If you’ve ever shopped online (unless you’ve been living under a rock!), you know that there can be a lot of back and forth between buyers and sellers. If the buyer doesn’t like their purchase, they’ll likely reach out to the seller to return or exchange it. 

The seller will then have to process this request and ship out a new item as quickly as possible. An order management system (OMS) helps manage these types of interactions (and many more) between buyers and sellers, so they’re faster, easier, and more efficient for both parties involved.

Order management commences when you, as a customer, place an order. It continues until you receive your service or package. It sustains all the phases in a sales process. 

For enterprises, OMS is a must-have in today’s cut-throat business environment. So, let’s uncover everything about Order Management Systems.

What Is an Order Management System?

An Order Management System (OMS) helps companies automate their order processing, inventory management, and business processes. OMS also helps companies manage their customer relationships, finances, and other tasks related to running a business.

OMSes empower a firm’s employees and customers to view the status of an order. This helps in evaluating the overall process efficiency.

In short: an OMS automates the entire order management process and handles all the activities & functions involved in completing a customer’s order. Moreover, it acts as a centralised platform for overseeing orders from all sales channels – including websites, mobile apps, brick-and-mortar stores, call centres, and kiosks. 

Types of Order Management Systems

There are two types of Order Management Systems: 

• Cloud-based OMS
• On-premise OMS. 

Cloud-based OMS are hosted on a vendor’s servers, while on-premise OMS is hosted on the merchant’s servers.

Cloud-based OMS are great for companies that don’t have the resources to install and maintain their own systems in-house but still want to enjoy all the benefits of an integrated solution. Because they don’t have to worry about maintaining their own hardware or software, they can spend more time focusing on growing their businesses. 

However, some merchants prefer having control over their infrastructure and may not want to rely solely on another company’s servers for critical information like customer data or financial transactions (or, in some cases, security). If this sounds like your business, then an On-Premise option may be right for you!

How Does an Order Management System Work?

An order management system (OMS) is a software solution that automates the order management process. It integrates with a vendor’s website, allowing customers to place orders directly on their website and have them processed by an OMS. 

Order management systems integrate with multiple other business systems like inventory management, shipping, and payment processing systems. This allows organisations to be more efficient in their operations while also providing customers with more options for placing orders and managing shipments through one portal.

The main purpose of an OMS is to streamline the processes involved in getting products from the warehouse into customers’ hands as quickly as possible without sacrificing personalisation or customer service.

What Does an OMS Do?

An OMS provides you with various capabilities and features to boost the overall effectiveness of your business.

An OMS can enable you to:

• Handle reverse logistics, which involves handling returns and exchanges. 
• Facilitate fulfilment of orders
• Construct programmatic ad campaigns across various digital channels
• Manage and track inventory by channel
• Answer RFPs (Request for Proposals)
• Manage marketing campaigns across multiple channels
• Generate insightful reports
• Maintain a customer database to keep track of customers’ buying patterns over time
• Carrying out billing reconciliation
• provide additional features such as loyalty programs or value-added services like gift wrapping
• Optimise ad campaigns
• Offer real-time inventory management info
• Streamline order processing and fulfilment through multiple system integration
• Provide Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) with access to rich consumer data. This enables them to offer personalised service while expediting the overall order processing time.

Why Are Order Management Systems Important?

As a merchant, you want to offer your customers the best possible experience. An order management system (OMS) helps improve customer experience by automating various business processes and providing real-time reporting.

A good OMS will also help you reduce costs related to inventory, product management and order management operations. This can be achieved through the automation of repetitive tasks and better data analysis capabilities.

An OMS integrates with other tools such as ad tech providers or advertising automation platforms to provide detailed insights on how advertising campaigns are performing in real-time.

Because an OMS is built to organise the data for all of your different sales channels, it can also help with customer service—even if those customers aren’t buying from your site anymore! 

When someone has a problem with an order they placed with one of your sites (or marketplaces), they’ll contact customer service via phone or email instead of through the platform where they made their purchase. 

Without a good way to track this information from different sources—and respond appropriately—it would be nearly impossible for companies to offer quality customer support without having huge call centres staffed by hundreds of agents at any given time.

Another benefit of having an OMS is being able to translate all of your product descriptions into different languages so that international customers will be able to understand them without issue. It also allows you flexibility when sending out emails or notifications in other languages (such as German or Chinese).

Order management virtually interacts with each process of the supply chain. An OMS essentially helps in reducing costs and enhancing revenue by diminishing errors and automating manual procedures.

What Industries Use an OMS?

An OMS can be used by any eCommerce business, but it’s especially useful if you have multiple sales channels. If you sell on Amazon and your own website, or if you sell on multiple marketplaces like eBay and Alibaba, an OMS will help you manage orders across all those channels in one place.

How Much Does Order Management Software Cost?

The cost of an OMS is relatively small and depends on the features that you need. You should also consider how many orders you process, how many users you have, and whether or not your company has branches in different countries.

If you are looking to invest in an OMS, it will help to know what exactly your business needs from this software before committing to any specific feature set or vendor.

The following steps can help you choose the right OMS for your business’s unique requirements:

1. Evaluate your business needs for the current time frame
2. Take functionality into account
3. Plan how to integrate your data and systems
4. Choose between a cloud-based or on-premises OMS

Can Anyone Benefit From Using an OMS?

An OMS can benefit anyone who sells online. The reason for this is that it helps you manage your inventory across multiple channels and websites, which can be challenging to do if you’re working with just one platform.

If you’re selling in multiple channels, the best way to ensure that your customers receive their orders quickly is through an OMS. Without one, it would be difficult for your suppliers to fulfil all of the orders that come through different sites at once.

Nonetheless, companies with one channel can also take advantage of OMS. As already mentioned, OMSes can manage all the following steps:

• Processing payments
• shipping/tracking orders
• Generating sales reports
• Receiving orders
• Inventory management
• Return management
• Artificial Intelligence-driven predictions

Order Management Systems Are Vital to Ecommerce Merchants

You need an OMS that works for you, your customers, your team and your business.

The right OMS will help you manage orders in a way that’s easy for everyone involved. An effective system makes it simple for consumers to place an order, provides real-time updates about delivery statuses, and gives merchants access to detailed analytics data about each sale.

Order management systems are crucial to the success of eCommerce merchants because they provide the tools necessary for growing companies to thrive in today’s marketplace.

Conclusion

As we’ve discussed, OMS is a powerful tool for eCommerce merchants to improve their business. It can help you elevate your business faster and reach new customers around the world. 

With the right system in place, you can easily manage orders from anywhere at any time. You don’t want to spend valuable time managing your inventory or tracking down lost shipments when you could be focused on scaling your business!

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