Let’s face it: multichannel order management isn’t just nice to have anymore—it’s a make or break. But here’s the kicker—as you expand into new channels, hidden obstacles start popping up that can bring your growth to a screeching halt. These include (but aren’t limited to):
- Overselling
- Too much safety stock
- Inaccurate or incomplete order data
- Sub-optimal selection of fulfillment location
- Order splits
We’ve worked with hundreds of retailers and brands that all hit the same walls before coming to us. Let’s break down the five biggest roadblocks standing between you and seamless multichannel order management—and show you exactly how a modern OMS system demolishes these barriers for good.
Roadblock #1: Overselling
April Fools! The “Sorry, We’re Out of Stock” Disaster
What’s happening? You know the drill. A customer places an order, gets that dopamine hit from the confirmation email, and then—boom! The “Actually, we don’t have that” message lands in their inbox days later.
Why does this happen? Most businesses are trying to track inventory across multiple channels with a patchwork of systems, spreadsheets, and crossed fingers. During high-volume periods? Forget about it. Your inventory updates are lagging hours or even days behind real-time sales.
The real cost: If this happened to a fashion retailer during holiday sales, they might end up canceling 2,000+ orders. That’s not just $175,000 in lost immediate revenue—it’s a reputation nosedive with negative reviews spiking 300% in the weeks that follow. 32% of shoppers will abandon a brand after a single bad experience. Trust, once broken, is incredibly expensive to rebuild.
How modern OMS fixes it: A robust OMS creates a single, real-time source of truth for your inventory across every channel. When someone buys your product—whether on your website, Shopify, Amazon, or in-store—stock levels update everywhere instantly.
Given that the average retail customer acquisition expense is $58.64 per customer, prevention of customer turnoffs like overselling is your best line of defense. Learn more about what causes overselling and three common approaches to keep your customer promises in the first place.
Bright Order, Deposco’s order management software, takes this even further by:
- Creating automatic buffer thresholds for high-demand products
- Triggering alerts before you hit critical inventory levels
- Ensuring your customers never hear “just kidding, we’re out of stock” again
Roadblock #2: Tying up sellable stock in multiple channels
The other costly multichannel order management mistake
What’s happening: After getting burned by stockouts, many businesses swing to the opposite extreme: “I’m not going to disappoint another customer, ever again!” Their answer is to hold back more inventory from online sales channels, likely even holding back some inventory at each location.
The real cost: If the situation described above happens at a retailer with 100 stores, they are missing out on hundreds of potential sales, likely resulting in heavy discounts to move units at the end of the season as only customers who actually walked into a store could purchase those units. This may have worked okay in 1999, but not in the last 20 years now that shoppers expect online omnichannel shopping. You’ll lose growth opportunities and customers, FAST.
How modern OMS fixes it: Smart multichannel order management uses actual data—not gut feelings—to optimize inventory levels based on real demand patterns, seasonality, and channel performance.
With the right OMS, you can:
- Apply dynamic safety stock calculations based on actual sales velocity
- Strategically allocate inventory across multiple channels based on what’s most profitable
- Spot slow-moving inventory before it eats away your margins
- Reduce overall inventory while improving availability
As we like to say at Deposco: “Real-time inventory visibility helps you avoid disappointing buyers without drowning in excess stock.” It’s about being omni-stocked, not overstocked.
Roadblock #3: Bad or incomplete order data
The garbage-in, garbage-out problem
What’s happening: In the multichannel world, order data arrives in a dizzying array of formats and quality levels from a multitude of inventory management systems. Missing and incorrect shipping addresses, incorrect SKUs, payment verification issues, and duplicate orders—these data problems cascade through your entire operation, creating a domino effect of inefficiency.
The real cost: Say an electronics retailer with bad marketplace integration data sees a 14% error rate in order processing. It translates to roughly 2,600 customer service problems monthly, four full-time employees doing nothing but fixing errors, and about $380,000 in annual productivity losses. And that’s before counting the impact on customer satisfaction.
How modern OMS fixes it: Think of a modern OMS as your data bouncer—nothing gets through without being checked, validated, and properly formatted. As a result, most of our customers maintain consistent 99%+ order accuracy ratings.
Go deeper into how OMS drives 99%+ order accuracy and transforms customer experiences.
Here are some key multichannel order management capabilities that can save your sanity:
- Intelligent order validation that catches problems before they enter your workflow
- Address cleansing that ensures on-time delivery of packages
- Standardized data formatting across all channels
- Exception management workflows that efficiently handle problematic orders
No more “garbage in, garbage out”—just clean, actionable order data flowing smoothly through your entire operation.
Roadblock #4: Sub-optimal selection of fulfillment location
Shipping from all the wrong places
What’s happening: As your business grows, so does your fulfillment network—multiple warehouses, stores as fulfillment centers, drop-shipping partners, 3PLs. But, without intelligent routing, you’re often shipping from locations that make zero financial sense, extending delivery times and inflating costs.
The real cost: Picture a specialty retailer with three distribution centers and 120 stores offering ship-from-store. Without smart routing, if a certain percentage of their orders ships from sub-optimal locations, that could add $3.75 in unnecessary costs per package and extend delivery by a full day or more. If the retailer does 500,000 annual orders, that’s nearly $1.9 million in avoidable shipping costs alone.
How modern OMS fixes it: This is where distributed order management (DOM) capabilities earn their keep. Modern OMS platforms use sophisticated algorithms to determine the optimal fulfillment source based on multiple factors:
- How close is the inventory to the customer?
- What are the current inventory levels at each location?
- What’s the labor capacity at potential fulfillment sites?
- Which shipping carrier offers the best combination of cost and speed?
- What was the promised delivery date?
The result? Reduced shipping costs, faster deliveries, and a competitive edge in the age of “I want it now” consumers.
Deposco improved Psycho Bunny’s multichannel fulfillment – Our Bright Store solution trimmed three days from their order processing times from the DC, getting 60% of their stores into their available-to-sell fulfillment network and increasing available stock by 20%.
Roadblock #5: Order splits
Split order syndrome
What’s happening: When inventory for a single order is scattered across multiple locations, the easy answer is to split the order. But multiple shipments mean increased packaging, shipping and handling costs, a larger carbon footprint, and a fragmented customer experience. Not to mention the complications for returns, customer service, and accounting teams.
The real cost: Imagine an apparel company discovering that a quarter of their orders are being split. That’s not just hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra annual shipping costs—they can also expect a big spike in customer service contacts from confused customers and a measurable drop in satisfaction scores.
How modern OMS fixes it: Advanced OMS systems use sophisticated order consolidation strategies that balance customer experience with operational efficiency:
- Smart routing that considers order completeness when selecting fulfillment locations
- Strategic order holding that delays fulfillment until complete orders can ship together
- Prioritization rules that intelligently balance split shipments against delivery promises
- Clear communication tools when order splits are unavoidable
Deposco’s multichannel order management platform excels here with automatic order routing that properly handles alternative fulfillment sources, split orders, and exceptions—turning a potential customer disappointment into a non-issue.
Want to dig deeper into how modern order management systems can supercharge your growth journey?
Let’s clear your path to multichannel order management
These five roadblocks are just the beginning of challenges that multichannel sellers can fix with an OMS. These platforms can uncover problems you can’t see with spreadsheets, legacy systems, or disconnected point solutions. Even if you could, these tools wouldn’t produce answers fast enough to stop costly impacts to the bottom line.
As we’ve learned working with thousands of businesses, order management is what gets retail, ecommerce, and 3PL companies out of survival mode and into long-term growth mode.
The difference between market leaders and everyone else isn’t just technology—it’s the shift from reactive firefighting to proactive supply chain execution. A modern, integrated OMS transforms roadblocks into clear pathways toward operational excellence, profitability, and loyal customers.