The e-commerce industry has evolved greatly since the rise of the pandemic. Business owners have faced big challenges and the competition has grown significantly. The question you need to ask yourself is “How do we keep up with a customer’s expectations and stand out among competitors?”. An order management system plays an important role in the process of creating a smooth experience for your customers.
Even with a completely functional and working e-commerce system, you need to constantly evolve to be a better business provider. This blog talks about everything you need to know for an effective and efficient order management system for your business.
What is an Order Management System?
Order management basically covers everything starting from the order placement to the order fulfillment. It is the most integral part of your commerce solution and here is the flow of an ideal order management system:
Step 1: Discovery
The first step starts with the customer browsing through your e-commerce store and looking at the products they are interested in. Then if the item stays in their cart or the cart is abandoned, a notification is sent to the business owner.
Step 2: Order Placement
When the customer decides to place an order and purchase an item, the system communicates with the back-end system and notifies them about the order being placed. The most critical step of order placement is payment processing. It needs to be verified and monitored for all payment methods to ensure error-free payments.
Step 3: Order Confirmation
When looking at the perception of order placement from the customer’s end, the order needs to be verified and checked on the business end. The first part is to check availability as well as manage the shipment. The second part of this step is to confirm the order by notifying the customer.
Step 4: Shipping and Order Fulfillment
The final part of the order management system is order fulfillment and shipping. The customer needs to be informed about the whole process from order picking to order shipment to order delivery in a clear and concise manner.
Step 5: Follow up
This step is often ignored and not followed by most business providers, however, this is a very important step for your business to have a good name. After the process is delivered, send out a follow-up to the customer to check if they are satisfied with the product. A good service provided by a business and making the customers feel heard goes a long way for your business. Simple interactions like a customer survey form provide loyalty and nurture customer relations.
Key Features of an Order Management System
Now the most important part is to figure out the key features of an efficient order management system for your business.
Automated and Integrated Processes
The complexity of an order management system and the flows demand an ability to be integrable across the company technology for a smooth e-commerce experience. An automated system means that once the order is placed, there is no manual work required for further processing.
Having an automated order management system means less manual processing hence fewer chances of human error. It also ensures data security and frees the company from stressing over the manual processes and focusing more on company growth.
Collection of Useful Data
An efficient Order Management System gives you the power to see your sales and order data in one place. It makes it easier to gather useful insights and make changes to your business based on fact-based numbers. Real-time data collection also makes it easier to spot issues as they occur. It is important to store data in one central location to catch any errors that arise.
Integrable Across Company Systems
Another key feature of an effective order management system is for it to integrate across all the company systems. The management system needs to be a part of every process that is part of the order flow. Keeping track of every sub-process needs to be part of the main order management system.
Order Fulfillment and Delivery
The most important part of the order is fulfillment and delivery. Check out this blog on Keeping up with Shipping Trends in 2022 for a detailed shipping management system. Make sure to handle the order fulfillment and delivery by providing a well-formed shipment process and clear and concise communication till the order reaches the customers.
Benefits of Having an Efficient OMS
Faster Growth
Your business is always dependent on how customers experience both online and in-store. An efficient order management system makes this process smooth and hassle-free for your customers resulting in faster business growth.
Better Inventory Management
Inventory management is the core part of your business. Better inventory management leads to better management of your goods. Therefore, your customers do not face trouble getting the products they are interested in. With an order management system, you can manage your inventory effectively and the company is saved from over-selling the inventory.
Real-Time Information Access
Having a well-shaped OMS gives the customers real-time access to the information about the order. The companies can react faster to issues that may arise rather than risking customer dissatisfaction with errors or delays.
Fewer Chances of Errors
Having an automated set of processes brings the chance of error down to a huge amount. Human error can cause a gap in time and money for the business along with causing customer dissatisfaction. Having information on inventory and warehouse can get you notified whenever the stock level goes too low. This prevents shipping delays and customer dissatisfaction.
More Scalability
An efficient order management system needs to grow alongside your company. Unlike legacy systems or manual entry, an increase in omnichannel fulfillment needs will not overwhelm a well-implemented order management system. Its specially designed software will be able to keep pace with the company and scale as you grow.
Conclusion
A well-built order management system makes your business more manageable for you and the customers. You can keep an eye on all the processes from a single place. Maintain a better business without worrying about every step of your order management.
UpStart Commerce provides a well-managed and easy-to-use order management system covering all the aspects of order processing for your online business. UpStart Commerce manages payment capture, order flows, and shipping management for a smooth customer experience.
