How does Omnichannel Order Management Boost Retail business?
As a retail business owner, you know how hard it is to keep track of customers, inventory, and orders from multiple channels. Once an order is placed, it is the core responsibility of the retail brand to manage & fulfill these bulk orders.
Then these retailers have to evaluate different fulfillment options and choose the best one, considering the closest location, the lowest shipping rate, and the possibility of splitting shipments. It is a time-consuming task, so automating the ordering process makes complete business sense with cutting-edge order management systems, which are critical to implementing a successful omnichannel strategy.
How Omnichannel Order Management Benefits Retail businesses?
1) Lower shipping costs
Shipping costs are a major expense for any business. And as online sales continue to grow, shipping costs become an even bigger factor in business success, as the fastest you ship products to the customer, the quickest it takes to build a loyal customer base for your retail business.
An order management system helps fulfil orders on time, help track and manage inventory, provide an excellent customer experience and reduce shipping costs. The Order Management System (OMS) software optimizes the shipping process by tracking the customer’s location and fulfills their orders as per the nearest inventory availability.
It leverages all supply sources to fast track shipping, maps out the best shipping methods, and has the core ability to rapidly turn nearby physical stores into distribution centres, which cuts down the hefty costs associated with shipping goods. That's why it makes complete business sense to use an omnichannel order management system to lower your shipping costs.
2) Inventory transparency
An Omnichannel OMS allows users to view the real-time availability of products on all of the eCommerce marketing platforms they sell through, monitor sales performance, and identify cross-selling opportunities across channels. This way, it ensures complete inventory transparency of any retail brand.
For example, Fynd offers an integrated Order Management System (OMS) for all channels with the following benefits.
Get live inventory info on all channels: It can support all channels like brick-and-mortar shops, online stores, marketplaces like Ajio, Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra,Nykaa, Tata Cliq & more.
Auto-assign DP (Delivery Partner): Fynd OMS auto assigns delivery partner to every order without manual intervention saving on crucial delivery time.
Save time with automation: The automated order processing system constantly enters repeated information like customer details and delivery information.
Reduces human error: Retail brands can reduce human error and increase order accuracy by reducing manual work and time-consuming tasks.
Get accurate reporting: From order processing to delivery, brands can keep track of the order using the seller panel on the Order Management System (OMS).
3) Omnichannel fulfilment
Omnichannel order management contributes to omnichannel fulfillment for every retail brand. The process is responsible for picking, packing and shipping products sold across retail stores, marketplaces and sales channels.
The fulfilment & distribution of customer orders can take place from fulfilment centres, warehouses, retail stores or even a small general store to help get products in customers' hands in the quickest possible time.
Amazon has a crucial order fulfillment option, “Pickup from a store near this address", to fulfill & deliver customer orders speedily through micro fulfillment stores available in the nearby locality of the customers from where they can collect it at the time that suits their availability.
Benefits of Omnichannel fulfilment:
- A stronger brand image that has flexible fulfilment options suiting customer convenience.
- Accurate reporting highlights important channels & identify the ones that need improvement.
- Omnichannel fulfilment ensures customers are happier and keep coming back with more orders.
4) Turn returners into shoppers
Omnichannel order management enables retail channels to work collaboratively, raises order quantities, stimulates repeat visits and assure retailers get more business from repeat customers.
For example, customers who have placed an online order for in-store pickup are more likely to do additional shopping when they are in the brick-and-mortar store, as a critical research says that 85% of shoppers who visit stores to pick up online orders go on to make an unplanned additional purchase, helping retailers win incremental business.
It may also happen that in-store browsing customers can get their orders fulfilled from Endless Aisle solutions that assure the shoppers that they get their most loved products in their hands when they exit the physical store.
Customers are more likely to return to an omnichannel brand again & contribute to growing a retail brand's business once they know that the concerned brand can fulfil orders through any flexible options like Buy online, return in-store, pickup in-store, Ship-to-store, Ship-to-partner, Ship-from-store, Ship-from-3PL and more.
5) Smoother returns
Returns have become one of the biggest pains of retail businesses as 2022 observed $816 billion in return items. The survey found that for every $1 billion in sales, the average retailer incurs $165 million in merchandise returns. Additionally, for every $100 in returned merchandise accepted, retailers lose $10.40 to return fraud.
With an omnichannel Order Management System, brands can eliminate the chances of incorrect shipments. Each order is routed accurately to the right fulfilment locations to ensure prompt & accurate delivery and minimized returns.
Additionally, because inventory is maintained centrally, the system would prevent shoppers from placing purchases for out-of-stock items, resulting in wasteful cancellations.
Also, as product listings would be consistent across all sales channels, clients will have confidence in the brand's offerings. They will be less inclined to cancel purchases submitted or received via a certain retail channel.
6) Personalized shopping experience
One of the first benefits your clients will see is your newly acquired capacity to provide a tailored shopper experience at all times. It makes shoppers feel unique, special and emotionally connected to improve their shopping experience.
Integrated order management enables brands to connect their online and offline experiences by providing a consolidated view of their customers' preferences, transactions, and order information.
Access to customer accounts and data can let you customize each customer's experience. Unified data simplifies retargeting and other advertising and sales strategies by removing channel-specific restrictions.
With this data, retail brands can also provide personalized endless aisle solutions & other useful services that increase quality customer traffic and revenue. Additionally, these insights and data can be shared with store personnel to provide superior personalized service at brick-and-mortar retail stores.
Conclusion
It is more important than ever to have a comprehensive and effective order management system in place in the ever-changing and highly competitive retail industry. An omnichannel order management system can help boost your retail business by empowering brands, streamlining the ordering process, improving customer service, and increasing profitability.
Fynd order management system has helped over 600 brands transform into omnichannel brands and turn around their retail business. If you are interested in learning more about omnichannel order management, please Contact us or Book a demo today. We would be delighted to explore how it can benefit your retail business
