“Errors using inadequate data are much less than those using no data at all.” — Charles Babbage

Post pandemic, shifting from online shopping to offline never happened rather it merged into one. Customers wanted the best of both and as per their convenience with limited waiting time.

Why not install a system which empowers us with seamless flow of data for efficient management of customer demand and enhances customer experience? Order Management System, or OMS is a bridge between retailers and their customers, which scales up business, improves inventory management and enriches customer involvement. With the opening of omnichannel shopping avenues, retailers required synchronized tracking operation for fulfillment of order, timely shipping and management, especially if a retailer wished to compete and stay ahead of competition.

Order Management System: An Introduction

OMS provides an integrated system for successful eCommerce; it solidifies supply chain management for businesses. There’s a team working diligently to streamline the inventory for timely and faster fulfillment of orders, which is often prone to faults, owing to manual computation of data. Order Management System automates supply chain, it diminishes errors, as processing of order as requested by a customer becomes easy to monitor.

Key benefits of implementing an OMS

• It Improves Overall Efficiency: With introducing cloud-based order management, companies can witness a sea of change in the behavioral pattern as it not only saves time but money as well.
• Monitoring of Inventory: Once management gets control over inventory data, costs can be brought down as information is available at one place and logistics is better managed.
• Easy Payments: With full-featured OMS, an easy payment system can be channelized and it can be connected with the financial systems.
• Back-Office Tasks: There are several back-office works that are unavoidable and need attention, with seamless integration of OMS, it can be sorted out.
• Better Customer Connectivity: A fully integrated software, allows last mile connectivity with the customers. The order life cycle is managed end-to-end for better customer satisfaction.

Centralized Order Management

Success of product-based businesses depend greatly on how minutely a fulfillment order is monitored. The entire process from receiving the order to delivering is based on how well the multiple channels are in line with inventory and coordinated including logistics partners. eCommerce can either be B2B or B2C and order from each site has to be synced to avoid loopholes or delay in releasing orders to avoid diminishing customer satisfaction.

Common Challenges of Order Management in Retail

• Missing Links or Integration. Essentially, product-based companies need to be in sync with modes of multichannel operating in generation of orders and each order is specific in nature with respect to the channel from where it has been generated. The back-end team handling the processing of order access to information for developing good customer relation.
• Disappointing Bidirectional Syncing. Failure to incorporate error-free bidirectional syncing can lead to several financial loss. If fulfillment centre lacks crucial information related with inventory, stocks, costs or discounts, shipping & return and other features which make a user content, it would certainly pull back the performance of a company.
• Discrepancy in Tools Used. For an eCommerce to be what it is meant to be, software tools used must be self-sufficient and at par with technology. New software plugins would be necessary if present OMS is not able to source information to a single platform. For example, system fails to update five large orders for the same item requires five separate packaging and the back-end team packs as one single order, this can be a spoiler.
• No Support for Online & Offline Sales Order. Consumers may have bought a product online but would prefer pick-up from the offline store or could be vice versa. There should be synchronized system to coordinate between online and offline stores for enhanced customer experience.
• Inefficient Customer Care. Fulfillment center can only be a competent one. If customer care has centralized system to appropriately and timely update supply chain management along with the logistics.

OMS equip management with centralized management system. It automates the complete order processing, thus enhancing both customer and retailer’s product sell experience. Centralized order management leverages systematic functioning of fulfillment center and execution of orders. The work of OMS starts with the generation of an order. It is a state-of-the-art automated eCommerce order management process leveraging real-time visibility into fulfillment of order generated from various eCommerce websites, helps in tracking sales, allows access to status of warehouses thus ensuring efficiency in fulfillment of order and all the while maintaining transparency with customers. It digitalizes the whole supply chain management by bringing all requisite details with an order on one platform which promotes minimal delivery times and proves cost-effective both for customers and retailers.

OMS aligns distributed management system and gets them on one platform for easy coordination of work. Say, a retailer on Amazon gets an order with specifics which is quite different for the same product displayed on the other eCommerce site. The retailer’s real challenge would be to adhere to those specifics pertaining either to delivery date, time or packaging and discounts. It is over here, OMS checks into real-time information concerning the order as inventory, preparation of order, shipping, collection, drop, customer earlier order history and more. Since each step is automated, it nullifies the chances of error in the fulfillment of order.

Omnichannel Fulfillment

OMS is definitely an era-changing technology and proved its mettle post-pandemic. Consumers’ dependency on technology has grown and they have got more powerful with the opening of multiple channels for shopping just not their old dependable brick and mortar shops. Then why get inhibited instead of optimizing performance engagement with automated tracking and marketing analytics? OMS gives a single shared dashboard for clean, up-to-date data for faster fulfillment of order generated from various channels of communication as mobile, Facebook, WhatsApp, eCommerce sites or shopping links sent via emails.

Modern retail is dynamic, and has grown beyond boundaries. Today, the access to multiple sales channels, has blurred any kind of demarcation between online and physical stores. Consumers appreciate a system which gives them purchasing power and freedom as in Buy Online, Return in Store (BORIS), Buy Online, Ship from Store (BOSS), Buy Online, Pick Up in Store (BOPIS) and more. For fulfilling such a robust purchasing spirit, retailers need to work with an efficient order management system which can work independently without mistakes and minimize manual work for faster delivery.

Importance of Inventory Management & Real-Time Visibility

For controlling and steering order deluge from multi-channel to success, inventory management and real-time visibility are critical. Too many stocks resting in the warehouse or order stockouts, both can put a retailer in a precarious situation and lead to major financial loss. Long waiting time for fulfillment of an order can make consumers feel disenfranchised and push them to look for other options, which is surely not a positive thing for a retailer.

A secured inventory management system can orchestrate forceful coordination with fulfillment center and logistics. With real-time visibility, inventory at each level can be monitored for providing accurate information to the consumer and can also help retailer to forecast the trend of an order for the health of their business.

OMS is a single window access to inventory information which works on the improvement of order accuracy while leveraging fulfillment center to work in sync with various distributed management system. With this, right from clicking the buy button to receiving the order, a customer remains in the loop and knows exactly the status of an order.

For retailers, it provides better management of resources at the warehouse, auditing inventory with respect to features as stock on hold, changing allocation of inventory to a more profitable platform, display of inventory for better marketing if present showcase is not generating enough velocity, status of pre-order or keep a record of popular items so as it never becomes unavailable and creating secure management for omnichannel sale points.

OMS can ensure inventory gets real-time management for improving sales, reducing costs and for the sake of happy customers. It improves customer satisfaction and increase sales by bringing transparency for the consumers.

Advatix Cloudsuite™ Retail

Introducing Advatix Cloudsuite™ Retail: Unlocking Revenue Growth and Seamless Order Fulfillment.

With Advatix Cloudsuite™, more than a OMS, Our solution enables you to create unique pick logistics, efficiently route online orders to stores for convenient ship-from-store fulfillment, and offer hassle-free return options both online and in-store.

Take your business to the next level but ensure the cloudsuite is capable of integrating the business in totality. It syncs inventory with fulfillment center, leverages customers with the benefit of POS (Point of Sale) and yet receiving the order in time. Advatix Cloudsuite™ for Retail provides comprehensive solution while guaranteeing zero out-of-stocks, coordination between online and offline stores, fulfillment of order, seamless integration by enabling 360° view of SKUs, inventory, and end-to-end visibility & tracking with our API-based POS, EDI, and leading marketplace integrations.

Advatix Cloudsuite™ enables order routing, order management, plug-n-play integrations with local, regional, and national carriers for optimization of shipping and ensuring on-time delivery and it also helps in return management for improving order accuracy and fulfillment.

Speak to our experts to understand how Advatix Cloudsuite™ can change businesses and spear it towards profitability, better accountability with the customers and provide seamless experience.