“Wait a minute… Omnichannel isn’t JUST for retailers and brands with physical stores!?” The benefits of an ecommerce OMS are still all yours.
Nowadays, avoiding the term omnichannel is hard if you are involved in an industry selling Direct-to-Consumer. Maybe when you see it, you have always thought, “Well, omnichannel and OMS (order management systems) don’t apply to me because I don’t have any physical stores.”
If you’ve ever had this thought, you are in the right place. Maybe that is what omnichannel originally meant when the term was coined 20+ years ago, and maybe it’s still what the word means in the strictest sense.
But, the term omnichannel has evolved to encompass more than just the combination of physical stores and an owned ecommerce store. Ecommerce OMS systems encompass everything you need to ensure long-term growth.
What does omnichannel mean
Omnichannel is an approach to sales, marketing, and customer support that provides consumers with a seamless and unified brand experience, regardless of their channel.
The organization’s distribution, promotion, and communication channels are well-integrated in the back end. So whether the customer is shopping online from a desktop, a mobile device, or in a brick-and-mortar store, their order fulfillment experience will be seamless and consistent.
Industry Dive’s omnichannel order fulfillment strategies research reveals that the right technologies and investments enable 59% of businesses to extend their customer reach. Furthermore, 48% believe that in-store fulfillment investments support real-time in-store + online inventory, and 83% currently use some form of omnichannel fulfillment tech such as ecommerce OMS.
Brick-and-mortar is just one of many channels that make up omnichannel. Other examples of channels include:
- Owned ecommerce stores
- Marketplaces – Amazon, Walmart, Shopify, eBay, and more
- Social Selling – Facebook, Instagram, TikTok
- Customer service – chatbot, phone, self-service
- SMS messages
How does ecommerce OMS help retailers and brands without stores?
Ecommerce OMS systems give your customers a consistent, positive experience with your brand regardless of which channel/method they prefer to interact. Not just that — but in a controlled, profitable way.
They ensure consistent branding, product information, availability, ordering information, post-purchase information, and returns information regardless of channel. Connecting back-end inventory management systems powering all of them, regardless of how the customer chooses to interact with your brand, will make this job much easier.
Ecommerce OMS enables omnichannel
Whether you only sell goods online or in combination with a physical store, an ecommerce OMS improves inventory availability, which is essential to increasing your omnichannel sales. Ecommerce order management systems enable you to keep your promise to customers when you advertise a product on your ecommerce store or an affiliate’s.
It does this by keeping track of inventory holdings in your network as sales occur, then makes real-time updates to online storefronts on available inventory to avoid disappointing customers.
An ecommerce OMS also manages the entire order lifecycle from its initiation through fulfillment and final delivery. As the order journey progresses, it will update the customer and any other interested party on its status and whereabouts.
These systems also provide Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) — data connections to other software programs or devices such as mobile phones. APIs make it possible to furnish information on the order status however a customer wants.
Finally, an ecommerce OMS can orchestrate the order journey for multiple customers all at the same time, including preferences like:
- Buy online, ship to customer from the warehouse
- Buy on a marketplace, ship to customer
- Buy online, return in-store, or at a convenient third-party location
That way, every customer has a positive shopping experience.
Wrap up
Now, the next time you see the word omnichannel, think of ecommerce OMS. Today’s most successful retailers and brands excel at omnichannel with order management software, and now you are armed with the same information as them.
Ecommerce OMS gives your business what it needs to optimize your customer’s omnichannel experience. You’ve likely already received feedback from your customers (through complaints) on areas where your omnichannel experience is lacking.
Review your current customer experience by channel and see which areas where you can improve. Then you can decide whether adding an OMS is the right move to help you achieve your omnichannel goals.
Why not request a demo of Deposco’s ecommerce order management system today?