Everything About an Order Management System (OMS) - The Ultimate Guide
.webp)
Businesses aren't always perfect at keeping track of all the orders that come their way. There are many reasons for this—maybe it’s due to the high volume of orders they receive, the number of different sales channels, or different employees managing complex business operations, which makes it challenging to keep track of everything. That's where an order management system comes in.
IBM projects that the worldwide Order Management System (OMS) market will grow 97% from $800.6 Million in 2019 to $1.57 Billion in 2024. Retailers are trying hard to compete with Amazon, Walmart & other retail giants by launching micro-brand stores on their eCommerce website with appealing prices. As the global retail eCommerce sales is projected to reach $6.54 trillion in 2023, the number of eCommerce websites has grown rapidly, and so are the growing number of companies using an excellent order management system.
Order management is an integral part of any e-commerce website, but many businesses don't manage their orders correctly. If your business is one of them, this useful guide is for you. We will help you with the basics of order management, its challenges, why retailers need an order management system, and show you what to look for in an OMS.
What is an OMS and its process?
The Order Management System (OMS) is an application that manages the entire process of placing an order with a vendor. It manages the process from receiving and processing orders to delivering products or services. In simple words, it is a single source of information for all stakeholders in a business transaction.
Order Management System Process
I. Orders by customers:
The consumer places the order via an automated form that captures data such as their name, address, and other contact information, as well as the expected delivery time.
II. Order confirmation:
Sales personnel add the product's unique code, order number, and value. After the sales team validates these details, the customer gets successfully notified about their order placement.
III. Warehousing:
Following that, the order gets routed to the warehousing team to verify the product's availability.
IV. Shipping/logistics:
This is the next stage of the order process. The shipping data are confirmed here, and an invoice is generated, handled by invoice approval software. Then the payment information is validated, and the product dispatch at the seller's end gets completed.
Order Management Challenges
Managing new orders every moment
It can be hard to keep track of all the orders from different places. When retail companies do business through other sales channels, it can be hard for them to order, prioritize, and process all orders, giving rise to lost or delayed orders.
Taking control of a complex supply chain
It can be challenging to distribute inventory from different brands or locations. Not having a clear status of the stock location and collaborating with numerous brand partners can cause order management to slow down.
Integrating order management software
Implementing new technology can be frightening and time-consuming. It can be challenging for your firm to migrate all of its order processes to the same software, which could hurt your business efforts to make its order processing more efficient. A simple software integration can open up the efficiency gains from aligning your operations.
Reducing lead times
Pressure to cut lead times is always present in the retail industry. If you run an inventory business, you have to figure out how to get things to customers as quickly as possible. Sometimes, expectations can be hard to meet as many small businesses find it hard to figure out how to cut back the lead time.
Why do retailers need an Order Management System (OMS)?
_.png)
There are a lot of challenges that retailers have to deal with every day, from keeping track of their inventory to making sure the customer gets their product in good condition on time. But one of the biggest problems they have is managing orders for each customer because they can't always predict how quickly the order demands will rise or fall because of seasonal events and unexpected market needs. So, they have to be very careful.
Another reason is that order fulfillment involves so many different departments, from sales to delivery, each of which has a different job and must work together to make sure things run well.
An order management system helps relieve these pain points of retailers and customers.
Retailer pain points solved by an OMS
Communication: Simplifies communication between front-end and back-end systems.
Channel expansion: Helps expansion into new channels like marketplaces, global market expansion.
Quick order processing: Order processing time is reduced through automation and prebuilt procedures.
Reduce frauds: Suspicious orders are flagged to reduce the danger of fraudulent orders.
Easy sign-up: Prevent multiple customer support agents from needing to sign into various systems (CRM, ERP, WMS, payment tool) to discover and serve an order.
Lesser efforts to know inventory levels: Reduces the number of calls to store associates inquiring about inventory levels.
Error-free inventory: Effectively counters inventory count error, backorders, and lost orders.
Counter data challenge: Get a single view of customers, inventory, order, product & payment across the inventory.
Get inventory visibility: Get accurate inventory visibility across all stores, distribution centers, vendors, and 3PL suppliers.
Become an omnichannel brand: Retail brands can execute omnichannel fulfillment strategies such as vendor drop ship, ship from store, Buy Online Pick Up In-Store (BOPIS).
Get order information for any channel: It doesn’t matter if the order was made online or in-store, as the order information can be easily retrieved from any channel.
Customer pain points solved by OMS
Modify/cancel orders immediately: It helps a consumer seeking to modify or cancel an order immediately after it has been placed.
Replace damaged items: A customer has received an item that is damaged, but the nearest warehouse is now out of stock. (Ensures quick replacements from alternative inventory points)
Get accurate product information: Assists the customer in getting accurate information about their order without calling customer support.
Increases customer satisfaction: It bridges the gap between online shopping and the traditional in-store experience, with synchronized and real-time order information from all channels, thereby increasing customer satisfaction.
Get superior customer service: By removing the barrier between online and in-store transactions, the brand’s customer service receives far more insight, enabling them to give exceptional support and service to the customers.
What to look for in an Order Management System (OMS)?
An order management system is an integral part of today's business. Most businesses need one to track inventory, thousands of incoming orders, and deliveries happening every day and make their lives simpler. Without one, it would be a "hit and miss" situation, which means more of a headache for retailers.
Here are five things you need to think about to find a sound order management system for your business.
Supports integration
Many brands have accounts on social media platforms & offer services through marketplaces like Amazon, Myntra, Flipkart, and many others. It makes it more critical than ever for an order management system to work with other types of software supported by different brands.
So, what should an OMS connect to?
There should be integration support for:
- CRM Systems: To help in customer relationship management
- Marketing Tools: To integrate with various marketing campaigns
- External storage platforms: To get all the data at your fingertips
- Project Management Tools: To assist leaders in everyday innovation
- Communication Tools: To keep the entire organization updated
Automation
The back-office processes involved with order management are more time-consuming. With the suitable OMS, businesses can automate many of these manual tasks like receiving the orders, confirming them, creating the shipments, and generating invoices.
An OMS can assist you in accepting orders from multiple channels such as online marketplaces, Flipkart, Amazon, Myntra, and social media brand stores, confirming their status in real-time based on inventory availability, and moving the confirmed order to the logistic partner for packaging and shipping without manual intervention.
Automation optimizes these steps to reduce shipping and overhead costs, improve data quality, and pick and pack efficiently.
Offers Scalability
When the number of customers changes in an online business, you need to handle that. A non-scalable system won't keep up with the rise in orders, and it could cause problems for the retail brand’s platform like system failure, server shutdowns due to overload, and more.
Software scalability is essential for a retail or eCommerce business that expects significant changes in traffic because the suitable OMS can handle surges in demand and always has a plan to cut back on resources when the orders go down.
Streamlines the order fulfillment process
Is the software capable of handling all of your business order fulfillment options? Is it compatible with all of your shipping vendors? Is it capable of cancelling an order, putting it on hold, or locating alternate fulfillment methods? A well-designed order management system will address these concerns and automate all order fulfillment processes.
You can grow your business when you use the correct order management software. When the software is properly configured, it can make smart decisions regarding restocking, order processing, and fulfillment on your behalf and help free up your time to focus on growth and increasing sales.
Tackles overselling, overstocking & inaccurate forecasting
An order management system can help tackle a range of issues like:
Overselling – Accepting orders for products for which you lack the necessary inventory. It results in order cancellations and disappointed customers.
Overstocking – If you think you don't have enough of a product and buy too many replacements, you could end up with deadstock and a lot of space in your warehouse.
Inaccurate Forecasting – Without reliable inventory figures, determining the level of demand for your products becomes more difficult. Sometimes retailers are entirely unaware when some products become highly popular. It could result in you running out of supply during a period of increased demand, even if you were unaware of it.
Benefits of an Order Management System
Offers a centralized system:
A significant advantage of an OMS is retailers get a bird’s eye view of the order intake, order fulfillment, and shipping processes, thereby serving as a centralized system for order management across all sales channels: store, website, marketplaces, call center, mobile, and kiosk.
Fulfills every demand:
Customers today want a streamlined and consistent purchasing experience across all channels. An OMS helps you meet these demands quickly & efficiently.
Controlled costs & increased revenue:
An order management system helps with inventory control by automatically providing reports on your inventory, indicating the stock of products running low and which should be liquidated.
Forecast future inventory trends:
It can forecast future inventory trends using historical data, letting you know which things to budget for and when to keep them in stock.
Remove human error:
An OMS removes manual processes wherever possible. Human errors can lose you money and customers, eating into profits and diverting employee attention away from high-value, brand-building activities.
Superior customer experience:
A suitable OMS can significantly improve the customer experience in various ways. It does this by:
- Providing more precise information about shipping and delivery.
- Allowing customer service agents to reply more readily to inquiries concerning order status.
- Assuring that all products are consistently marked as in- or out-of-stock.
Real-time reporting:
Retailers can gain an advantage over their competitors by using accurate, real-time reporting. They can monitor product performance and customer behaviour to identify trends and patterns, and that is how they can make correct decisions for the present and the future.
Increases business growth:
An OMS accelerates business growth by reducing repetitive activities, speeding up revenue turnaround, improving agility, and minimizing operational expenditure.
Why go for the Fynd Order Management System?
Get aggregated order view
Retailers get aggregated order views under four groups like New, Processing, Returns, and all.
New – Displays all new and pending orders across all stores.
Processing – Processing happens when a seller confirms an order or shipment. The seller can now pack the bag, print the POS and invoice labels, and send the package through a delivery partner, which is automatically assigned.
Returns – Customers can view their orders under the Returns Lane once they request a return. In the next step, delivery partners would pick up the return from the customer and bring it to the seller for accepting returns. The seller can also track the ongoing return journey of the orders.
All – Orders from the new, processing, and returns section are shown here.
Worry-free shipments
Sellers don’t have to worry about shipments as Fynd ensures that their network of integrated delivery partners pickup orders from the storefront and deliver them to the customers.
Products, destinations, and shipping providers are automatically assigned with every ordered product. The seller can receive order tracking updates to be aware of the last-mile delivery of the order.
The seller can also customize the shipping by selecting the bags to ship and confirming, then the remaining bags will be shipped separately.
Order cancellation
In some cases, retailers cannot fulfill an order or shipment for any reason. They can cancel the order and reassign them to another store in their company for smooth order fulfillment.
Bulk Operation
This feature is helpful for sellers who process 100 to 1000 orders per day. They can process the orders in bulk using the Fynd panel and download the list.
The real goal of the Fynd Order Management System is to cut down on the amount of time retailers spend on their business and make it more efficient, which could help speed up its growth. It makes order processing easier for retailers and allows them to prioritize other things without worrying about the process itself.
Conclusion
Are you are looking for the best way to increase your sales, streamline your business processes, and manage orders more efficiently? In that case, it may be the right time to look into an order management system. An order management system (OMS) helps businesses manage the back-end of their sales process, orders, inventory, customers deliveries, payments, and more.
