We’ve all been there: You get an order, you print a shipping label manually, then you have to find the package and ship it. Afterward, when customers have any issues with the order, they email or call you.
If you run an e-commerce business and this all sounds familiar, it’s time to automate your order fulfillment process. Doing so will save you time and money by making fewer mistakes in handling orders and cutting down on manual labor.
Track inventory in real-time.
You need to know how much inventory you have on hand, where that inventory is, and when it’ll expire. The only way to do this is through accurate, real-time tracking of your stock. Inventory management software provides the tools you need to keep track of all your inventory in one place so you can monitor stock levels and make quick adjustments as needed.
When using an ERP (electronic record-keeping) system that tracks raw materials and work-in-process inventory throughout the production process, it’s important to be able to pull up reports at any time to see what is happening with each product type within the warehouse.
Automate your fulfillment workflow.
Automating your fulfillment workflow means less human error, speeding up the process, and helping you avoid mistakes, costs, and delays.
Automation can also help you save money by eliminating losses due to human error. For example, if a customer orders two items but only receives one because you forgot about the second item during packing, that’s a loss for your business. With automation software in place, this kind of mistake will never happen again!
Avoid shipping inaccuracies to customers.
A lot can be done to avoid shipping errors in your e-commerce business. You should ensure that you follow the proper procedures for every order, from order placement through shipping and delivery. This means:
- Ensuring that your customers are receiving an email confirmation of their purchase before they receive their shipment. This is crucial because it gives them peace of mind while also allowing you to address any questions or concerns they might have about their order right away.
- Providing tracking information, so customers know exactly when their package will arrive at its destination (or if there are any delays).
- Including various options for shipping speed/costs, so customers have more control over what works best for them–both price-wise and time-wise.
Automate customer updates
Customer service is a key part of the customer experience, and you want to ensure that your customers get the best service possible.
If you’re already using a customer relationship management (CRM) system like Omnirio, this will be easy as pie—you can easily set up automated email notifications that go out whenever an order is placed. If not, there are third-party services that allow you to create these types of automated messages without having to build them yourself from scratch. The benefit here is that if there’s ever an issue with an order or payment, it can be handled immediately without requiring any additional work other than sending out an email message through this system.
Automate returns and exchanges.
Returns and exchanges are a necessary part of any business, but they can be a massive headache if they’re not handled properly. Your customer service team is already working hard to make sure customers get the best experience possible—why not help ease their workload? Let automation take care of some tasks for them:
- Automate returns and exchanges from multiple channels, including online orders, phone orders, and walk-in customers at retail locations.
- Take advantage of automated email templates that give customers specific instructions on how long they have before their exchange expires (for example, one week after purchase). This way, there won’t be any confusion about what’s expected next from either party involved in this transaction process.
The right order management software will save you time and money, allowing you to focus on growth instead of operations.
Order management, shipping, customer service, and fulfillment. These processes can be time-consuming and expensive for e-commerce stores to manage, so it’s no surprise that implementing the right order management software is key to growing your business without sacrificing efficiency or profit margins.
Here are some of the ways that Omnirio’s order management software can help:
- Organize and update your inventory across all stores and warehouses into one platform.
- Optimize your item stocks to reflect any changes, effectively eliminating instances of overselling/underselling.
- Keep a close eye on your inventory by getting notified whenever certain item stocks run low.
- Centralize your orders from all your offline & online stores and process them within minutes.
- Process orders based on locations nearest to the buyer to help you minimize delivery costs and ensure 100% SLA fulfillment.
- Eliminate instances of order cancellation by streamlining your order management.
Conclusion
If you’re thinking about automating your fulfillment operations, now is a perfect time. It’s easy to get started, and you can use your existing systems to import customer and inventory data into Omnirio. Once you set up the system, it will work with minimal human intervention so that you can focus on what matters: growing your business.
We know it sounds complicated, but in reality, we strive to make this process much simpler than it once was! Visit Omnirio to get your 7-day free trial.
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