Order Management System: What Is It and How Does It Work?

If we look at brick-and-mortar stores and eCommerce, we will indeed state that eCommerce wins this battle. And to be honest, this is not even surprising! In this hyper-active environment where everything changes within just a few seconds, people don’t have time to go to physical stores and spend it on something that may be easily handled online.

As you can already understand, eCommerce became the customers’ best friend before we even knew it. Everything is related to eCommerce and its features, and what is even more critical is that even brick-and-mortar stores migrate their business to the online world! So, if you’re not a part of eCommerce yet, consider this option. ECommerce will soon wholly dominate the industry and soon will be on top of the food chain!

The dynamic world of eCommerce consists of various processes and elements, so the seemingly straightforward and simplified industry is full of twists and turns and leaves many sellers confused. This is why it’s essential to understand the main element of eCommerce and what you should do to make your business work!

eCommerce is Not eCommerce Without…

 

…A sound order management system! Yes, eCommerce is all about receiving and fulfilling orders, so it’s not surprising that we need good sales order management techniques to succeed and get off with a flying start.

To give a precise and accurate answer to the question “what is an order management system?” It is important to dive deeper and start from the basics. However, if you know how the industry works and what happens during the order management process, you will quickly understand this system!

What is Order Management?

As we said, eCommerce consists of different tools, parts, and elements that can lead to the success of your online store if treated right. First, however, to better understand how this works, let’s look at the order management definition.

To put it simply, order management is an eventful process where every phase and every step matters. If everything is done by the book, everyone, including the company and customers, will remain satisfied. If not, the store’s reputation will deteriorate, and the number of sales will significantly decrease.

The order management process starts from a single click initiated by the customer. Once the buyer makes an order, you fall into an order management cycle which you have to successfully finish by delivering the product right on time to the customer. If everything goes straight, you will have tons of positive reviews and mind-blowing feedback that will turn you into a real industry professional in the eyes of other customers. So, it’s only in your interes t to take care of the order management process!

Order Management System

Now let’s get back to our main topic. eCommerce order management system or OMS is a perfect tool that helps your store efficiently handle the management process and turn it into smooth sailing. More specifically, this is a digital instrument that tracks the order management cycle, including all its phases such as inventory management, order fulfillment, and so forth.

Benefits of Order Management Software

Everyone Wins

By integrating an eCommerce order management system, you create a win-win situation for you and your customers. Why? Because you will benefit from the automated and simplified process, which, along with other advantages, also provides you with valuable data and insights you will be able to use in the future. Apart from that, your customers will also be satisfied with the company and service they chose, if you, of course, have reliable order management system software! With its help, they can track their order and check its status. What can be better?

Customers Trust You

Another thing you should take into account is the feeling customers have towards the product they order. Logically, if they spend their money on a product, it’s either done out of necessity or just for fun, decorations. In any case, customers care about their product, which is why customers want to be informed. They want to know everything about their product: its location, the time it arrives, and so forth. So, integrating a similar system will help you make more sales and attract more customers, which is an excellent strategy to work with!

Fast and Flawless Operations Guaranteed

In addition to this, adopting a sound order management system is a surefire way to eliminate human and manual mistakes. Moreover, it significantly simplifies the fulfillment process and makes your life much easier. By integrating software, you vote for automating your business. This means that your store somehow combines the intelligent way of solving problems. Just look at it yourself.

With the help of an order management system, you can have a faster and more efficient fulfillment process. How? The order management system software does its calculations and decides which warehouse is the closest to the customer who is waiting for the order. This way, you won’t lose time shipping the product from A to B because the OMS already found another, more efficient solution!

It’s worth mentioning that the order management system (OMS) is readily incorporated into other methods, which helps with making important decisions. OMS can be connected to everything somehow related to your store: the accounting system, the customer service teams, warehouses, and other departments. As you can see, intelligent decisions are made based on the data and information taken from other systems! So, you won’t have any trouble with a sound order management system because it already works on the data provided by your teams and departments, which is why the working process will be handled in the best way!

Choosing An Order Management System

Influenced by the upsides the order management system offers, many people start looking for reliable and effective software and can’t decide which option to choose. This is quite understandable because the order management software market is quite diverse and offers many different options. So, if you want to select the best one, let’s see how!

If you want to choose the best service, here are all the characteristics of a high-quality order management system:

• Decent order management software can be easily integrated with other systems, such as accounts or customer service teams and warehouses. For OMS to survive and efficiently function, it needs data, which is available only with the help of integrations! So, make sure the software you choose has this feature!
• There’s nothing more important than orders. This is why you have to make sure the system you choose takes care of all types of orders (wholesale, sales, etc.) that your store can receive. This is an excellent way to boost your sales and increase the number of satisfied customers.
• As we said, a good OMS perfectly automates the order management cycle and makes sure no manual errors occur. So, before integrating an order management software into your business operations, double-check the existence of automation and the possibility to use it!
• A worth-its-salt order management system should serve you as a roadmap, literally! It should have access to all the warehouses you are working with to ensure the product is located in the closest-to-the-customer location. This way, your fulfillment process will be fast and convenient, which is the dream of every online consumer!
• Unfortunately, many sellers use different systems to manage their business operations better. However, if you choose the correct order management system, you won’t need to use any additional tool or system since everything will be gathered all in one place. For example, if we look at the shipping process, many sellers work with a separate automation service to get in touch with the shipping carriers, which is long and tedious. Instead, you can have a standard and adequate management system which will do everything without wasting many resources. Conclusion – to avoid unnecessary problems, complications, and expenses, you can always go for a sound system!
• Another feature that a good OMS offers is the existence of reports and analysis. As a business owner and a seller, it would be a good idea to understand and track the overall performance, find all the gaps that your order management and order fulfillment system has and undertake measures to fill in those. So, if the order management software you choose offers such an opportunity, know that this is a great advantage!

 

While choosing eCommerce, we all want to reach the promised dizzy heights. And in fact, this is more than possible if you have the knowledge and the right tools, to begin with. So, by integrating order management software wisely, chosen after tons of research and “investigations,” you will open new doors leading you to success. The only thing that’s left is to make sure you are using the right instruments and work with the right service, everything else will come with the territory!

Finally, we all agree that eCommerce is an excellent way to earn money and grow a successful business. But if you genuinely want it to work, you need to make sure all the opportunities waiting for you out there are taken and wisely used to your advantage!