Test observations and results

?Tracking and monitoring orders is perhaps the most fundamental aspect of any OMS. Once an ecommerce brand grows beyond the smallest size, it needs some kind of system to handle orders. Even the most proficient, on-the-ball worker can?t keep all order details in their head.

1. ^{At heart, an OMS is about making life easier for both a brand and its customers. The correct system can create a more seamless customer experience. It can also make inventory management, logistics, and more processes far more intuitive.}

The placement and handling of orders impact many other elements of your business. Every order placed and fulfilled, for instance, affects your inventory. Getting inventory management correct is vital for any ecommerce brand.

If you don?t have an accurate measure of your inventory, a range of issues can arise

• Overselling ? Accepting orders for products of which you don?t have adequate stock to fulfill. Doing so leads to canceling those orders and disappointing customers.

• Overstocking ? Thinking you?re short of a product and over-ordering replacement inventory. This means you waste valuable warehouse space and could get left with dead stock.

• Inaccurate Forecasting ? If you don?t have accurate inventory figures, it?s harder to understand customer demand. You may miss when there?s an uptick in desire for a particular product. That could see you run out of stock when you might have pre-empted the increased demand.

Test comments

Encompass Reverse Logistics

All ecommerce businesses know that returns are an inevitability. Approximately 30% of products bought online get returned. That?s as compared to less than 10% bought in-store. Handling returned items and dealing with the customers who sent them back is vital to order management. With the right OMS, reverse logistics becomes much more straightforward. A top-class system gives you many options in this regard. You may, for instance, be able to clone an original order to create a credit instantly. That makes it more straightforward to manage refunds, replacements or reorders. An OMS, too, makes it more intuitive to fold reverse logistics into inventory management. Depending on what?s returned, the system can give you a range of options. It may write off stock that?s sent back, quarantine it, or add it back to your inventory on-hand.

All ecommerce businesses know that returns are an inevitability. Approximately 30% of products bought online get returned. That?s as compared to less than 10% bought in-store. Handling returned items and dealing with the customers who sent them back is vital to order management. With the right OMS, reverse logistics becomes much more straightforward. A top-class system gives you many options in this regard. You may, for instance, be able to clone an original order to create a credit instantly. That makes it more straightforward to manage refunds, replacements or reorders. An OMS, too, makes it more intuitive to fold reverse logistics into inventory management. Depending on what?s returned, the system can give you a range of options. It may write off stock that?s sent back, quarantine it, or add it back to your inventory on-hand.