As eCommerce has grown into an important sales channel for many traditional retailers, an omni-channel fulfilment strategy has become increasingly important to drive customer experience and optimize inventory utilization. An Order Management System (OMS) is a key component of any well-planned omni-channel strategy.
Distributed order management (DOM) is a type of OMS that is particularly well-suited to retailers with multiple sales channels and/or locations. DOM solutions provide many benefits, including the ability to manage complex fulfilment rules, optimize inventory across channels and locations, and provide enhanced visibility into the order management process.
What is Order Management System?
If you are an eCommerce retailer, you know that managing orders can be a complex and difficult task. An order management system (OMS) can help take some of the strain off of your operation by automating and coordinating post-order processes.
OMS solutions are designed to optimize fulfillment no matter how customers want to receive their orders- whether it be click & collect, delivery, or in-store pickup. Furthermore, an OMS can help you determine the most efficient way to complete fulfillment, by taking into account things like inventory levels, delivery logistics, and more.
In short, an OMS can help orchestrate your post-order operation, making it more efficient and effective.
When do we need a dedicated Order Management System (OMS)?
While eCommerce platforms and 3rd party marketplaces have some order fulfilment capability, usually such capability is relatively basic. You may be looking for a dedicated Order Management System (OMS) if:
1) You are focused on growth through multi-channel, omni-channel fulfilment, dropshipping or multi-vendor marketplace model
2) You need to manage orders from multiple channels, including your brand.com website (using an eCommerce platform like Adobe Commerce/Magento, Shopify/Shopify Plus, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, etc.), and 3rd party marketplaces (like Amazon, Lazada, Shopee, Tmall, JD, etc.)
3) You have multiple fulfilment parties, such as own or 3PL warehouses, suppliers or dropshippers, physical store fulfilment, etc.
4) You need to split and route orders to the best fulfilment parties, and manage different fulfilment workflows.
If any of the above are true for you, then a dedicated order management system can provide tremendous value. Such a system can help you automate and optimize your fulfilment process, improving efficiency and saving you time and money.
How Order Orchestration Works?
The order management system can orchestrate the orders with the following capabilities:
1) It consolidates orders from all channels, including the brand.com and 3rd party marketplaces.
2) It handles the entire order lifecycle, from fulfilment to returns.
3) It splits and routes orders to the best handling location, creates corresponding fulfilment orders and assigns corresponding fulfilment order workflows.
4) There are different kinds of order fulfilment workflows to handle different types of fulfilment, such as domestic and international delivery, delivery for different types of products such as frozen, chill and ambient, ship from suppliers or drop shippers, handle order consolidation, ship to store for collection BOPIS, or ship from store.
How OMS integrate with storefront for inventory transparency?
Order management systems have inventory visibility through their own inventory management or integration with systems such as ERP. What order management systems also handle is the ability to calculate the available-to-sell ATP inventory for different channels, based on criteria such as safety threshold and how the inventory would be shared across different channels.
Through real-time or scheduled integration with the eCommerce storefront platform, it is possible to provide inventory visibility to customers on online and store inventory availability, lead-time for online fulfilment or collect at store, etc. The improved transparency helps customers to make the best decision for their purchase and avoid unpleasant situations.
Hopefully this gives you a better understanding of how distributed order management solution works. Contact us to learn more about how a CLEARomni OMS can help you grow your business.
