While manual processing for order management can be easy to do while your business is first growing, it has real limitations that will impede your ability to provide a positive experience for your customers later down the road. An Order Management System (OMS) is one of the most powerful tools in the eCommerce ecosystem that can really help a business scale its operations. Named after only a small subset of its functionality, many retailers do not realize just how many tasks and operations can be automated by the software and performed faster and more accurately than a person.
Here are a just a few of the many tasks that an OMS can automate for your business:
Automatic Order Processing and Routing
If you are considering using multiple warehouses or going with a mix of drop-shipping and owned inventory, an OMS can automatically route orders to the correct warehouses and drop shippers based on the rules you set up. It can also tag certain orders for manual review or have certain orders selected for faster processing.
Inventory Quantity Updates
An OMS can keep track of and update your inventory and also controls orders across all channels. If you list your items across multiple websites, marketplaces, and also have physical stores, an OMS can keep your inventory in sync wherever your product is.
Automatic Re-ordering
Don’t be caught without inventory ever again. An OMS allows you to set re-order points on each item, and when the inventory drops below the set quantity, the OMS will automatically generate and e-mail a purchase order (PO) to the supplier to replenish your inventory.
Financial Clarity
If you order the same SKUs from different suppliers at different price points, your accounting department must love you and be very dedicated to your business. An OMS can keep track of the costs at which the inventory is acquired and prices at which it’s sold to make sure your accounting and on-hand inventory value is always correctly calculated.
Fulfillment and Shipping
Ship faster, more accurately, and with increased cost effectiveness. As items are packed, an OMS can verify the right items are being shipped and can perform rate shopping across multiple carriers to save money on shipping.
This is only a small sample of tasks that an OMS can automate for a retailer. As your business grows, you may find yourself struggling to get through orders and the invoices, POs, & packing lists; before back-orders start piling up around the office, you should investigate if an OMS is the solution for your business. If you choose the right OMS system, you will see a significant improvement in workflow and efficiency, decreased order costs, reduced inventory costs, and a marked decrease in fulfillment errors.
About the Author:
Mikhail Ledvich leads Monsoon Commerce product management and product marketing strategy and is the chief evangelist across a multi-product portfolio. From order processing to inventory management to dynamic marketplace pricing, Monsoon Commerce offers the full suite of services you need to increase revenue with maximum efficiency in every channel. Monsoon Commerce uses the ParadoxLabs Authorize.Net CIM Payment Module for Magento as part of its seamless Magento integration.