Regardless of the size, sector, and focus, every business aims to streamline its processes and increase efficiency. You want an edge in the competitive ecommerce market by ensuring smooth and efficient workflows and order management to ensure quality customer service and maximize profits.
This goal is achievable if you partner with a third-party logistics (3PL) provider to develop a fulfillment network that meets your consumers' needs. In addition, an integrated order management system (OMS) comes in handy to support all stages of your sales process, from order creation to delivery and customer service. But, without proper OMS integrations, you may not get the most out of this tool.
This order management integration guide explains OMS integrations and their importance. The guide will also offer tips on what to look for in an OMS integration and the features Extensiv provides.
What Is an OMS Integration?
An Order Management System (OMS) is a software application that helps manage orders from the start of the fulfillment process to its completion. The tool supports all stages of order processing, which includes purchase order creation, inventory levels management, and tracking shipments.
An OMS integration connects your order management system to other software systems in your ecommerce fulfillment stack so they can quickly and easily exchange order, inventory, and tracking information.
Why Ecommerce Businesses and 3PLs Need OMS Integration
Brands and 3PLs benefit from integrations by cutting down manual tasks, streamlining communication between systems and departments, and ensuring accuracy at every stage of the order fulfillment process. In other words, it's a scalable solution for processing a high volume of orders. Here is a deeper look at how ecommerce businesses and 3PLs can benefit from OMS integration.
Synchronized Inventory
The OMS can sync inventory levels with all systems by connecting the OMS with other ecommerce fulfillment apps like shopping carts, marketplaces, and accounting software. With this, you will have a single source of truth for your inventory, which ensures accuracy no matter where you are selling from.
Inventory synchronization and reconciliation ensure that you don't oversell or undersell your products, which helps improve the customer experience.
Efficient Order Management
The OMS processes orders from different sales channels and vendors, serving as a central hub for omnichannel fulfillment. For example, if you are an ecommerce business that sells both via your website and on marketplaces like Amazon, you can count on the OMS to collect and store all orders.
OMS integration can also help with order routing, which is particularly useful for 3PLs who manage multiple warehouses.
Automated Processes
OMS integration does an excellent job of eliminating tedious manual work, which can lead to errors and delays. Instead, the connected systems automate mundane tasks such as order routing, invoicing, inventory sync, and shipment tracking. This helps boost productivity and offers top-notch service to customers.
With an OMS integration, you can automate notifications, route orders to the most suitable warehouses for fulfillment, and keep customers in the loop about their orders.
Data Integrity
Accuracy goes a long way to building consumer trust and loyalty, and an OMS integration ensures that you are working with the same data across different systems, eliminating discrepancies in information like pricing or inventory availability on your website and marketplaces.
When you integrate your apps with your OMS, the systems reduce manual tasks that cause errors such as incorrect order routing, delayed shipment tracking, and inaccurate order status notifications.
How to Use an OMS Integration
Now that you understand OMS integrations and their perks, you must learn how to use them to maximize the system's value. Otherwise, you are bound to make mistakes that could cost you time, money, and consumers. So here is a step-by-step guide on using an OMS integration correctly.
Connect to Your Order Sources
Order sources include shopping carts, marketplaces, POS systems, or any other software you use to take orders. Common sources include platforms like Shopify, Amazon, and Lightspeed Retail.
The OMS will collect the orders from these sources and store them in one central hub for processing.
Collect Order Destinations and Shipping Data
You must connect the OMS with your back-end apps, such as your warehouse management system (WMS), ERP system, shipping platforms, and other order destinations, to ensure efficient order routing, accurate shipping cost calculations, and speedy order fulfillment.
The OMS can also collect shipping data from customers at checkout. This could include shipping info such as customer address, shipping method, or other data necessary for successful order routing and shipment tracking.
Inventory Data Exchange
You can avoid overselling or underselling products with an accurate view of inventory levels. So, for efficient OMS integration, you must sync inventory levels with all systems.
This ensures that customers get up-to-date information about product availability and helps maintain accurate stock levels across all channels.
Popular OMS Integrations
OMS integrations have become a crucial component for businesses that handle large volumes of orders. Integrating your OMS with other software and platforms can help streamline operations, increase efficiency, and optimize fulfillment.
Here are some popular OMS integrations:
Shopping Cart Integrations
Integrating your order management system with ecommerce platforms such as Shopify, Magento, and WooCommerce enables you to centralize and automate their online sales, inventory management, and order fulfillment processes.
Marketplace Integrations
Connecting marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, and Etsy with your OMS allows you to manage all sales channels from a single location, providing greater visibility and control over inventory and orders.
Shipping Integrations
By uniting your OMS with shipping platforms such as ShipStation, DesktopShipper, and Shippo, you can generate shipping labels, track shipments, and manage returns directly from the OMS.
CRM Integrations
Integrating OMS with CRM software like Salesforce, Keap (formerly Infusionsoft), and ByDesign's Freedom CRM enables you to track customer interactions, sales, and marketing activities, providing a complete view of customer data and order history. In addition, companies that don't have a dedicated CRM can achieve similar functionality by integrating their OMS with QuickBooks Online.
OMS Integrations Made Easy with Extensiv
Extensiv Integration Manager is a robust cloud-based iPaaS solution that simplifies integrating your order management system with other software and platforms. Now you can connect your OMS with shopping carts, marketplaces, shipping platforms, and more in just a few clicks.
Our user-friendly interface allows you to easily create and manage integrations without complex coding or development skills. Furthermore, the platform provides pre-built API integrations for popular OMS and software platforms and some customizable options for more specific business needs.
We offer a range of features, including data syncing, automated workflows, and error monitoring, to ensure seamless and reliable integration between systems. Additionally, you can use the dashboard to track monthly order volume and orders per cart to gain insights and identify areas for improvement.
With Extensiv, businesses can streamline their order management process, reduce manual data entry, and increase efficiency, saving time and resources. In addition, the platform's affordable pricing options make it accessible to businesses of all sizes, and its customer support team is available to provide assistance and guidance as needed.
