Top 5 Order Management Systems for your Ecommerce Brand
Order fulfillment is one area where ecommerce brands can differentiate themselves from their competitors.
Ecommerce brands face increasing pressure to deliver exceptional customer experiences to shoppers. A McKinsey research study discovered that 90% of shoppers will abandon a site if they suspect deliveries will take too long.
This is where an Order Management System (OMS) can help. OMS software automates order fulfillment from creating new orders to picking, packing and shipping products to the customer.
The OMS software you select can significantly impact your brand's identity. They’ll love your brand if they receive your product quickly. Customers will also likely never shop with your brand again if they encounter any shipment delays.
In this article, we review the top OMS software for ecommerce brands. We cover the following:
What is an order management system?
OMS software manages the entire order fulfillment process from order creation to delivery.
It can also give you 360 degree visibility into your entire inventory. You can identify whether products are located in-store, at a warehouse, or in-delivery.
Full inventory visibility allows you to offer your customers many delivery schedules based on the location of a product.
An OMS solution also helps with inventory analytics. You can forecast which products will run out of stock or whether products are overstocked.
Traditional vs headless use case
Traditional ecommerce platforms come with an OMS system to automate order management and fulfillment. The OMS solutions on these platforms, however, don’t scale as your business grows.
You’ll need an OMS with more features as your fulfillment needs become more complex.
“Going headless” is one way of integrating an OMS solution to your commerce engine. Headless commerce refers to the decoupling of the frontend user interface with the backend commerce engine.
Headless commerce has become popular because brands can integrate best-of-breed software solutions into their tech stack.
It allows your brand to adopt an OMS that best suits your business needs. If you want to learn more about headless commerce, check out our guide: What is Headless Commerce?
The ordering process
The order fulfillment process occurs over several stages. Each of these can impact the customer experience.
Inventory visibility - The role of an OMS starts even before the customer purchases a product. A shopper can view the stock availability of a product on the product detail page. Some OMS solutions can offer different delivery options based on the location of the product.
Customer places order - An order is placed when the customer purchases a product on the checkout page. The OMS receives the order and adjusts inventory levels.
Order is forwarded to the warehouse - The OMS selects the fulfillment location depending on the product's availability and the customer's location.
Pick, pack, and ship - An OMS helps with printing shipping labels and making sure they go on the correct package. It also helps with tracking orders as they’re shipped.
Returns - An OMS needs to also handle returns. A simple return policy ensures a great customer experience. Shoppers are likely to shop with your brand again in the future if returns are a simple, easy process.
Key order management system features and capabilities
An OMS should come with a robust set of features and capabilities. Each of these features is important to supporting a great customer experience.
Inventory visibility
Every ecommerce brand needs to have visibility into their inventory levels. It has to keep track of what products are in-stock, where they are located, and whether they are available to buy.
Inventory visibility ensures that your brand is never overstocked or understocked with products.
This is where a Distributed Order Management System (DOM) can help. A DOM uses rule based procedures to shorten delivery times at the lowest possible cost to the brand.
An OMS that includes DOM capabilities has full awareness of inventory levels at all warehouses and stores. It can identify the location closest to where the customer lives to shorten delivery times.
A DOM can also support giving the customer several delivery options.
Integrations
An OMS should support three different types of integrations:
Your tech stack - Your brand can rely on APIs to integrate your OMS into a commerce engine. You can also integrate your OMS with any other software in your tech stack, such as a CMS or PIM.
3PLs - A Third-Party Logistics (3PL) service can help you manage your supply chain. You can have a 3PL manage fulfillment and shipping so you can focus on your core operations.
Online marketplaces - Integrate with online marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay. Online marketplaces allow you to diversify your sales channels.
Omnichannel capabilities
Providing several delivery options is important to giving your shoppers a great experience. Omnichannel fulfillment gives you this capability.
Omnichannel fulfillment refers to utilizing all your sales channels to support delivery.
With omnichannel fulfillment, you can offer your customers same-day delivery, buy-online-pickup-in-store (BOPIS), ship to store, ship from store, and many more options.
An OMS gives your brand the opportunity to take advantage of cross-channel fulfillment. With visibility into all your inventory, you can turn your stores into fulfillment centers.
Automated fulfillment processes
There are brands that still keep track of inventory and deliveries with spreadsheets. Automating the entire fulfillment process, however, is critical to shortening delivery times.
An OMS selects which warehouse or store will fulfill a sale. It can also support cross-channel data syncing, label printing, and shipment tracking.
Automating these tasks reduces human error and improves order accuracy.
Reverse logistics
Customers return one in five products purchased online. 96% of these customers will return to shop with you if the return process is straightforward and seamless.
This is why reverse logistics is important to a great customer experience. Processing returns, however, are a major pain point for many ecommerce brands.
A solid OMS can support your return process by automating most of it. For example, it can create shipping labels addressed to the correct warehouse.
Your brand can also set rules on when to trigger a credit. The OMS can also provide shipment tracking to customers so they can confirm when their item has reached the warehouse.
Inventory analytics
An order management system can give you insight into which products are selling. This visibility gives you the ability to avoid two common problems: overstocking and a stockout.
Overstocking refers to unsold inventory, which ties up your cash and costs you extra in storage fees.
Inventory analytics allows you to forecast which products are likely to become overstocked. This allows you to take action before it becomes an issue.
Forecasting also allows you to identify which products are likely to sell out quickly. You can order more products from your suppliers to meet demand instead of turning customers away.
Top order management systems
In this section, we review the top order management systems on the market today. We review each solution on this list in terms of its core features, benefits, and pricing.
Fabric OMS
Fabric offers ecommerce brands solutions that easily integrate into a decoupled, headless technology stack. Fabric's suite of products includes not just an OMS, but also a PIM, a cart and checkout API, and the capability to configure pricing and promos.
Fabric has been adopted by brands such as Pier 1 Imports, Crate & Barrel, and Ben Sherman.
Core Capabilities
Fabric OMS makes available an extensive suite of features that reduces delivery times while also minimizing the cost of ecommerce operations.
Order lifecycle management - Track and manage all your orders from purchase to post-delivery services. Get access to omnichannel order visibility, bulk order imports, and custom order attributes.
Fulfillment optimization - Manage complex order fulfillment logic with inventory segmentation, reservation, and picking location prioritization.
Inventory visibility - Get a 360 degree view of your inventory across all channels. You'll have visibility into your available-to-promise (ATP) stock and bulk inventory export capabilities.
Pros
Fabric OMS provides your developers with a great developer experience. They'll have excellent API documentation and a knowledge base they can refer to if they have any questions.
Your brand can integrate your OMS with the rest of Fabric's suite of ecommerce APIs.
Pricing
Fabric does not provide pricing information on its website. Get in touch with Fabric’s sales team to receive a quote.
Fluent Commerce
Fluent Commerce is a dedicated order management system. Prada Group, L’Oreal, and KingFisher are just a few of the many brands that have adopted Fluent Commerce.
The DOM is a cloud-native platform that can be tailored to suit your business and technology needs.
Core Capabilities
Fluent Commerce is a modern DOM solution that supports omnichannel capabilities. It specializes in the following:
Customer experience - Provides a seamless customer experience across all sales channels. Shows accurate stock levels and enables self-service on any channel. Your brand can also process customer responses to notifications.
Fulfillment optimization - Allocate orders based on store performance and automate store capacity and exception management. Optimize your pick and pack process.
Global operations management - Segment inventory by brand or region as your operations grow. Reuse business rules and procedures, and enable local languages.
Pros
Supports out-of-the-box integrations with ecommerce platforms, such as Commercetools, Adobe Commerce, and Salesforce.
Pricing
Fluent Commerce does not discuss pricing on its website. Contact their sales team for a quote.
IBM Sterling Order Management
IBM Sterling Order Management is considered a market leader among OMS solutions. It has won the G2 Winter 2023 Grid Report for order management software in 6 out of 6 categories.
It’s specifically designed for enterprise companies that manage complex supply chains. It can be hosted in the cloud as well as on-premises.
Core Capabilities
As the market leader, IBM offers a wide range of capabilities. In this section we only touch on the most prominent.
Personalized Dashboard - Manage all your inventory from a custom workspace. Drill into each SKU and location in your fulfillment network.
Real-time Inventory - Get up-to-the-minute inventory data so you can fulfill orders according to your business needs.
Adjust safety stock - Avoid stockouts by being able to plan for adequate inventory levels.
Pros
Integrate with other IBM products related to supply chain management. You can make your supply chain more resilient and sustainable with solutions ranging from supply chain partner data exchange to end-to-end supply chain visibility.
Several customers have suggested that the user interface is easy-to use.
Pricing
IBM doesn’t display pricing information on its website. Contact their sales team to receive a quote.
Netsuite Order Management
Netsuite is a popular, cloud-native order management system. Enterprise brands seeking an all-in-one solution to managing inventory and fulfillment need to look no further.
Core Capabilities
Netsuite ensures efficient order management across all sales channels. It optimizes for the customer experience while also keeping business costs down.
Multichannel management - Fulfill orders with either direct shipment from warehouse, store fulfillment, or drop shipping.
Pricing management - Manage, control and update pricing with the ability to create promotions for all your sales channels.
Reverse logistics - Set rules to enable returns from any sales channel.
Pros
Netsuite makes available a wide range of services to enhance your ecommerce operations. Integrate into your stack Netsuite’s CRM, ERP, Warehouse Management software, and more.
Pricing
Like many other OMS solutions, Netsuite does not make pricing available on their website. Contact their sales team to get a sales quote.
Cin7 Orderhive
Cin7 Orderhive helps small to mid-size brands manage their ecommerce operations. It offers an OMS solution that has been adopted by Driscoll’s, WiCore, and Smollan.
Core Capabilities
Cin7 Orderhive makes available a core set of features that seamlessly handle orders from creation to delivery.
Multi channel fulfillment - View all your orders from a single dashboard. You can process orders through Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), 3PL, and drop shipping.
Bulk action on orders - Simplify repetitive tasks so you can take action on multiple orders at the same time. Confirm or cancel orders in bulk, clone repeat orders, and create, download, and print invoices.
Comprehensive shipping - Manage shipping efficiently and accurately by creating smart shipping rules. Cin7 Orderhive also supports shipping with multiple carriers.
Pros
Supports native integrations with dozens of different solutions. Integrate with ecommerce platforms such as Shopify and BigCommerce to shipping services such as UPS and FedEx
Several customers have pointed out Cin7 Orderhive’s excellent customer and technical support.
Pricing
Cin7 Overhive has 4 pricing points:
Essential plan at $125 per month
Pro plan at $225 per month
Pro Plus plan at $325 per month
Enterprise plan at $500 per month
Bottom Line
Order management software gives brands the ability to manage and automate the fulfillment process from order creation to delivery. Order management software is critical to delivering an exceptional customer experience.
An effective order management software is also critical to improving your brand’s reputation. Faster delivery times, seamless returns, and inventory visibility all enhance your brand identity and keep customers coming back to your storefront.
