#omssolutions

Katalyst Technologies recently reported on the rise of e-commerce as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the sheer extent of the surge has surprised even us. According to Adobe and Forbes, these past few months have escalated industry growth an estimated four to six years. The $82.5 billion spent online in May marked a 77% increase over last year, with the state of Connecticut seeing a whopping 99% boost.

On the downside, however, with more e-commerce sales come more dissatisfied customers. 25% of people who have shopped online in the last three months say that they’ve had a negative experience. Clearly, there is room for improvement. A better order management system (OMS) such as Celero could be just what your organization needs.

What is an OMS? An OMS is effectively a one-stop-shop for an e-commerce business’s functions: tracking sales and inventory, managing orders, ensuring security, and collecting data. What the customer experiences as the simple, streamlined process of placing an order is actually an intricate series of behind-the-scenes operations working step by step to flow efficiently.

A customer makes their way towards an e-commerce site, browses the selection of products, adds an item to their cart, and places the order. They can choose a payment method and shipping speed, and their order is placed. Especially with mobile ordering, all of this can be done in the span of about 30 seconds. Meanwhile, internally, the OMS is working on updating inventory and notifying users of their cart status. Furthermore, it is also processing the payment, informing the appropriate delivery company, and preparing to track information and status updates that the customer can access as they wait for their order to arrive. This process must be all be handled with encryption to protect sensitive information. That’s a lot to handle in just a couple of clicks!

Why It’s Necessary

With so many consumers turning to e-commerce now, an effective and easy and secure sales system is necessary to keep up with competitors. But it also makes things better for customers and employees by removing any unwelcome surprises from the order process. What happens if your site is not correctly integrated to manage inventory, and a customer orders a product that is out of stock? You’ve probably lost that customer for life. An OMS will not only make sure that no customer deals with the bait and switch of unassumingly ordering an out of stock item, but can also handle predictive analytics that prevents it from going out of stock in the first place.

If you have multiple warehouses, an OMS can properly balance orders based on priority and item allocation. If you have a brick and mortar location, it can indicate available physical stock. Operating without an efficient OMS will lead to unnecessary complications and stress for customers and employees alike.

How to Choose Your OMS

Depending on your organization’s needs, there are a number of things to consider when selecting an OMS. The experts at Katalyst are ready to assist you in implementing the best solution for your business.

Site integration. If you have an existing website, you will likely want to select an OMS that can complement it, rather than operate separately. Celero can be easily integrated with Shopify, Magento, Quickbooks, ShipStation, and many other leading industry products.

When you’re exploring new OMS solutions, it’s probably because you hope to grow your business. Not all systems are equipped to handle larger loads, so it’s important to select one that can accommodate your organization’s needs, now and in the future.

Customer functionality. The idea of opening an e-commerce site that allows servicing customers all over the world is exciting but also presents challenges. If your OMS is optimized to account for different currencies and languages, as well as determining the best global shipping strategies, it will make the process much smoother.

An effective OMS is the key to a strong e-commerce presence. Now is the time to scale your operations—and Katalyst can help.