More and more businesses today are seeking ways to run their operations optimally from top to bottom, a huge reason behind the proliferation of order management systems (OMSs). Find out if your business will benefit from one.
First off, we need to clarify that inventory management systems (IMSs) are not the same as OMSs. The former is a solution for analyzing your sales history and forecasting demand for your product and the materials you will need; in contrast, the latter is all about the here and now, as it tackles transactions as they happen.
What can an OMS do for you?
A complicated-but-necessary part of running an eCommerce store requires juggling sales, each at completely different stages in your shipping process and at varying rates of arrival every day. An OMS service is all about organizing product orders into a coherent and manageable workflow. Here are just some of the difficulties it helps you wrangle:
Your eCommerce store can be connected to your inventory. If a certain product runs out of stock, it can be reflected on your site so customers aren’t misled about the availability of your product.
Payment authorizations can be automated and integrated with your shipping services.
You can provide reports to your customers about their order’s shipping status. From intra-warehouse movements to on-the-truck updates, one page will provide all the information they need.
Products and materials can be automatically restocked once they dip below a certain threshold.
Refunds and returns can be automatically processed by your OMS.
And like any industry, there are dozens of OMS platforms with niche functionalities that may be better for specific business models regardless of the industry. The most important thing is that you find a solution that reduces the most tedious organizational tasks for tracking your store’s orders.
The cloud-based OMS
The cloud is generally one of the most reliable ways to add value to your business. There are dozens of cloud-based platforms, just like OMSs, that require virtually no hardware and allow you to pay for exactly what you use. Cloud-based OMSs expand the capabilities of your business because they serve multiple purposes:
- To monitor your business on mobile/on the go;
- To store data in a more efficient and less costly manner;
- To make sure that your data is protected in the event of a disaster
The cloud isn’t the future of business anymore — the cloud is the backbone of business now. It allows business owners and managers to run their enterprise in a cheaper, more efficient, and more flexible manner.
For advice on which solutions are best for your business and how to deploy them, give us a call today.
