The global forecast by MarketsandMarkets has indicated that the order management market size will grow from $2.3 billion in 2021 to $3.9 billion by 2026 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.2% during this period.
Mainly, this growth is caused by the global rise of the wholesale vertical, including eCommerce and retail, especially after the pandemic hit in 2020 when nearly all the eCommerce businesses have experienced a huge rise in sales and revenue.
At present, it becomes even more obvious: the industry requires more and more innovative digital solutions targeted at business automation and further sales increase.
One of the newest efficient solutions for eCommerce is implementing order management software. This technology not only allows automating the core online business processes but also reduces the manual options for order management.
In this article, we’ll explain what order management software is, its essential features and benefits, and how it can improve your business performance from day one. Let’s get started!
What Is an Order Management System in eCommerce and Retail?
In eCommerce, the order management system (OMS) refers to the software for securely processing client orders across every step of their journeys in an efficient yet cost-effective manner. In other words, it allows delivering the perfect customer services across the brand’s various sales funnels.
With this technology, operators can effectively manage the orders coming from multiple eCommerce channels at a time and use the advanced sale order processing technologies for online orders fulfillment.
For instance, it covers the processes of order routing, shipping label printing, order returns, subscription management, and more - all those that used to be handled via manual updating.
In general, eCommerce order management is responsible for effective product delivery from the time customers add it to the shopping cart till they have received the delivery. Though this process is adapted individually to the specific business needs, the common steps of eCommerce order management process flow consists of the following steps:
- eCommerce company receives the order receipt from a customer
- The company sales manager enters the order details into the system
- The customer gets a notification regarding the order processing
- The order is transferred to the eCommerce warehouse/order fulfillment center
- The products are packed and prepared for the shipping
- The order is shipped according to the information on the shipping labels
- The customer receives the order status notification: shipped
- The order is delivered due to the preferable address or postal service
Instead of handling all these steps in a separate system and manually filling in the order status data, the order management system allows unifying these processes within a single order fulfillment system to ensure efficient order processing and product delivery.
Does an eCommerce Business Really Need Order Management Software?
The eCommerce order management software is a must-have technology for both small retail businesses and large eCommerce companies.
First of all, it facilitates the order fulfillment process by making it much more streamlined, cost-efficient yet automated. This software minimizes the time needed to prepare the order for shipping.
Besides, it optimizes the overall time needed to deliver the order to your customer, which has a direct impact on the customer experience.
At the same time, the final consumers get up-to-date information about the order status, are less likely to ask for any order information in customer support service, and are way more loyal towards the service: it has a transparent order processing system that clearly states the order delivery info.
For businesses, implementing the order management system allows them to automate and upgrade the key order completion processes. Some types of OMS software even enable tracking the order shipping by integrating with the carrier’s system like FedEx or DHL until the order is delivered.
Main Advantages of Order Management Solutions Implementation
Now that you know what the eCommerce order management software is and whether it’s worth using for retail businesses. Here, we’ll uncover the core benefits of this technology implementation, and whether or not it corresponds to your business developing strategy.
Improves the Delivery Speed
The most critical benefit of the eCommerce order management software is the faster order delivery, which can have a huge impact on the overall customer experience.
According to McKinsey, in recent times the speed of delivery has become equally important to the product price, which makes it an important aspect of building the business competitiveness. In times of a same-day or two-day delivery, consumers simply don’t want to go back to weeks and months of waiting.
That’s where the order management system for eCommerce comes into play: a single order management system can significantly eliminate the time needed for order processing and delivery.
Eliminates the Human Error
With having multiple order management systems for different stages of order fulfilment, it often happens that the worker filled in the wrong data or has chosen a wrong product article when processing the large orders, or else — didn’t send the order invoice to the client. As a result, the eCommerce platform has a poor customer experience and low customer loyalty rate.
The Salesforce research has shown that around 89% of customers are more likely to make another purchase after a positive customer service experience.
The eCommerce order management solutions allow eliminating human errors with automated order processing. In other words, the lesser the workload, the fewer steps a manager needs to fulfill, the better quality of the services the business will perform as a result.
Enhances the Business Scalability
The eCommerce order management can grow and develop along with your business, and result in a feature-rich omnichannel system. Such management software can be successfully used for multiple platforms and different products and is able to keep the pace and scale along with your business growth.
Enables the Multichannel Management Opportunities
Last but not least, to stay competitive in any eCommerce scope, it’s important to develop an online presence at different sales platforms. For instance, it’s a great opportunity to enhance the business performance with the eCommerce website, popular retail platforms, and social media.
At the same time, with having the orders flow from Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and Amazon, it becomes more challenging to track the orders and fulfill them in time.
eCommerce order management software is the right technology for ensuring high-grade customer service for any sales channel yet tracking all the orders within a single system. With the developed order management system, you can also generate the reporting and analyze the sales trends to build a strong and effective business strategy.
Core Features of eCommerce Order Management Software
Setting up the powerful order management in eCommerce implies also the deep analysis of your business goals, pains, and needs. It’s essential to find the most suitable technology that works best for your specific eCommerce project type and is able to optimize its existing performance.
Instead of trying to adapt your eCommerce workflow to the existing software solutions, it’s more efficient for the business owners to develop the brand new eCommerce order management software that will include all the features needed for this type of software. The main features to include in this system are:
- Order automation - to facilitate the verification and processing, as well as eliminate the need for manual data entry.
- Pre-made templates for the specific order forms - to minimize the time needed to fill in the customer data, preferable delivery methods, order details, and more.
- Electronic data archiving and management - to reduce the paperwork and optimize the time needed for the hard copies of invoices, order reports, and receipts.
- Inventory management - to keep the sales team always informed about the products in and out of stock, this feature is simply a must for an eCommerce order management system. It also benefits the correct goods reservation and effective stock levels update.
- Customer support - to effectively track the order processing incidents, inform the managers about the specific order issues that need checking and create a powerful algorithm for their effective resolving (for instance, the use of chatbots can benefit in automatically tracking the orders, checking the order details and redirect customers to the specific manager according to the type of problem they’ve experienced).
- Multiple payment gateways and fraud checks - to block the fraud accidents, abort the suspicious transactions and minimize the cost losses. At the same time, you’ll attract more clients with the various payment methods and safe transaction processing.
- Reporting and analytics - to define the customer preferences, seasonal trends, and popular products, as well as track the employee’s KPIs and define the weak points and possible improvement strategies of the order management process.
Other great functions to consider when developing the order management system for eCommerce are:
- Order tracking - to let consumers personally track the status of their order without the need to address customer support or the shipping team. For the advanced eCommerce businesses, it would be also great to include real-time shipment tracking, which will not only reduce the order management team workload but also will be a great bonus for customer service.
- Contact database - to store and use the important clients’ data, and automatically fill it in for the next orders of your clients.
- Automated order status notifications - often ignored or forgotten to handle by order managers manually, it takes only a few seconds to complete using the eCommerce order management software. This feature can easily inform customers about the order details, send the shipping status updates, and remind them about the abandoned shopping cart using any suitable channel: using SMS reminders, app notifications, or classic emails.
- Shopping platform integration - to ensure quick yet effective data import and export, it’s essential to build a flexible OMS system that works well with multiple shopping platforms and ensures simple yet smooth performance.
Summing It Up
To sum up, eCommerce order management software is a must for businesses looking for order fulfillment optimization and automation.
By employing these retail applications and software, the eCommerce companies of different sizes and product types can enhance the significantly minimize the time needed for the order processing and preparing for delivery, manage multichannel and omnichannel sales across different platforms and marketplaces yet increase the quality of customer service and boost the clients’ loyalty.
Intellectsoft knows how important it is to develop the right software with advanced technologies that perfectly fit your business goals and needs. We’re empowering numerous businesses with premium yet effective solutions to improve their performance and enhance their workflow.
Talk to our experts to get the expert consultation regarding order management solutions development and whether or not this technology matches your business strategy right now!
