The Lowdown on Order Management Systems

What is an order management system?

An Order Management System, or OMS, is a backend system that helps you to manage all parts of the retail journey, including sales and order tracking, inventory and fulfillment, as well as all administrative activity.

Allowing you to keep control of your stock at every point of the selling cycle, Order Management Systems offer enablement and flexibility and can support all areas of your business –  from people to process to partnerships.

Why is an OMS necessary?

As the eCommerce landscape is changing, customers now expect a consistently seamless shopping experience. (Especially with the likes of Amazon offering immensely quick turnarounds for a plethora of product variants).  If this perception is compromised it can be bad news for the reputation of your business/brand.

With human error accounting for a staggering 46% of warehouse issues, it’s no surprise that businesses are looking for ways to simplify and improve the ordering process.

It is essential you have an effective fulfillment strategy so you successfully can meet your buyers’ expectations and achieve customer satisfaction.

Why should you consider an OMS?

Channel Management – You can integrate an OMS into all your selling channels e.g Amazon, eBay, and Etsy. This ensures all your stock is synchronized and kept up to date, even if your orders are dispatched from multiple locations.

Tracking Orders – A benefit of using a cloud-based OMS is that all your order information and history can be accessed from anywhere at any time (providing your account has the correct access rights). All of the order data will be centralised and recorded, making it far easier to locate.

Stock visibility – Using an OMS means you can align all your inventory and orders. There’s nothing worse than purchasing an item and getting excited about it, only to be told it’s out of stock. Multi-channel stock visibility reduces the risk of these errors, which could result in customer complaints. Knowing what is going on in your business can help you to make important, data-driven decisions.

Automated selling process – If you are keeping track of your order process by using spreadsheets and manually updating reports, you are likely losing a lot of time due to errors. Using advanced tools already contained in the OMS, you can speed up the execution of these tasks, whilst still ensuring accuracy throughout. Linnworks allows you to create bespoke business roles so you can speed up the order processing time further, resulting in a higher-order accuracy and happy customers – It’s a win-win!

Returns process – Making the returns process straight-forward and transparent is a really important factor. Customers don’t want to feel like they have been misled or hit by any hidden fees and require some options if they decide they want to return items. Believe it or not, managing returns is not just as simple as replacing the item on the shelf for the next customer. Items need to be tracked and added back into the inventory so correct stock numbers can be calculated.

Help your supply chain – The beauty of an OMS is that you can customize it to fit your business’ needs, streamlining the whole order fulfillment process. Linnworks is a cloud-based system that offers multi-channel inventory management. They provide the best management tools at all the touchpoints of the selling process, which helps businesses run smoothly from start to finish.

Other Criteria to consider when choosing an order management system:

• Integration Capabilities
• Multiple payment gateways supported
• Multiple shipping couriers supported
• Product features
• PCI compliance
• Migration process

Final thoughts

If you want to reduce human error, potential delivery delays, and improve the accuracy of orders, an OMS is definitely worth considering.

In eCommerce, the end goal is always the same: get your product to the customer safely and efficiently. An OMS can help you scale the operational process into something more straightforward and manageable, regardless of the size of your business.

If you need help getting set up with an OMS, our team of eCommerce experts can help you put a system in place so you can trade more effectively. Get in touch by emailing 5874commerce.com or calling 0121 369 5874 for more information!