E-Commerce Masters
What is an Order Management System (OMS)?
An order management system (OMS) is the back-bone of a progressive multichannel retail business. Summarizing, an OMS manages the coordinates the systems processing customer orders, designate them to be fulfilled and shipped, record status from end to end, and ensure real-time information across all systems and for all the people that require it.
With online shopping and smartphones becoming the predominant mode of shopping and information abundance bringing true price transparency, today’s shoppers have taken the perquisite to compare, review and buy products on the move. This advantage becomes even more apparent during holiday season such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday, where customers hunt from a plethora of deals. True price clarity that is a corollary of the information explosion
The pressure to sell through multiple channels is immense. From Amazon Marketplace to brick-and-mortar stores, and from catalog orders to eBay, consumers are driving commerce across more channels and platforms than ever. And customers care. Aberdeen Group Inc. claims that companies with the strongest omnichannel customer engagement strategies retain an average of 89% of their customers, as compared to 33% for companies with weak omnichannel strategies. Macy’s reports that omnichannel shoppers are 8X more valuable than those who shop in a single channel.
Enter the modern Order Management System (OMS)
Unlike traditional inventory management software, the modern OMS is designed with the end-customers’ experiences in mind. An OMS generates a holistic, centralized, 360 degree view of customer orders and available inventory across all sales channels (stores, marketplaces, ecommerce storefront, distributors), fulfillment centers and customer service channels.
Customer Example
Buy online & pickup in store (BOPIS)
OMS Role
Process order, authorize payment, perform fraud checks
Confirm inventory in store or in warehouse
Assign store to fulfill order -or- assign warehouse to ship-to-store
Update customer, inventory, and order records
Alert customer when order is ready for pickup.
Customer Example
Buy online & Seek Customer Support
OMS Role
Process order, authorize payment, perform fraud checks
Intelligently route order to warehouse or store closest to the customer, or with the most days of inventory.
Provide CSRs with real-time view of all orders, customers and inventory
Enable CSRs to check order status and modify orders
Update fulfillment center with new instructions
Customer Example
Check Stock Before Driving to Store
OMS Role
Maintain real-time view of all product inventory across all stores and channels
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.
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.
Enable online access to sku-level inventory, by store
Enabling Omnichannel Retailing in Ginesys can only be done by following the pages given below. Please note that there are multiple configurations involved in the process.