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How to Thrive in the New Retail Reality

At the end of 2020, we’ve learned that the most important thing retailers need to acquire is digital transformation. This requirement made retailers take quick actions to adapt to the changing environment in these challenging times. In today’s new retail reality, multiple delivery and fulfillment options have become valuable assets for retailers and consumers alike. How do you answer the call of adopting fulfillment capabilities, consumers’ new shopping preferences, and the need to maximize current inventory? The answer lies in order management capabilities, data, and personalization.

Understanding the process of order management

Basically, order management is a process of picking, packing, and shipping the items whenever an order is placed. It runs an algorithm that helps retailers keep track of the order and the steps to fulfill them. It may sound easy to adapt. However, imagine you are running tens or hundreds of stores with multiple warehouses serving background. At this point, you have to determine what your priorities and capabilities are and plus how an omnichannel order management system should be placed within your operation even before building one. 

Redefining the order fulfillment

There is a system that all retail operations use internally to manage their order processes somehow, but the statistics show that they still need an omnichannel order management system to thrive on. Let’s check out what makes this system necessary and distinguishes it from other simple systems.  

  • The entire inventory of both online and offline stores can be monitored and managed from a single point in real-time.
  • Smart routing algorithm finds the best location either a store or a distribution center to fulfill an item.
  • Cross channel delivery and return options (BOPIS, BORIS, ROPIS) can be offered to have loyal customers.
  • The single view of the operation lets you follow the order status (picked, packed, shipped) easily.
  • Needed reports are accessible in seconds to have better insights about the store or the entire operation.

The changing customer behavior increases the need of having an omnichannel technology that provides a faster, error-free, and more personalized shopping experience as it’s mentioned above. According to Pwc, The number of companies investing in the omnichannel experience has jumped from 20% to more than 80% in 2020.  Today’s retailers have to take action quicker than before to keep up with these changes.   

With Shopi’s Omnichannel Cloud, building the strategy your operation has to acquire is easier than ever. You can determine the business rules for each of your stores differently according to your needs and let the algorithm run to fulfill the item without friction. Also, your entire inventory will serve your entire operation to avoid stockouts and overstock. Isn’t this amazing? 

To better serve your customers, you can reach the order status to find out if the order is picked or packed or is ready for shipping or which shipping method was used for delivery, and where it is at?  

What makes omnichannel order management unique is, of course, giving the ability to retailers to monitor the entire operation in real-time. From order status to performance tracking, what retailers need to run a store in the most efficient way is possible with real-time data. Imagine you can are free of operational errors since you can manage the inventory from a single hub as it’s connected to all of your channels as well as monitoring them in real-time. It sounds great, right? Also, all these benefits your operation is looking for is just a click away with a chance of easy integration of your ERP and CRM systems. Contacts us to find out more about Shopi’s Omnichannel Cloud.