Ensuring that customers receive the correct order in a timely fashion is among the most essential functions of an ecommerce company. But as brands expand, they often experience some order management growing pains. Here are the top six most common order management challenges and how the right order management software can help brands overcome them.
Data Gaps and Inconsistencies
Data can be a tremendous asset to ecommerce brands because it allows them to discover insights and optimize their business based on historical order management trends. Customers expect a seamless buying experience whether they’re purchasing a brand’s products on a marketplace, on their website, or in an app. But all of these channels and touchpoints create data. For that reason, brands have access to more data than ever, but it’s not always in an integrated way.
Without an order management process and software that can handle and integrate all those data points, a brand will have data gaps and inconsistencies. These gaps prevent brands from getting the most from their data and using insights to improve their business.
Lack of Understanding of Inventory Allocation
Another order management challenge brands can face is not having an accurate understanding of their inventory allocation in the warehouse. Proper inventory management software is critical to ensuring that you are maintaining adequate inventory levels. Having an accurate view of your existing inventory is vital to ensure the optimal stock level is met to fulfill customer demand without wasting resources on excess inventory.
Having an order management process and software that allows for inventory forecasting helps brands identify trends that are critical to their business. Inventory tracking that offers real-time and regular updates provides actionable inventory data to help you make informed stock decisions.
The Flowspace platform provides real-time insights and demand forecasting recommendations to help brands make more intelligent inventory management and allocation decisions. Inventory accuracy is key to ensuring optimal stock levels. Actionable inventory data can help brands make informed safety stock decisions to avoid the dreaded out-of-stock situation.
Inability to Predict Future Demand
The ability to use data to predict—and plan for—future demand allows a brand to prevent stockouts and overflow storage. The best order management system provides the data and real-time insights brands need to plan for future consumer demand.
Flowspace offers industry-leading ecommerce software that powers insights and efficiencies for merchants selling online and ensures effective inventory tracking. Flowspace makes inventory management easy by providing complete inventory visibility of inbound, outbound, and in-progress stock. Ensure an optimal stock level with real-time inventory tracking, low inventory level alerts, and a predictive view of remaining product. With accurate customer demand insight, you can better manage inventory by having safety stock to avoid low inventory count situations while also avoiding excess inventory costs.
Where is My Order? (WIMO) Visibility
It’s the dreaded question for all ecommerce companies: Where is my order? As brands grow, the sheer volume of orders makes it harder to track orders manually. But being able to pinpoint orders and determine precisely where they are in the order processing process is critical for a growing ecommerce brand.
An order management software can provide visibility at every step of the order fulfillment process and help brands overcome this common order management challenge. Flowspace’s OmniFlow Visibility Suite centralizes a brand’s data into one place. The suite allows brands to track open orders across delivery stages and reduce “where is my order” requests.
Difficulties Processing Multichannel Orders
Brands need to sell where their customers are looking to buy, and that means that ecommerce brands are selling on more than one channel. Without a solid order management process, brands will face challenges in processing multichannel orders.
Savvy brands are moving from multichannel to omnichannel, which provides the same purchasing experience for customers no matter where they buy. Flowspace provides an order management software that integrates all online sales channels so brands can provide that omnichannel experience for customers. The Flowspace platform provides seamless integration with your online store and every other sales channel, so you can see inventory levels, manage your items, and create sales order reports with just a few clicks.
Incomplete Integration with External Tools
When most ecommerce brands start, they’re selling on one channel and using one tool to manage operations. As the small business grows, so does the number of channels and the number of tools used to manage the order management process. Managing all of these tools in a disorganized fashion is a typical order management challenge.
The ability of an order management software to bring all of those tools together in one place is one of the most important benefits. That’s why it’s so important for brands to make sure that the order management software integrates with all of the external tools they use. Brands need to think about integrations with marketplaces, fulfillment partners, customer relationship management software, ecommerce platforms, and more.
Flowspace’s breadth and depth of shopping cart integration allow you to bring your partners—whether they’re shopping carts, marketplaces, or retail stores—along as you grow. Easily connect Flowspace with any of the partners listed below and more.
Flowspace offers complete fulfillment solutions that allow brands to surpass common order management challenges and rise above the rest. Get in touch today to find out how Flowspace’s order management software can help your brand optimize order management and elevate the customer experience.
Written By:
Allison Champion
Allison Champion leads marketing communication at Flowspace, where she works to develop content that addresses the unique challenges facing modern brands in omnichannel eCommerce. She has more than a decade of experience in content development and marketing.
