Order management is essential for any retail business and more so for the e-commerce business. For order management to be smooth and satisfactory there has to be a system in place or more precisely, an order management software. Order management systems help merchants in a number of ways that include assisting in improving order processing, tracking inventory and selling online. With the increase in online sales, it has become imperative for the e-commerce business to implement an order management system.
If you are operating an e-commerce platform and in case you are apprehensive of the practical usability of an order management system, check the following points explained in details.
Increasing the Effectiveness in Order Processing Workflows
The foremost reason behind implementing an order management system is the need to improve the order processing workflow. So, how does the typical order processing workflow take place then? It begins with the customer placing the order and the notification being sent. The order is considered and a packing slip is printed consequently. This is followed by the packaging, weighing and shipping of the ordered item.
The above-mentioned process can be streamlined for better customization. And this is where order management software comes into play. The solutions allow online merchants to store the dimensions of the products too. These systems can also be set with information about the available packages and box sizes and accordingly, the type of box suitable for a particular order can be customized. The shipping label and the packing slip can be printed at the same time with an accurate estimate of the final shipping, weight and dimensions. In a similar way, each feature of the solution can maximize the overall efficiency of the workflow to a significant extent.
Efficient Inventory Tracking
Inventory management turns out to be quite a difficult task when multiple sales channels are used. Retailers operating both online and offline face the worst consequences of this problem. Order management systems come equipped with inventory features that enable retailers to connect post-sale data. Simply put, with the system in use, the retailer would automatically know about the sale of the product, irrespective of whether the sale took place online or from the store.
Integration with Marketplaces
With the proliferation of online sales, sellers are now willing to list their products on sites like Amazon, eBay and so on. Though certain enterprise-level services help in the integration of the retailer’s system with the marketplaces, the cost of these is usually above the retailer’s budgetary limits. Here again, the order management systems are of immense benefits. The solutions bridge the gap between the e-commerce platforms and the marketplaces, thereby, allowing the former to sell in multiple channels.
Enable Shipping from Multiple Locations
Order management solutions enable shipping from multiple locations. A suitable solution is incorporated with technologies that allow it to check the inventory levels at all stores and assign orders to their specific locations. As a result, people from each store can ship the orders assigned to them without unnecessary confusions and delays. Even in a case when the online seller decides to use more than one vendor for shipping, the system would notify them about the items to be shipped.