The Adversities in Order Management Process

Order management is a difficult task for retailers. And during the last quarter of the year, the retailers go haywire if there is any hindrance in the fulfillment process. For it requires an immense amount of record-keeping, ensuring warehouses are always adequately stocked, etc.  Some common issues that come up are:  

Processing Data

Manual updates are subject to duplication or erroneous data. With so many orders from multiple channels, it gets difficult for you to keep track of all of them.

Executing Bulk Orders

When you have to handle orders in bulk it gets complex. Because it involves making many updates in internal systems, marketplaces, creating invoices, label printing, and shipping arrangements.

Planning Inventory

Order fulfillment is all about meeting customer expectations. It is not possible to do that if you often remain ‘out of stock’. To know your stock levels you need to have real-time visibility for your inventory.

Managing System Integration

You will often feel hiccups in a standalone or a manually fed Order management system, as their functions are not sufficient to handle multi-channel sales orders.

These situations can grow complex if not rectified at the right time. The question is how will you solve them?

How To Quick Fix The Prevailing Challenges In Order Management

Ecommerce businesses are rapidly responding to the challenges and pressures by optimizing their supply chain management system. Here is what you need to do:

The Arrival of Seasonal Sales: Optimize the Inventory for Rapid Handling

Maintaining a delicate balance of stock and stock reordering is quite business-critical. Extra stock in the warehouse than required increases your storage and carrying costs. And if you have less stock in the warehouse than required, you will lose orders, credibility, and revenue. You should know when to replenish the stock to utilize the warehouse space optimally.

The categorization of inventory depends on factors like the types of products and picking sizes. You can classify inventory based on picking size and by frequency of picking/velocity of movement (fast, medium, slow or very slow). 

And as the time for seasonal sales is approaching you many plan your inventory replenishment accordingly. For instance, look out for the sales opportunities on Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, etc. The shopping season is very near so prepare yourself to set a good benchmark.

The Quarter of Festivity: Strategize Order Manifestation for Easy Processing

The most important part of your business is the process of actually getting your products to your customers. If you own a brick and mortar store, this isn’t much of an issue as your customers can simply grab what they need right off of the shelf. But if you ship your products, it is a lot trickier.

The accurate and on-time delivery of your products is essential for your business growth. And the eCommerce sector is preparing for the golden opportunities as the world is about to approach its last quarter of 2019. Yes! It’s time for festivity and shopping. And no customer tolerates late orders or wrong products during that time. This is why streamlining your order fulfillment strategy is so important.

For that you have to maintain five touchpoints:

• Inventory accuracy
• Optimizing your picking strategy
• Logistics management and integration with suppliers
• An advanced warehouse management system (WMS)
• Real-time visibility of your entire supply chain

Customers Don’t Want to Wait: Automate to Speed up the Operations

Automated storage and retrieval technologies support the optimization of the order fulfillment process. You need to make sure that everything is done automatically. For instance, deciding where to route the order, selecting appropriate shipping partners and replenishing inventory. This not only speeds up order fulfillment but also provides more accurate data for future orders. Especially when it’s the end of the year with ample sales opportunities. So buck up and speed up your supply chain operations!

Get on With the Occasional Bliss: Integrate Systems for Enhanced Visibility

Adopting a cloud-based inventory management system is the easiest way to increase the visibility of inventory across all channels. You need to ensure cloud systems provide a flexible and secure environment to integrate and manage all stock levels, across all sales channels under a single interface.

Your order management system should be pre-integrated with your ERPs. With one click, you will be able to unify information on sales, payments, returns or other accounting details.

This Holiday Season: Track it All for Instant Updates

Allocate shipping providers based on the priority defined. Shipment of fragile items or inflammable items needs to be shipped separately. Keep a count of items in stock and out of stock of the same order that has to be shipped. The peak time of sales is very near, therefore, no customer would like to wait long for their orders to be delivered. So, instead of managing everything on your own, enable your seller to ship the product directly to the consumers through drop shipping. It ensures:

• Strong vendor relationship
• High product assortments
• Low inventory carrying cost
• Low stock-outs
• Faster delivery time

Maintain an end to end tracking of shipment statuses. It improves the end customer experience. The real-time insight from smart labels such as barcode enables efficient tracking. It processes items that are in, through and out of the warehouse.

Unicommerce’s order management system is a value-add to the structure of your retail operation. Run your order fulfillment process smoothly. Request a free demo with us today!

The post Key Challenges and Quick Fixes in Order Management Process appeared first on unicommerce.com.

With the aim of big sales and profit, they streamline their order fulfillment strategy to ensure a high level of customer satisfaction, loyalty, and personalized experience. By employing a great strategy,  you can efficiently utilize the resources, drive better sales, and generate more engagement. 

The e-sellers employ modern eCommerce fulfillment tools to handle their supply chain operations, especially during peak times. We are about to mention several keynotes that you might want to scribble down as it will help you in the upcoming boom in the sales season.

But before getting your feet into it, you need to understand how an optimized fulfillment process impacts your sales.

Questions To Ask Before Entering The Seasonal Sales

So, consider the order fulfillment process as an ecosystem that consists of tasks and activity related to fulfilling the orders. Now pour some thoughts on the following questions:

Do You Have Enough Stocks?

There is a sudden spike in your sales during the seasonal sales time, or demand for your certain products becomes high resulting in rapid selling. Do you have provisions for extra stock or have a safety stock at hand? You must be ready with all precautionary measures available to handle the rush.

Are You Able To Replenish Your Inventory On Time?

Now having stocks at your warehouse and replenishing inventory are altogether different procedures. Replenishing inventory takes its own sweet time as it involves few days to pick & pack the items by the supplier along with additional days in the traversing process. And a few more to get listed in your inventory and finally reaching the warehouses. There is a certain quantity set as to when you must replenish your inventory. And during the seasonal sales, the situation might get haywire if you were to manage everything manually.

Are Your Warehouses Adequately Aligned?

Warehouses experience a busy schedule during the sales season. For instance, the arrival of new stocks, order returns, order dispatch, loading the orders in the shipping area and much more. The need is to ensure that you have arranged everything efficiently. You must plan a balanced layout of your warehouse and maintain separate areas for specific tasks. 

Can You Manage The Order Returns Without Hassle?

You have to maintain various touch-points like do the courier returns need to reach the point of origin or put away in the damaged stock. The customer-initiated returns need to be differentiated at the warehouse. Do the returned orders reflect in your inventory?

Can You Ensure Timely Shipping And Delivery?

This sales season make sure that your customers become your regular customers. Follow these key fulfillment factors:

• Make shipment tracking information available to them
• Ensure timely delivery
• Make sure they don’t receive wrong orders
• Condition of the products should remain intact
• Initiating and completing returns process should be easy

Scale Your Order Fulfillment Operations

Achieving a near-perfect fulfillment process is not an impossible task. Here are some insights to scale your order fulfillment operations more quickly, accurately, and efficiently.

Adopt Omnichannel Strategy to Engage with Customers

The omnichannel strategy utilizes multiple sales channels to provide customers with a seamless shopping experience. It empowers you to engage your customers with consistent quality service across various channels of markets; online marketplaces, physical stores, or a company website. You can route the online orders directly to the nearest store for fulfillment. It ensures:

• Reduced logistics cost
• Assured customer satisfaction
• Reduced order processing time
• Flexibility to control the order allocation

Automate to Take Swift Actions

Automating your order management system speeds up your fulfillment process. You may start small by investing in scanners. Make a smooth entry of products into the inventory system as it moves to your warehouse area, or scanning it out as it leaves.

Then you can move to automate everything, including where to route, how to ship, how much to replenish inventory, and much more.

Go for Cloud-Based Inventory to Ensure Transparency

Transparency of stock levels becomes essential in the fulfillment strategy while selling across multiple channels. Inventory visibility keeps you updated so that you can be proactive and replenish stocks to meet future demands.

Adopting a cloud-based inventory is the easiest way to increase the visibility of inventory across all channels. It provides a versatile environment where all stock levels, across all sales channels, are managed under a single interface.

Assess your Warehouses for a Quick Pick, Pack, & Deliver

The warehouse is the heart of the order fulfillment process. Whether you ship goods to a retailer or straight to the customer, its speedy delivery depends on the efficiency of the warehouse. If you want to identify the problem in your order fulfillment process, it’s best to start here. Assess your warehouse on following touch-points:

• Layout pattern
• Utilization of space
• Labeling areas

Once you assess and optimize your warehouse, you can quickly move on to evaluating your packaging and picking strategy accordingly.

Integrate your Planning Software to get Better Control

Maintaining and managing different ERPs can become complex and create problems in the fulfillment process. Ensure high control and manageability by integrating all your ERPs like Tally, Oracle, Net-suite, and more. This will help you to unify all your information regarding sales, payments, accounting, and returns.

Fast Shipping and Delivery to Make Customers Happy

Instead of managing everything on your own, enable your seller to ship the product directly to the consumers through drop shipping. It ensures:

• Strong vendor relationship
• High product assortments
• Low inventory carrying costs
• Low stock-outs
• Faster delivery time

Keep a count of items in stock that has to be shipped. Maintain an end to end tracking of shipment statuses. It improves the end customer experience. The real-time insight from smart labels such as barcode enables efficient tracking. It processes items that are in, through, and out of the warehouse.

Smooth Returns Management & Eliminate Delays

Stating of State of eCommerce Delivery Consumer Research Report:

“49 % of respondents confirmed that an online merchant’s returns policy had deterred them from making a purchase.”

Hence, you should have clear visibility about the returns received so that any delay in managing refunds to a customer (for an online return) can be eliminated. Ensure that all the information for a return moves quickly between your systems so your customer can be assisted well with the return requests.

 Unicommerce helped hundreds of retailers with hasslefree solutions. Our order management system is a value-add to the structure of your retail operation. Request a free demo with us today!

The post Optimize Order Fulfillment & Shipment Process Before The Sales Season appeared first on unicommerce.com.

Data trends from sources like sales, inventory, fulfillment reports, etc can provide real insight into your retail business. Daily/weekly analysis extracts critical information for better management and optimized operations.

If you want to extract the most out of your data then the first step is to structure it. Data structuring is a particular way of storing and organizing information so that it can be retrieved and used most productively. This can be achieved only if all of your supply chain operations are in sync and the data generated is saved in the cloud.

Do You Have All the Retail Data you Need to Get Started?

As your eCommerce business is growing, so is your data. The turnover of goods via the internet has grown significantly over the last four years. You might have all the data stored with you but is it well-constituted? Currently, data is fragmented and is stored in excel sheets. There is no way to put it to optimal use. 

Without proper synchronization and systematic structuring of your data, your journey could prove to be a costly one. Shoppers generate an enormous amount of data that have to be collected and processed to bring some value. Retailers actually have two options: either ignore all that data or adopt technologies to tame them. The first option does not seem so attractive since it is deprived of data-driven decisions. The latter one is the path most modern e-commerce companies have stepped in.

But if you still rely on traditional methods of documentation, you may face certain challenges.

Drawbacks Of Manual Data Updates

• • Erroneous input of data – Entering and manipulating data in Excel is a manual process, spreadsheets are extremely susceptible to human error. 
  • Duplication– Manual updates are subject to duplication or erroneous data. With so many files being sent around, it is  difficult for team members to keep track of them all and mistakes happen
  • Not agile enough- Spreadsheets are designed to evaluate two-dimensional data. To gain a more in-depth insight, other dimensions must be manually created.

• Not user-friendly- The majority of spreadsheet users find it difficult to create complex formulas. Their knowledge is limited to simple functions like “sum”, “average” and “sort.” For advanced applications, the average users must turn to co-workers with advanced training in Excel.

The Need For Consolidated Data In Retail

To be a smart e-seller and have consistent business growth, you should know how to use the existing and upcoming pool of data. But why should you do it? There are several remarkable reasons for the same.

Forecast Demand and Replenishment

Demand is a key factor for reaching an optimal turnover of goods and growing revenue as a result. The more time an item is kept in a warehouse, the more you spend. Expenses for storage have to be optimized, otherwise, financial troubles are guaranteed. With the availability of structured and systematic data, retailers use it to analyze their stock levels. It reduces unnecessary items in the inventory and reallocates the resources as required.

Boost Sales and Determine the Best Pricing

Retail margins are what determine the revenue. But if prices are too high, customers will less likely buy from you. That is the reason why price formation is so crucial for e-commerce. You can see popularity on different items, the approximate number of sales, etc. What’s more, all this is possible in a real-time mode. Data allows you to make data-driven decisions and optimize the business effectively observing the holistic picture.

Foresee eCommerce Trends

E-commerce retailers are engaging with new technologies to increase business productivity. They consistently work to get the best results by analyzing their past strategies. With all the data available at a single click they aim to move forward with the growing eCommerce trends. A tailor-made forecasting system which is capable of pulling data from multiple sources and analyzing it — that’s what it takes.

Achieve customer satisfaction and loyalty

Data helps retailers to understand the demand pattern of the customers. It enables them to think of more engaging ways to increase customer satisfaction. It enhances customer loyalty and repeat purchase. Your e-commerce store can do the same and monitor users’ preferences to suggest the most relevant goods. So think about data-driven suggestions to enhance the experience of customers and boost your sales.

How To Use Retail Data To Your Benefit?

Stock and Inventory Data

Keep count of every item as managing the entire inventory generates a huge amount of data. It is important in making updates in inventory levels and stock-outs across multiple channels. Keep an eye on these inventory level reports:

• Total Counts of SKU’s

• Cost of Inventory

• Out of Stock % of SKU’s

• Inventory Availability of Fast Moving SKUs

• Products With Zero Order In Last Month

Data in Warehouse Management

Customers today want real-time updates on their product orders. They want entire information about the product’s availability prior to the purchase. They even want to have quick access to the manufacturing details of the product they want to buy. How will you provide them with the information if you do not have them in your system?

Data in warehouse management allows you to conclude how customers behaviour may change. Also, the expectations they have from the manufacturers and supply chain leaders.

It also makes the omnichannel process smooth. The reports from warehouse analysis are helpful in utilizing warehouse space more optimally.

Dashboard and Reports

If you have scattered documents and reports, how will you analyze the growth of your business or sales across a particular channel? With a unified system of storage of data, the chances of missing out important touchpoints decreases.

Manage your data under a single dashboard. Maintain a single overview of orders, channel, sales, order fulfillment, returns, inventory, payment, and tally GST reports.

Track daily/weekly operational data and run your business smoothly to enhance the productivity of your business.

Logistics and Wholesalers Data

In eCommerce, it gets essential to know your tie-ups, partnerships, vendors, logistics partner.

Make it easy through Vendor and Logistics management reports. You gain insights into the previous purchase orders, delivery and pick-ups and prices to improve your future decisions.

Sync Retail Data with ERP

Many times the retailers have to maintain a range of software solutions for each function and employ resources to update those systems. Since supply chain operations have a lot of processes to take care of manual data updations in each system is a huge task! Manual data handling has the risk of errors and duplications.

Uniware is one such complete operations management solution that seamlessly integrates with various functions and ERPs in an organization. This e-commerce solution is designed to assimilate and share process data without error or duplication on all the other existing ERP platforms.

Unicommerce help businesses just like yours to get the most out of your data. We provide you with the best solutions to increase your operational efficiency.

Request a free demo with us today!

The post Ecommerce: Are You Effectively Utilizing Your Retail Data? appeared first on unicommerce.com.

Why spend extra hours on something which can be automated? Rather you may use the time saved to focus on core functions of your business. 

Technology has redefined the supply chain functions like inventory, orders, warehouse, and logistics. To run your eCommerce business successfully, you need to have real-time & accurate updates on the inventory and orders.

The art of maintaining the inventory is quite business-critical. If you have extra stock in the warehouse than required, it will increase your storage and carrying costs. As a result, exposing you to the risk of holding old/expired stock. And, if you have less stock in the warehouse than required, you will lose orders, credibility (because of ‘out of stock’) and the revenue ultimately.

To expand your eCommerce business you need to let go of the excel spreadsheets and manual inventory checks and updates. It is necessary for you to have clear insights on when to replenish your stock to assist you better utilize warehouse space. It will help you save on operational costs and meet the market demands.

Human error at any stage of inventory update lowers your business growth and result in declined sales revenues. What is needed is a sustained and reliable supply chain management software to game up your business operations.

Reasons to Automate Your Inventory/Automated Inventory Leads to Growth in Sales

Your success depends upon how well you focus on your business goals. A lot of opportunities come up when all your business processes are in sync. Automating your order and inventory management system leads to a significant rise in sales. Wondering how? There are significant reasons for believing so:

Accurate Inventory Visibility

If you do not have accurate inventory visibility for your business, it is an invitation to a huge risk. The real-time inventory level updates are significant to track your sales, stock and revenue proportions.

It saves your time to better allocate your resources. Moreover, facilitates ordering, pick-up and timely delivery from multiple channels. It also boosts your omnichannel growth.

Cutting Extra (Overhead) Costs

When you manage your inventory levels manually, it adds on to your extra labor, operational and carries costs. By automating your inventory, there is a positive effect on the efficiency of your business operations. 

The timely automation leaves no scope for loopholes in bridging the stock levels and cutting extra costs.

No ‘Out of Stock’

You may incur losses if you are not able to forecast your sales and replenishment schedule. Automating the inventory will ensure that you never run out of stock.

It keeps the real-time updates of the available stocks, fresh, damaged, unmoving or old stocks. This will help you in getting rid of the problems of under-stocking and overstocking.

The Decline in Order Returns and Cancellations

Mistakes in order fulfillment due to poor inventory management increases order returns and cancellations. Automate your inventory to keep your tasks running on right time.

For instance, sending confirmation emails, shipping orders to customers or recording payments received. All this is possible with your minimal intervention.

Enhanced Efficiency

Automating your inventory reduces your workforce costs. It improves the efficiency of people and processes as there is less scope for errors. You can save time at all checkpoints like organizing bills, putting barcodes, managing work orders, finding products using serial numbers, segregating product by destinations, etc.

Let the Machine Do the Machine’s Work/Major Advantages for Retailers

Unicommerce provides the most advanced automated inventory management software in India and UAE. Automating your inventory through Unicommerce provides you the following benefits:

Saves Time:

The centralized inventory management system updates your inventory, warehouses track stock-outs immediately across all channels be it online or offline.

The system automatically manages and matches the orders from multiple channels and routes, replenishes and updates the stock levels in the inventory. All this is reflected and managed on a single dashboard. This serves an end to the days of scanning countless documents for long hours.

The warehouses are efficiently managed as the orders are located and dispatched on time. It maintains available stock at multiple warehouses in a systematic manner.

Reduces Efforts:

When a product is added or removed from the warehouse, it is immediately reflected in the current stock count across multi-channels and locations which saves a lot of effort if it were to be done manually. It helps you to utilize warehouse space more optimally.

The ERP integration solution is designed to work in sync with all your current accounting, sales, and any other business function ERP. For example, Tally, Busy and ERP systems SAP, Oracle, Navision, etc.. 

You don’t have to put in extra efforts in documenting and scanning the reports from multiple channels. A change in inventory management software automatically reflects in all the other ERPs. It eases further business actions at inter-departmental levels.

Increases Revenue:

The inventory system addresses the difficulties faced by the retailers and maintains fresh stocks. It is also equipped with FIFO ( First in and First Out) strategy which means products stored in the inventory first should be dispatched (sent out) first. It replenishes stocks and keeps count for old or damaged stock etc.

Regular stock rotation ensures that there is no wastage. This saves extra costs and generates positive revenue. You are empowered with both, flexibility and control to manage your inventory.

Ensures Customer satisfaction:

With a Centralized inventory, consumer demands are better fulfilled. It directly affects your overall business growth.

Integrated barcoding feature enables fast order processing and returns management. It leaves a good impression on the customers as well as increase the chance of repeat purchase. This may also help in getting new customers (referred) to buy from you.

Unicommerce helped hundreds of retailers automate their inventory. Our solutions are hasslefree. Request a free demo with us today!

The post How Automation Can Help You Sell More? appeared first on unicommerce.com.

Unicommerce has always been the first choice for various renowned fashion brands, such as, Forever New, Anita Dongre, and Liberty, etc. Recently, the omnichannel feature of the company has encouraged three more brands, Aurelia, W, and Being Human, to use the company’s product

In a recent interview posted by TechCircle, Kapil Makhija, CEO of Unicommerce Esolutions, highlighted the prospective growth plan which the company plans on executing in the imminent future. In 2016, the company began targeting enterprise customers in order to lay its focus on profitability. Wishing to expand this customer base, the company is currently working on its presence in the Middle East and is simultaneously exploring opportunities in the Southeast Asia region. This will not only contribute towards the company’s revenue by over 25%, but also increase its international recognition.

Furthermore, he elaborated on the plan for development by opening up about the partnership opportunities being looked at by Unicommerce: “We are also considering partnering with ERP (enterprise resource planning) solution providers and PoS (point-of-sale) implementation companies which have a presence in those markets”.

To read the interview, Kindly visit: https://bit.ly/2XfWaJy

The post “Growth and Development on our Radar”, says Kapil Makhija. appeared first on unicommerce.com.