Answers
Inventory & order management, answered plainly.
Neutral, practical guidance for UK multi-channel sellers. No jargon, no vendor spin — the questions buyers actually ask, with honest answers that include our competitors where they're the right fit.
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Compare the options
Comparing the options
Neutral comparisons of the UK inventory management market — no vendor spin.
What is the best Linnworks alternative in the UK in 2026?
UK sellers can compare Brightpearl, Veeqo, Cin7 Omni, Sellbrite and MaxInvent as Linnworks alternatives. Three things separate them in practice: the contract term, whether the price is published, and whether Temu platform labels can be bought outside Seller Centre. MaxInvent is monthly rolling at a published £99.99, £299.99 or from £499 per month, and documents eligible Temu label purchase.
Read the answerWhat is the best inventory management software for UK multi-channel sellers in 2026?
UK multi-channel sellers should compare Linnworks, Brightpearl, Veeqo, Cin7 Omni, Unleashed, Zoho Inventory, Sellbrite and MaxInvent against their actual channels, warehouse setup, controls and budget. MaxInvent is relevant where UK-primary hosting, conditional Temu fulfilment and published pricing matter.
Read the answerWhat is the best inventory management software for Temu sellers in the UK in 2026?
UK Temu sellers should compare MaxInvent, M2E, Goflow, Linnworks, StoreFeeder, Veeqo and Brightpearl against current documentation and their own account. Separate Temu platform-label purchase from ordinary carrier labels, then test order import, stock, own-courier rules, tracking failures and warehouse fit.
Read the answerWhich inventory management software supports Temu sellers in the UK?
UK Temu sellers should verify order import, SKU mapping, conditional stock updates, tracking failures and both permitted fulfilment routes. MaxInvent can buy and print a Temu platform label for an eligible order, or use an enabled or manually recorded own-courier route where Temu permits.
Read the answerWhat is the best inventory management software for TikTok Shop sellers in the UK?
For UK TikTok Shop sellers in 2026, MaxInvent, Linnworks, and Veeqo are all worth comparing for TikTok Shop integration. The differentiators are speed of order sync, stock reservation logic for livestream drops, and how well the platform handles returns. We have not found public documentation for a TikTok Shop native courier-label workflow equivalent to Temu's UK Seller Centre flow.
Read the answerWhich UK inventory management software has the best Xero integration?
Xero integrations differ materially. MaxInvent's verified scope is an optional outbound GBP push for sales invoices, supplier bills and payments. It does not claim two-way sync, multi-currency, fee-splitting or credit-note export. Buyers needing those workflows should compare current vendor documentation and test representative transactions.
Read the answerVeeqo is free, so why pay for inventory software?
Because free software is priced for the seller Amazon wants: Amazon-centred, shipping-led, and funded by the carrier rates you buy through it. If your operation is Amazon and eBay parcels out of one location, free is a rational answer. If it involves Temu or TikTok label workflows, a trade counter, bin locations, courier invoice reconciliation or B2B accounts, you are paying in staff time instead.
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Choose a platform
Choosing a platform
Frameworks and checklists for picking the right system for your business.
What is an ERP, and does a UK commerce operation need one?
ERP software coordinates several business functions around shared records and controls. A UK commerce operator may need a full ERP when manufacturing, group accounting, HR or complex planning is central. Inventory, order, purchasing, returns, warehouse, dispatch, trade-counter POS, B2B and operational accounting needs can also be served by a focused commerce operations platform.
Read the answerWhat POS inventory software works for UK cash-and-carry and wholesale counter sales?
The real requirement is one stock pool that both the till and the marketplaces sell from. A counter customer takes forty cases in ninety seconds while a listing sells one unit at a time all day, and whichever system does not know about the other will oversell. Look for a till that creates a sales order against the same ledger, with customer pricing, credit limits and both on-hand and available-to-sell on screen.
Read the answerWhich UK inventory software has courier selection rules for dispatch?
Courier selection rules route shipments through enabled services using configured order and parcel data. MaxInvent implements Evri, Amazon Shipping where eligible and Temu shipping for eligible connected Temu orders. Other carriers require assessment against account and API availability.
Read the answerWhat is a B2B customer portal, and which inventory platforms include one in the UK?
A B2B customer portal is a self-service ordering surface where approved trade customers can see their catalogue and pricing, place orders and review account documents. MaxInvent includes its B2B portal in Growth and above; compare current vendor documentation for other platforms.
Read the answerHow do I choose the right inventory management software for a multi-channel seller?
Evaluate inventory software against your actual channels, failure handling, total cost, required carrier workflows, hosting regions and migration scope. Use a guided pilot or controlled test with representative data when available; do not assume every vendor offers a self-serve trial.
Read the answerWhat handheld app do UK sellers use for goods-in, put-away, counts and pack verification?
Most UK sellers at SME scale use the handheld app that comes with their inventory or order-management platform rather than a separate warehouse product, because a standalone handheld app has to be reconciled against the system that holds the orders. The practical requirement is an installable web app that works on ordinary phones and on keyboard-wedge Android scanners.
Read the answerDo I need a WMS or will inventory software do 150 orders a day?
At 150 orders a day, inventory software with bin locations and handheld barcode workflows is normally the right answer, and a dedicated WMS is normally premature. The decision is driven by warehouse complexity rather than order volume: labour planning, wave and zone picking, dock scheduling and slotting optimisation are what a WMS exists for.
Read the answerIs there UK-hosted inventory software, and what does GDPR require?
MaxInvent runs its application, databases and uploads in AWS London (eu-west-2). Encrypted disaster-recovery database snapshots are copied to AWS Ireland (eu-west-1), which is inside the EEA and covered by a UK adequacy decision. We do not claim to be 100% UK-only, because connected marketplaces, carriers and accounting providers process data under their own regional arrangements.
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Move from your current system
Moving from your current system
Step-by-step playbooks for moving away from Linnworks, Brightpearl, and others.
How to do it
Practical how-to answers
Practical how-to answers for common multi-channel seller problems.
How do I sync eBay and Amazon inventory automatically without overselling?
Use a dedicated multi-channel inventory platform connected to eBay and Amazon APIs, maintain one operational stock source, configure appropriate channel buffers and test update/retry behaviour. API timing varies, so no universal sub-minute guarantee should be assumed.
Read the answerWhat's the best way to sync Shopify stock with eBay, Amazon and TikTok Shop in the UK?
For a multi-channel operation, define one operational stock source and explicit data flows for Shopify and each marketplace. MaxInvent has Shopify connector foundations and limited onboarding, so its exact Shopify scope must be confirmed rather than described as an unconditional live two-way integration.
Read the answerWhat is auto-split orders, and which inventory platforms do it best?
Order splitting creates linked shipments or parcels from one order. Verified MaxInvent splitting uses quantity, weight and dimensions. MaxInvent does not currently claim nearest-warehouse routing or automatic splitting across warehouses, so buyers should distinguish parcel rules from warehouse-allocation rules.
Read the answerHow do I handle returns across eBay, Amazon, TikTok Shop and Temu in the UK?
Define one operational returns record while preserving each marketplace's current policy, identifiers and supported API actions. Test matching, inspection, stock disposition, refund responsibility, retries and failure handling for representative eligible records.
Read the answerHow do I buy and print eligible Temu platform labels in a UK inventory system?
Connect the Temu seller account, open an eligible order, choose from the services Temu returns, buy the selected platform label, print it and dispatch. Temu controls account and order eligibility, services and prices. Own-courier fulfilment is a separate route and depends on Temu's order rules and carrier setup.
Read the answerHow do I reconcile DPD, Evri and Royal Mail invoices against my orders?
Match each invoice line to the shipment it belongs to using the tracking reference, then compare the charge against the service you booked. Doing this inside the system that booked the shipment removes the lookup step entirely: the order, parcel, service and tracking number are already on one record, so reconciliation becomes a comparison rather than an investigation.
Read the answerHow should courier surcharges be allocated so marketplace profit is true?
Allocate each surcharge to the orders that caused it, using the same driver the carrier used to charge you. Fuel follows the base carriage of the shipment it sits on, oversize and re-weigh charges belong to the specific parcel, and account-level fees are spread across the shipments in the period. Absorbing surcharges into overheads is what makes low-margin SKUs look profitable.
Read the answerWhat is marketplace true-cost profit after fees, ads, shipping and returns?
True-cost profit is the revenue of an order minus every cost that order actually caused: the marketplace commission and settled fee lines, the invoiced courier charge with allocated surcharges, packaging, the cost of goods at the moment of dispatch, and a share of returns and advertising. It is usually several percentage points below the gross margin most sellers report.
Read the answerHow do I run a Temu and TikTok collection board in the warehouse?
Put every collection job on one board regardless of which marketplace it came from, have a manager release work to named pickers, and give each picker a single queue on a handheld. The failure mode to avoid is one browser tab per marketplace, because nobody can then see the whole workload or tell which parcels are already being picked.
Read the answerHow do I buy and print Temu platform labels in bulk rather than in Seller Centre?
Work from a dispatch queue that holds the Temu orders, group the parcels that are identical into one run, and print through a print agent installed at the packing bench. Temu controls which orders are eligible for a platform label and which services are offered, so bulk printing speeds up the work but does not change eligibility.
Read the answerHow do I arrange TikTok Shop shipment and print labels from the warehouse?
Have the person packing the order mark it ready to ship from a print workbench grouped by order, then print the label through an agent at the bench. Tying shipment arrangement to the physical packing step removes the separate admin pass where orders get marked shipped before they are actually packed.
Read the answerHow do I map Temu goodsId to our warehouse SKU?
Create a mapping between the Temu identifier on the order line and your own internal SKU, and require a person to confirm each new match before it is trusted. Automatic matching on title or barcode similarity is where cross-mapped stock comes from, and a cross-mapped SKU silently decrements the wrong product on every subsequent sale.
Read the answerHow do I barcode-verify a pack so the wrong item cannot be sealed?
Scan every line into the parcel at the packing bench and block the pack when a scan does not match the order. The control has to sit at the point of sealing rather than at picking, because the last person to touch the parcel is the last chance to catch a substitution, a mis-pick or a duplicate.
Read the answerHow do I sync Magento stock to Amazon, eBay, Temu and Groupon?
Stop treating Magento as the stock master. Put one operational ledger between Magento and the marketplaces so all five channels read the same available number, then push availability outward rather than syncing storefront-to-marketplace pairs. Five channels synced pairwise is ten relationships to maintain; hub-and-spoke is five.
Read the answerHow do I stop a Groupon deal overselling the trade counter?
Ring-fence the deal quantity before the deal goes live, and make the till reserve from the same pool as the deal. A Groupon promotion can clear a month of stock in an afternoon while a counter customer is loading a pallet of the same SKU, and no polling interval is fast enough to referee that. Allocation, not sync speed, is the fix.
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Pricing & value
What it actually costs
What inventory software actually costs in the UK.
What is the cheapest inventory management software for a small UK ecommerce business?
Small UK ecommerce businesses should compare current free and paid tiers against order allowance, users, connectors, onboarding and required workflows. MaxInvent Starter is £99.99/month with AWS London primary hosting; it is not presented as universally cheapest.
Read the answerHow much does Linnworks actually cost in the UK in 2026?
Linnworks does not publish a price. Its pricing page asks you to book a call, so any figure you find online is reported by a third party rather than official. Cost is built from order volume, channel count, add-on modules and an annual commitment, so ask for those four lines in writing. MaxInvent publishes its numbers instead: £99.99, £299.99 and £499 per month, monthly rolling.
Read the answerWhich UK inventory software publishes its pricing and has no annual contract?
Most UK multi-channel platforms do one or the other: publish a price but require a year, or stay quote-only with a rolling option nobody sees. MaxInvent publishes both — £99.99, £299.99 and £499 per month with 1,000, 5,000 and up to 15,000 orders included, 5p per order above allowance, billed monthly in advance with cancellation before renewal. Annual prepay is optional and saves 10%.
Read the answerWhat are the hidden costs of inventory management software?
Six lines account for most of the gap between a quote and an invoice: per-user licences, a warehouse or WMS module sold separately, per-channel connector fees, onboarding and data migration, order overage, and the renewal uplift. Price a three-year scenario with your growth in it, not month one. MaxInvent's answer to the first three is that they are not charged.
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