ad-hoc report when it should really be built into their UI.”
A targeted, retail-oriented operating system like Brightpearl offers a more robust accounting experience. Brightpearl comes with a fully integrated accounting system that allows users to collate purchase orders, sales, and accounting activity—across multiple currencies. You also have the choice to integrate Brightpearl with third-party accounting systems that you prefer, meaning you can choose between adopting Brightpearl’s real-time accounting, or continuing to use the solution you’ve already got in place.
You want to expand your business easily
For growing businesses, you’ll want a solution that offers a comprehensive range of reliable integrations that can be plugged into your current system easily and expand the functionality. If that sounds like you, Skubana isn’t the ideal choice. Skubana has limited native connectors, which means you may need to spend extra dollars and time to build custom integrations.
Also, it’s very important to remember that you’ll face larger order volumes when your business grows. Unfortunately, Skubana doesn’t seem to be effective in handling high order volumes.
You want to serve your customers better
Finally, as a retailer, your customers are key. One of the most significant disadvantages for Skubana users is the lack of any integrated customer relationship management (CRM) tool.
That means that merchants lack visibility over their customers’ buying behaviors and interactions with their business. For a far more complete view of your customer journeys, tools like Brightpearl offer an integrated CRM platform.
You don’t have to defer to a third-party application. Instead, you can enjoy Brightpearl’s integrated CRM, which can help you create optimized marketing campaigns targeted directly at your customers.
5 Best Skubana Alternatives for Merchants
So, you’ve decided to look for a Skubana alternative? With so many options out there, it can feel overwhelming—even if you’ve checked all the user reviews on social media. That’s why we’ve whittled the choices down to our top-five alternatives for online merchants.
So, without further ado, let’s dive in.
1. Brightpearl
Brightpearl is a cloud-based, retail-focused operations platform for retailers and wholesalers. The Brightpearl software includes everything from inventory and order management to accounting, purchasing, procurement, CRM, point-of-sale (POS), and logistics. It also offers powerful automation to boost both operations and supply chain management.
It’s a superb option for high-growth companies and multichannel brands, offering native high-performance ecommerce integrations across SaaS and open-source platforms, including Amazon, eBay, BigCommerce, Shopify, WooCommerce, ShipStation, and Magento. Not to mention, Brightpearl also offers integrated POS, so you can easily sell online and offline.
Brightpearl offers some critical advantages over Skubana. It’s built specifically for retail and wholesale, which means you won’t be limited by features when you go DTC or start wholesaling alongside your retail business.
Plus, Brightpearl boasts top-notch services throughout the whole partnership, from project scoping and implementation to onboarding training, 24/7 technical support and regular business consulting. It’s the only software provider who scopes the whole project out at their costs before a client signs the contract. This is critical to ensure all the requirements can be met and implementation will be efficient.
Brightpearl also believes data makes businesses grow faster. So it provides integrated accounting, inventory planning and analytics & BI tools to give merchants in-depth insights on their business performance.
2. Fishbowl
Fishbowl is an entry-level warehouse management and inventory control tool with barcode tracking software, best for small businesses that need to track their raw material inventory.
Fishbowl differs from other inventory management tools because it’s a desktop application that runs on your own server. You pay a one-time price rather than a monthly fee, which could be cost-effective for small companies if you don’t mind the initial outlay.
It’s not ideal for retailers, multichannel brands or wholesalers who seek rapid growth. If it’s like you, you’ll quickly outgrow the system and won’t get the retail-tailored features you need.
3. Sellercloud
Sellercloud is an ecommerce platform for online retailers aimed at improving multichannel sales, catalog management, inventory, warehousing, and shipping. Sellercloud integrates with multiple sales channels and functions as a single-source management solution.
However, there are many features that Sellercloud lacks. Indeed, it can’t be deployed on Android or iPhone. Also, if you require in-built accounting and flexible order fulfillment workflows, you’re better off opting for a retail operating system like Brightpearl. Brightpearl provides advanced warehouse inventory management, wholesale business workflows, time-saving automation, and 24/7 support.
4. Cin7
Cin7 is an automated inventory management platform for scaling businesses. The tool will synchronize your stock with sales and orders across physical and online sales channels. This cloud-based retail management solution includes ecommerce inventory management, POS, and reporting but is not suitable for asset management.
It might not be the right solution for you if you need better accounting, advanced fulfillment workflows or reliable EDI integrations. For more details, check out our in-depth Cin7 comparison page
5. NetSuite
NetSuite is a well-known ERP, which includes inventory management, financial tracking, customer relationship management, and ecommerce store hosting. All from the cloud. NetSuite also offers professional services automation to help users plan and track their projects.
Although it’s a robust ERP system, it’s not tailored to retail and wholesale business. This means you’ll have to pay for features you don’t need, as well as customizations that you may need for your ecommerce workflows. And the implementation can move slowly as all the functionality needs to be implemented and configured, no matter if you need it or not. If extra customizations are required, it can even take longer and become complex, which will increase the implementation failure rate.
Why merchants trust Brightpearl
Software with services
Brightpearl supports customers throughout their entire customer journey from implementation to onboarding, support, and ongoing business consulting. Service is an integral value for Brightpearl, and users can count on their in-house retail experts.
Built solely for retail and wholesale
Brightpearl grows with you. Unlike one-size-fits-all ERPs, Brightpearl has been designed with just retail and wholesale in mind. The software is specifically crafted to adapt to your existing workflows without any need for pricey and time-consuming customizations.
Let you easily scale your business
With its wide range of reliable integrations, Brightpearl’s SaaS infrastructure and architecture make it effortless to scale your business. It also comes equipped with advanced functionalities to support omnichannel growth as well as operations management.
Frequently asked questions
Does Skubana have integrated accounting?
Skubana doesn’t allow for integrated accounting. Skubana users can only integrate with third-party accounting software like Quickbooks. With Brightpearl, users can choose whether to use Brightpearl’s own integrated real-time accounting or integrate seamlessly with a third-party software of their choice.
What sectors use Skubana?
Skubana users range from small to medium sized businesses across multiple sectors selling online. For omnichannel brands, Brightpearl offers a more bespoke approach.
What is the best inventory management software?
Choosing an inventory management system is an individual process. But if you’re looking for a retail-oriented omnichannel management system, then Brightpearl is an excellent choice. Designed to support operational agility for retailers and wholesalers, Brightpearl supports sales, logistics and provides in-depth reporting.
Pick your alternative
So, what’ll it be?
We’ve walked you through some of our top Skubana competitors on the market today. Remember, the right tool for you is your decision. Consider the features that’ll allow you to grow and scale now and in the future and invest in a system that meets those needs head-on.
If omnichannel retail and wholesale growth is your aim, then Brightpearl is a fantastic choice.