Why you need an Order Management System

The best way to secure a unified commerce experience and drive up customer satisfaction within all your channels.

If your online and offline sales are decoupled, you are most likely not taking full advantage of your inventory and you are driving up costs.

But a more important question is, are you catering to your customers with a seamless unified commerce experience that they expect today and in the future? 

An OMS is a flexible solution made for managing, selling and fulfilling inventory from any sales channel. An OMS provides a basis for seamless customer experiences, cost reduction and accelerates time to market, while reducing impact and dependencies towards master systems.

Are you giving your customers opportunities like?

• Buy/Reserve online, pick up in store (Click&Collect)
• Buy in store, ship to home (Endless Aisle)
• Online view of store inventory
• Buy online, return in store
• Buy in store, return online

Is your digital architecture and business processes supporting?

• Ship from store
• Cross channel inventory overview
• Dropship
• Single view of order history for every customer
• Personalized offers based on order history
• Cross-selling in stores, online or via customer service based on your consumers order history

If you stopped at just one of these points or questions – then read on – to learn more about what an order management system can do for your business.

The everchanging demand from customers within both the B2C and B2B channels means that companies are faced with increasing complexity in their IT structures and business processes. As a result, most companies are utilizing their existing platforms to handle online and offline orders. Offline orders are typically handled through your ERP and online orders through your eCommerce platform. In some cases, a custom integration sits in between, giving you some, but not all, of the capabilities mentioned above!

Previously, the focus from retailers has been on building great online experiences. You have been balancing the commerce experience and brand loyalty in order to continue to drive consumers to your stores. Growth of the online presence was key as almost 90% of consumers do research online before purchasing in store or online, according to FDIHs 2019 report. However, according to Salesforce Connected Shopper Search report, approximately 80% still visit a store to evaluate a product prior to purchasing it.

Today one of the main differentiators for customers and reasons they stay loyal to retailers is the experience tied to the order handling and service available post purchase. If the combined experience of research, purchase and receiving (maybe returning) the order is easy, chances of repeat purchases grow tremendously.

The oms is the key enabler, as it controls the entire post-purchase flow.

• An OMS determines the order process end-to-end based on business rules and processes.
• An OMS enables multiple inventories by combining all your stores’, warehouses’ and suppliers’ inventory in one place. You would be ready to sell within any channel.
• OMS is the go-to system for customer service to handle any order related action on behalf of the customer.
• An OMS enables customers to change/update/cancel their order themselves online.
• The OMS always has the latest status on the order. Making it easy for you to serve information to your customer on the status of the order with push notifications.
• An OMS handles the returns and refunds seamlessly across channels allowing your customers flexibility to choose and enables you to re-engage in your physical store or online. 67% of customers purchase something else when returning an item in store.

If you are keen to learn more about OMS and the opportunities it will bring along for your business, please reach out to our business consultants for an introduction on how IMPACT can support growth in sales, drive down inventory costs and increase customer loyalty for your business with an OMS implementation.

Implementing OMS is not an easy task to undertake and according to gartner research the most successful OMS implementations are done in collaboration with a partner. OMS is a combination of key integrations, process changes relating to the business and operations, while balancing the change management aspects. OMS projects involve multiple stakeholders in your organization. We at IMPACT are here to help you overcome the OMS implementation.