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order management

If Your Order Management System Doesn’t Have These 3 Qualities, It’s Time for a New One

If you’re running a growing e-commerce store, your order management fulfillment processes must account for continual inventory changes, filter orders, and more. For new store owners, keeping pace can be overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. The order management system offered by OceanX is designed to help streamline the process by automating payment management, improving inventory accuracy, and unifying your entire direct-to-consumer operation.

The OceanX order management system transforms fulfillment in e-commerce. It processes roughly 15 million orders each year (more than 99% of which are same-day shipments) and allows brands to track inventory with 99.8%+ accuracy.

 

What Makes OceanX’s Order Management Effective?

Our order management system can be integrated with all of the major online marketplace. It automatically captures data and sends it to our fulfillment centers. We then learn where the delivery needs to go and how much inventory is required to fulfill the order so that we can find the best warehouse from which to ship it.

Does that information really make a big difference? Consider that the average retail enterprise in the U.S. has an inventory accuracy of just 63%. Managing replenishment schedules and providing a superior customer experience gets a lot harder when you don’t really know what’s in your warehouse. You’ll have an easier time with an order management system that supports omni-channel retailing.

 

Is Your Order Management System Working Against You?

In many ways, your order management order system is the heart of your operation. It should help you grow, not hold you back. Scaling will be tough if your order management system fails to accurately capture subscription information or to process personalized orders. 

Ultimately, poor management means that you won’t have enough of the right product where you need it and that you’ll have too much of the wrong product where you don’t. You’ll end up having too many markdowns for inventory that isn’t moving, which cuts into your margins. You’ll maintain different inventories in your stores, online operations, and distribution centers, and the redundancy will cause you to carry more inventory overall. Over time, that becomes expensive.

Moreover, without a robust order management system, you won’t have the option of fulfilling a customer order or a store transfer from the nearest location with inventory availability. Not only is that costly for you, but it’s inconvenient for your customers as well. Big increases in order volume can cause your order database to be thrown off-balance. A retailer cannot afford to be caught unprepared during a high-volume period like Cyber Monday.

If you’ve already run into some (or all) of these problems, you’re not alone: About 43% of small businesses in the U.S. have trouble tracking their inventory. With that in mind, here are three essential qualities to look for in an order management system:

 

  1. Omni-channel Capabilities

 

Your order management system should be able to connect and import orders from across every channel you use to sell products. To maximize the value of these capabilities, you’ll need a team with the mindset and skills to support unified operations, so focus on training existing staff or finding employees who understand the multitude of moving parts that make up a successful e-commerce enterprise.

 

  1. Order Splitting

In essence, order splitting is the ability to split up orders and route products to the most optimal fulfillment center. Your order management system should do this automatically, but it’s critical that your inventory is accurate so that the system will work. With the OceanX order management system, you’re able to view, manage, and synchronize your entire inventory across all sales channels, warehouses, and distribution centers.

 

  1. Automated Everything

Your order management system should automatically update inventory information to ensure that products don’t get oversold — something that 34% of businesses struggle with. Your system should allow for real-time inventory tracking (which in turn leads to more accurate forecasting), and it should automate repetitive or time-intensive tasks like assigning weight/dimensions, calculating reorder quantities, and entering data.

Improving customer experiences is the lifeblood of any e-commerce store, and it’s our top priority at OceanX. In the competitive world of e-commerce, shipping delays, inventory confusion, and inflexible order management platforms can all lead to customer dissatisfaction. If you’re struggling to deliver on your promises, consider teaming up with an e-commerce fulfillment partner who can become an extension of your brand. Contact us today!

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